Eugenics and bodily discipline in the Scandinavian welfare state: a genealogy of gendered othering

Sammanfattning: This thesis is a genealogy of the gendered othering practices that emerged through and within the implementation of eugenic policies in the Scandinavian welfare states, namely Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Between the early 1930s and 1970s, tens of thousands of people were sterilized and institutionalized in Scandinavia for various purposes, and a vast majority of these people were “feebleminded,” “immoral,” “vagrant,” “antisocial” or “weak” women whose fertility constituted a threat to the quality of the “national stock.” In addition to looking back at the Scandinavian history to trace down how eugenicists rationalized targeting women for sterilization and institutionalization practices, this thesis is also questioning the implications of these gendered practices, or rather the absence of the atrocities committed in the early welfare state from the collective memory, on the contemporary images and imaginaries of Scandinavian societies.