Francois Secco: "A Eugenic 'Universal Science' or an 'Art of Raising Children'? A Transnational History of Puericulture, 1891 to 1969" - Halvtidsseminarium

External examiner: Maria Björkman, Linköping University

Beskrivning:

The aim of this dissertation is to examine the transnational processes of construction and negotiations of puericulture as a eugenic science, attempts to conceptualize a distinctive approach to public health and individual responsibility regarding reproduction and childhood, and the moral claims of its proponents to justify the necessity of eugenic policies in a modern society populated by autonomous citizens, between 1891 and the 1960s. Although puericulture has now become a topic of significant interest to historians, whole parts of its history remain little known if not unknown. I demonstrate how certain understandings of puericulture, and their degree of coherence, came to be introduced and promoted in various countries. I show that transnational exchanges and discussions were critical, not only in the introduction of puericulture in numerous territories, but also in its many conceptual redefinitions and relative success of its application. The central claim of this dissertation is that a group of proponents of puericulture theorized and managed, to a certain extent, to apply a particular form of eugenics whose moral underpinnings were, to a certain extent, acclaimed and embraced between the last decade of the nineteenth century and the late 1960s. This work contributes to the history of eugenics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with an account of one of its historical branches and its manifestations. By providing this account of the transnational development of puericulture, this dissertation deepens the history of eugenics by demonstrating the instrumental role of hitherto unexplored circulation processes, and by showing the importance of historical actors’ moral reasoning in the study of eugenics.