Uma das características do movimento eugênico foi a formação de uma estrutura institucionalizada. Tal característica inicia-se com Francis Galton, mas é nos Estados Unidos que adquire a formatação institucional que servirá de modelo para as várias iniciativas eugênicas em outras partes do mundo. Neste texto, pretendemos analisar algumas condições que contribuíram para a eugenia ser apresentada como uma proposta científica de controle social de traços ou características consideradas geneticamente determinadas. One of the characteristics of the eugenic movement was the formation (...) of an institutionalized structure. This was initiated with Francis Galton, but it is in the United States that eugenics acquires institutional formatting that would serve as model for various eugenics initiatives in other parts of the world. In this text we intend to analyze some of the conditions that contributed for eugenics to be presented as a scientific proposal of social control of traces or characteristics considered genetically determined. (shrink)

Current historiography has considered eugenics to be an emanation from state structures or a movement which sought to appeal to the state in order to implement eugenic reform. This paper examines the limitations of that view and argues that it is necessary to expand our horizons to consider particularly working-class eugenics movements that were based on the dissemination of knowledge about sex and which did not aspire to positions of political power. The paper argues that anarchism, with its contradictory practice (...) afforded by the convulsive social situation of the Civil War in Spain, allows us to assess critically the parameters of the social action of eugenics, its many alliances, and its struggle for existence in changing political circumstances not of its own making. (shrink)