A laboratory for Latin eugenics: the Italian Committee for the Study of Population Problems and the international circulation of eugenic knowledge, 1920s-1940s

Abstract

The aim of this article is to shed light on the rise to international prominence of the Italian statistician and eugenicist Corrado Gini and his appointment as the inaugural president of the Latin International Federation of Eugenic Societies in October 1935. It explores the numerous pioneering, still little known, investigations he undertook with a few Italian scientists and some foreign scholars, in order to analyze the role played by “isolation,” and “racial hybridization” in the formation and degeneration of human races. After outlining Gini’s professional and political trajectory, the article focuses on the scientific expeditions launched by the Italian Committee for the Study of Population Problems between 1933 and 1940 under his stewardship.

“Why Did They Die?”

“…It is perhaps less well known that their rather crude methodology was later refined by a tiny group of pioneer population scientists led by the prominent statistician and eugenicist Corrado Gini-the Gini coefficient, or index, is named after him-who worked under the umbrella of the Italian Committee for the Study of Population Problems (CISP; Comitato Italiano per lo Studio dei Problemi della Popolazione). The 10 or so scientific expeditions that they launched between 1933 and 1940 aimed either at human isolates-from the Samaritans of Palestine to the Dawada of Fezzan in Libya and so on-or, less frequently, at racial admixtures, including various groups of Mexican mestizos, as a way to document the link between inbreeding and isolation and the symmetrical benefits of "hybridization" between similar-enough populations (Berlivet 2016). The political motivation of the whole enterprise was to scientifically vindicate the criticisms leveled by the "Latin eugenicists"-of whom Gini was a prominent leader-at their British, American, German, and Scandinavian counterparts concerning both the alleged value of race purity and the purported predominance of nature over nurture.…”

“Per la conservació de la raça catalana”: The Catalan Eugenics Society (1935–1937)

“…Gini, like Korherr, drew on Spengler and the thought of others on racial degeneration. The Italian was one of the main advocates of eugenics in Italy and one of the forces behind the establishment of the International Latin Federation of Eugenics Societies in 1935 (Turda and Gillette 2014, 165-198;Berlivet 2016).…”

Genes and Gini: What Inequality Means for Heritability

“…For Corrado Gini, statistics was a methodological lens through which it was possible to observe populations, economies, social classes, wars and other large-scale phenomena (Prévost, 2016). The application of statistics to eugenics was his particular passion (Berlivet, 2016), culminating in his appointment in October 1935 as the inaugural president of the Latin International Federation of Eugenic Societies. This, together with his role in various academic and governmental offices before, during and after the fascist regime in Italy, makes Corrado Gini a controversial figure (Macuglia, 2014).…”

“…In fact, his proposed programme and motto for eugenics in the immediate future was 'facts, facts, facts' (Gini, 1932). Altogether, Gini's theorizing can be viewed as accepting that environment and heredity interact in complex ways (Berlivet, 2016). It therefore seems more appropriate to describe his interest as interdisciplinary, including sociology, demography, anthropology, genetics and statistics -with an unfortunate focus on eugenics.…”