The Hour of Eugenics" : : Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America / / Nancy Leys Stepan.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Stepan, Nancy Leys,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [1996]; ©1992
• Year of Publication: 1996
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (224 p.) :; 90 illustrations

Eugenics was a term coined in 1883 to name the scientific and social theory which advocated "race improvement" through selective human breeding. In Europe and the United States the eugenics movement found many supporters before it was finally discredited by its association with the racist ideology of Nazi Germany. Examining for the first time how eugenics was taken up by scientists and social reformers in Latin America, Nancy Leys Stepan compares the eugenics movements in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina with the more familiar cases of Britain, the United States, and Germany.In this highly original account, Stepan sheds new light on the role of science in reformulating issues of race, gender, reproduction, and public health in an era when the focus on national identity was particularly intense. Drawing upon a rich body of evidence concerning the technical publications and professional meetings of Latin American eugenicists, she examines how they adapted eugenic principles to local contexts between the world wars. Stepan shows that Latin American eugenicists diverged considerably from their counterparts in Europe and the United States in their ideological approach and their interpretations of key texts concerning heredity.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Science and Social Knowledge -- I. The New Genetics and the Beginnings of Eugenics -- 2. Eugenics in La tin America : Its Origins and Institutional Ecology -- 3. Racial Poisons and the Politics of Heredity in Latin 63 America in the 1920s -- 4. "Matrimonial Eugenics": Gender and the Construction of Negative Eugenics -- 5. National Identities and Racial Transformations -- 6. U.S., Pan American, and Latin Visions of Eugenics -- 7. Conclusion: Science and the Politics of Interpretation -- Index