Framing "defectives," affirming science : critical archival research on eugenic field worker case files /
Under the aegis of eugenics-the science of better human breeding-California coercively sterilized 20,000 people, nearly one-third of the 60,000 sterilized across the United States, from 1909 to 1979. Key to that process were the sociomedical case histories carried out by a nearly all-female cohort o...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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London :
SAGE Publications Ltd,
2024.
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| Series: | SAGE Research methods: diversifying and decolonizing research.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | Under the aegis of eugenics-the science of better human breeding-California coercively sterilized 20,000 people, nearly one-third of the 60,000 sterilized across the United States, from 1909 to 1979. Key to that process were the sociomedical case histories carried out by a nearly all-female cohort of eugenics field workers who participated in extending the power and reach of eugenics regimens by cementing eugenic practices and methodologies in the domain of the social sciences. Although they describe how eugenics state policies and practices were carried out, the case studies also provide avenues and possibilities for telling histories of institutionalized people whose voices were repressed under the weight of California's medical and political establishments. We argue that the success of eugenics in the early 1900s rested on the ability of White middle-class female social workers who aimed to create a space in which they could assert their positionality as, paradoxically, women scientists through the execution of their jobs as cold, ungendered, objective data collectors. The vast repository of data these field workers gathered on hereditary, social, and environmental contexts served as raw information for future studies of dysgenic-genetically and socially inferior-peoples as well as a counterpoint to studies of genius. Employing a "shop-floor" analysis of eugenics and using what science historian Rachel Ankeny calls "data journeys," our case studies reveal how able-bodied, heteropatriarchal, White supremacist, and Protestant field workers furthered eugenic practices and methodologies. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource. |
| ISBN: | 9781529690521 1529690528 |