Eugenics and the Asylum

Abstract

AbstractDespite their aura of self‐containment and apparent closure the institutions built to confine people diagnosed as ‘mentally deficient’ or ‘feebleminded’ were closely connected to broader social structures. A recent paper presenting involuntary sterilization almost exclusively as an internal control measure attempts to sever this relationship. Yet the encoding of eugenic forces both within and beyond the asylum wall reinforces the idea that, far from being institutionally disconnected from modern society, the custodial asylum represents one of its most powerful archetypes.

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