1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910557695603321

Autore

Stahnisch Frank W

Titolo

Psychiatry and the legacies of eugenics : historical studies of Alberta and beyond / / Frank W. Stahnisch and Erna Kurbegovic

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Canada, : Athabasca University Press, 2020

Edmonton : , : AU Press, , 2020

ISBN

1-77199-266-2

1-77199-267-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (412 pages) : illustrations

Disciplina

363.92

Soggetti

Eugenics - History - 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Sommario/riassunto

From 1928 to 1972, the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act, Canada’s lengthiest eugenic policy, shaped social discourses and medical practice in the province. Sterilization programs—particularly involuntary sterilization programs—were responding both nationally and internationally to social anxieties produced by the perceived connection between mental degeneration and heredity. Psychiatry and the Legacies of Eugenics illustrates how the emerging field of psychiatry and its concerns about inheritable conditions was heavily influenced by eugenic thought and contributed to the longevity of sterilization practices in Western Canada.

Using institutional case studies, biographical accounts, and media developments from Western Canada and Europe, contributors trace the impact of eugenics on nursing practices, politics, and social attitudes, while investigating the ways in which eugenics discourses persisted unexpectedly and remained mostly unexamined in psychiatric practice. This volume further extends historical analysis into considerations of contemporary policy and human rights issues through a discussion of disability studies as well as compensation claims for victims of sterilization. In impressive detail, contributors shed new light on the



medical and political influences of eugenics on psychiatry at a key moment in the field’s development.

With contributions by Ashley Barlow, W. Mikkel Dack, Diana Mansell, Guel A. Russell, Celeste Tuong Vy Sharpe, Henderikus J. Stam, Douglas Wahlsten, Paul J. Weindling, Robert A. Wilson, Gregor Wolbring, and Marc Workman.