Between 1917 and 1951, 88 professionals linked to Brazilian institutions and/or government departments received 92 fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation’s (RF) International Health Division (DIS) to carry out studies abroad in the areas of Public Health (49), Nursing (31), Medicine (8) and Biological Sciences (4). Through the granting of fellowships, RF aimed at training individuals to act in strategic positions in official health agencies or as directors and/or teachers in schools of hygiene, public health and nursing. Our proposal, in this communication, is to present some results of the project developed at Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/Fiocruz (Postdoctoral internship – CNPq). In this investigation, we aim to analyze the role of the RF in the training of health professionals in Brazil, in the beginning of the 20th century, focusing, in particular, on the concession of four fellowships for professionals linked to the Oswaldo Cruz Institute (OCI). Based on the analysis of the granting of fellowships to Almir Godofredo de Almeida Castro, Carlos Bastos Magarinos Torres, José Guilherme Lacorte and Olympio Oliveira Ribeiro da Fonseca Filho, our objective is to discuss, among other aspects, the RF’s selection process of these fellows and their profile; the studies carried out through the fellowships; and the trajectories of these individuals, considering them transnational professionals, based on the reflections from Anne-Emanuelle Birn (2006) and Darwin Stapleton (2021). In this presentation, specifically, the focus will be on Olympio da Fonseca, the organization of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute’s Fungal Collection and the role of the Rockefeller Foundation in this process.

Human population genetics was a transnational scientific field after 1950. It was marked by large-scale transnational collaboration and scientific travels for fieldworks to study the genetics of various human populations on the planet. Those scientific circulation were facilitated by international organizations and their culturally influential activities. They were the hub for “international scientific networks” formed from them, which would act as ‘guardians and interveners in the selection of locally produced knowledge’. The present work proposes to discuss how to situate and locate such a transnational venture. It offers a case study on Eliane Azevedo and her studies on the genetics of the Brazilian Northeastern population. My case study considers the operations by which Azevedo and contemporary population geneticists, from the mid-1960s to the 1980s, defined Brazilian Northeasterners as a single population—operations that she left unacknowledged in published work but which are evident from her notebooks and narratives. I offer evidence of how the social place and experience of Eliane Azevedo gave her special epistemological status on her research team. She was a woman who self-identified as “mestiça,” or mixed race, who came from a middle-class background, was a trained physician, and was herself a Brazilian Northeasterner. I argue that she and her colleagues believed that her social identity gave her tacit (and tactical) knowledge about how to classify the region’s ‘racial groups.’

In Latin America, homeopathy dates back to the late 19th century and has become part of the healthcare landscape, even in nations without formal homeopathic medical training or a homeopathic product industry. During the second half of the century, these nations experienced significant population growth. However, healthcare infrastructure, such as hospitals, remained concentrated in major cities, leaving many, particularly in rural areas, with limited access to formal medical services or professional doctors.
In this context, the number of homeopathy users increased significantly. Despite most practitioners lacking a medical degree, homeopathy became an essential alternative for many. This presentation focuses on the case of Chile, exploring the circulation and use of homeopathic therapies and the strategies employed by homeopaths to popularize this medical practice.
Central to this analysis is the figure of Benito García Fernández, a distinguished Cuban homeopathic doctor who championed the Hahnemann doctrine and publicly defended his medical principles through the press starting in the 1850s. I aim to understand the reception of homeopathy in nations that were beginning to legislate against the illegal practice of medicine, as well as the local adaptations to these therapies and the available products.
Additionally, this study sheds light on the transnational scientific connections and networks between homeopaths in the Global North and South, offering insights into how medical knowledge and practices traveled across borders