Hello!
Welcome to the eugenics podcast. I'm
Patrick Merricks.
I'm Marius Turda. Morning, Marius.
Are you well? I'm very well thank you, good
morning. Wonderful.
So today we're talking about
indigenous populations and the relation
to
the history of eugenics,
beginning with the story of
China's treatment of the Uighur
population.
So what do you want to say about this?
Well, China's long eugenic arm is probing
deep
into the minority population
and we have this example from the Uighur
muslim women being sterilized
and being subjected to a number of
practices that indicate very clearly
that the Chinese state is trying to
control
the fertility of this particular
indigenous population and this
particular minority group,
and is trying through various measures
such as forced
abortions, sterilizations,
institutionalization
to sustain a population policy
that favors the majority the majority
Chinese population.
So this is another example of a long
history of how the state
intervenes in the private sphere, how the
state tries to control
minority populations, and tries to
suppress
certain groups that it feels are a threat.
So we selected a few examples from
history to get some context here.
Let's begin with Australia.
So who is this figure here what were
the policies towards the indigenous
people in Australia.
The Global South provides very
interesting examples
when it comes to the discussion about
indigenous populations and eugenics. So we
have Australia, we have New Zealand.
Australia is probably more important
because Australian eugenicists were
concerned indeed
with aboriginal people and they did try
to prevent marriages between the
aboriginals
and the white settlers - who would become
Australians - for eugenic reasons.
To their credit New Zealand eugenicists
did not really try to prevent
and interfere too much with
aboriginal population in New Zealand but
in Australia
we have a more direct approach to the
indigenous problem
and particularly the issue of
miscegenation, racial crossing.
What we have here is it's a very
interesting case
that relates to some of the conversation
we already had. You have a very important
feminist reformer,
an educator, Ruby Rich, who is
by all accounts a very important person
in the panoply of Australian
progressive figures.
However, at the same time, as we've seen
with other examples, she was very keen to
promote eugenics
was influenced by Francis Galton and
other British eugenicists, and she was
very keen
to work with the Racial Hygiene
Association of New South Wales
which she which she founded
to devise a national family planning
network for Australia.
So also there's a a long history in
Norway and Sweden, Marius.
Yeah it's important to return to Europe
for just a second because this
preoccupation with miscegenation, racial
crossing
and indigenous populations is
something that
that characterized early eugenic
movements, particularly in the
Scandinavian countries.
So two very powerful examples come
from Norway and Sweden
and we have two important Norwegian
and Swedish eugenicists: Jon Mjøen, who's
Norwegian
and Hermann Lundborg, who's Swedish, , and
they
were very well known internationally
within the international eugenic
movement
they were very very powerful figures
nationally
within the Norwegian and Swedish
eugenic movement, respectively, and they
were very much interested
in the Sámi, the indigenous population
from northern
Norway and northern Sweden, and they were
very much interested in issues of racial
crossing,
racial inferiority. Attempts were made
by by them, through their research, to
separate
and argue for a separation of the 'Nordic
Germanic race', as they call it, and the
indigenous population. It was assumed by
them
that even if it is a healthy individual
who
um mates with a person from
an 'inferior race' - in this particular case
the Sámi  - that healthy individual would
be affected so racial crossing, 'bastardization', as they call it
was an issue they tried to address. And
you have two examples here of the
particular in the corner right this is
the the expedition
Jon Alfred Mjøen organized in 1922
and we have him there measuring the head
of a Sámi
woman so
it is very important to remember that
the European
eugenicists were from early on interested
in
whatever pockets of indigenous
populations were left in Europe
and they tried to separate them out, they
tried to control their fertility, they
try to control
their future through eugenic means.
So that's something that then of course
we can see happening across the world.
Yeah so moving now to North America
we have examples from both
United States and Canada.
North America is certainly the
most
known case, again, because of the
continuous debate we have about
sterilization
of indigenous women in both United States
and
in Canada to this day. We hear
repeated calls for
exposure; we have news about
new cases emerging and people are coming
forward
to describe what happened to them. If we
look at
the whole relationship that existed in
the United States
within what they call the 'Indian Health
Service'
then we know that many
thousands of native American women were
sterilized
throughout the 20th century. Again,
interestingly if we look at the figures,
the very worrying figures after the
second war, during the 60s and 70s,
so we mentioned this previously when
we talked about
the sterilization of African-American
women, that the paradox you have
is that the intensity of
sterilizations
occur in a period when America is
actually experiencing
an upheaval of social rights and
gender rights movement, but the
attempt here was - as it was in Europe
and in the Global South like
Australia -  on the one hand you need to
separate the white majority from the
indigenous population
through various measures and to
protect
the so-called white race or the 'Nordic
race', as was the case in Sweden, Norway;
on the other hand you have an attempt to
control
the native population,
to reduce their birth rate through measures
of birth control,
and we can see that very clearly in the
case of Canada.
Canada, particularly in the provinces
of Alberta where you have the Sexual
Sterilization Act introduced in
1928 and on the books until 1972 and British
Columbia's Sexual Sterilization Act
introduced in 1933 until 1973.
So here we can see very clearly how
indigenous women were targeted;
they were perceived to be more criminal
than the wide majority; they are
perceived to be poorer;
they were perceived to be more 'mentally
defective': in
in one word they were deemed to be unfit
to be
mothers. So we have number of cases
of indigenous women
being sterilized. At the same time, what
we see is that you have no legislative
sterlization
happening, so that is outside
the sterilization act that legalized
sterilization, and this is one example from
this 1976 federal inquiry
that revealed between 1971 and 1973
for at least 551 indigenous women
were sterilized
in what are called in northern
Canada 'Indian hospitals.'
So it's a very complicated history in
which all these eugenic arguments about
about femininity, about sexuality
about indigenous women, about control of
reproduction
and the power of the state come
together.
The modern state, as we know, deals very
poorly with
issues of difference; it tries to
homogenize the population and tries to
'weed out'
unwanted elements. Luckily, of course, we
also have cases and this is a very
powerful example of Leilani Muir,
who successfully sued the government of
Alberta. She was sterilized once she was
barely 11 years old
in 1950s, and found out later when she
tried
to conceive that she was sterilized, and
then she successfully sued the
government and she won.
So there is a lot of public activism and
vocal reaction criticizing these
policies and people are coming forward
and there is a big public debate in both
Canada and
in the United States about eugenics
and about indigenous populations.
So although the
the stuff that's happening today is sort
of 50 and 100 years apart from some of
these historical examples, the policies
are
startlingly similar, but perhaps the
the public position and perception is
different so so how do the historical
examples link to what's happening today
for you.
We can see that on the one hand you have
very strong
opposition from public figures and there
is a very strong opposition from the
general public towards
these examples and towards these
cases,
and China and the Uighur population, the treatment of the Uighur population
in China attracts a lot of attention
so people even talk about 'demographic
genocide'.
So we have a widespread concern
about the treatment of minorities, the
treatment of indigenous populations,
but what interests me and what I think
is relevant
when we talk about the history of
eugenics is: how many
of these practices actually continued
throughout the 20th century,
and unabated in many ways, and how much
of the thinking
remains embedded not only
in the mentality of public functionaries
but also within the very powerful inner
core
mechanism of state oppression and the
state control of population.
Well, once again, Marius thanks for
joining me on an important discussion
and thanks to everyone for for watching
or listening.
So once again thank you, Marius and see
you next time.
Thank you Patrick. Until next time.
