A tale of two papers

Saura, Anssi

doi:10.1111/hrd2.00073

Cited by 21 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(37 reference statements)

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“…33 Lundborg hypothesized that racial mixing triggered race-specific traits to recombine in new ways, which caused unbalanced phenotypes, setting up future risk for hereditary diseases. 34 The conceptual development temporarily lent credibility to his work. The Swedish state, enforcing Christian marriage associated with agricultural settlement in the colonization of the North, arguably, contributed to fueling Lundborg's extensively recorded obsession over national health.…”

Section: Gender Race and Sterilization Abusementioning

confidence: 95%

Eugenics, Admixture, and Multiculturalism in Twentieth-Century Northern Sweden: Contesting Disability and Sámi Genocide

Marttinen¹

2022

JCMRS

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This article examines twentieth-century northern Swedish geographical isolate studies in Norrbotten Province involving Torne-Finns and northern Sámi, who have historically shared pronatalist Laestadian religious beliefs pathologized by mainstream eugenicists. Deemed a sign of religious fanaticism, Laestadianism was associated with the eugenic stigmatization of Torne-Finns and Sámi people and beliefs were conceptualized as an early sign of schizophrenia. Geneticists, as an outgrowth of early twentieth-century eugenics, structured schizophrenia as a genetic disease caused by first-cousin marriage. These consanguineous marriages that were reported as prevalent in Tornedalian and Sámi reindeer-herding communities practicing Laestadianism, legitimated race-based sterilization of psychitrized Torne-Finn and Sámi women. Similarly, the Swedish State Institute for Race Biology, established in 1922 by Herman Lundborg, advanced reorganizing race along family lines and populations, which supported gendered disability and Sámi genocide. Torne-Finn, as well as Sámi, religious minority women, who were sterilized at first admission to psychiatric facilities, require redress for colonial violence. Current academic and directto-consumer admixture research on Finnish and Sámi peoples is recognized as upholding colonial logics of difference in Swedish multicultural policies. This, in turn, results in ongoing gendered genocide. It is concluded that in a radical break from eugenic theories, major psychoses associated with common infections lie in the neglected half of the human genome rather than according to classical genetic rules.

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Section: Gender Race and Sterilization Abusementioning

confidence: 95%

Eugenics, Admixture, and Multiculturalism in Twentieth-Century Northern Sweden: Contesting Disability and Sámi Genocide

Marttinen¹

2022

JCMRS

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“…He argued that fecundity was high in northern Sweden, i.e. a low-income area where race mixing was prevalent [37]. Olsson [38] had in 1918 used a very extensive data set covering all of Sweden to refute this argument.…”

Section: Swedenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bengtsson [63] and I [37] have described the contents of Nilsson [62] so that a short rehearsal only will suffice here. Inbreeding within a race was the rule in olden times.…”

Section: Martin P:son Nilssonmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Race biology

Saura

2020

Hereditas

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Background The founders of Hereditas envisioned that race biology would be a major subject that had social applications with utmost importance in the near future. Anthropometrics was in this context understood to be the pure and eugenics the applied science. Sweden had a long tradition in physical anthropometry. Herman Lundborg, member of the advisory board of Hereditas, united the anthropometric and eugenic approaches in a synthesis. He was the first head of the Institute for Race Biology in Sweden. The contents of Hereditas reflect the development of race biology in the Nordic countries. Conclusions The initial enthusiasm for applied race biology did not last long. In the 1920’s Hereditas carried papers on both physical anthropology and eugenics. Most paper dealt, however, with human genetics without eugenic content. Two papers, published in 1921 and 1939 show how the intellectual climate had changed from positive to negative. Finally only human genetics prevailed as the legitimate study of the human race or humankind. A belated defense of eugenics published in 1951 did not help; geneticists had abandoned anthropometrics for good around the year 1940 and eugenics about a decade later. In spite of that, eugenic legislation was amended astonishingly late, in the 1970’s. The development was essentially similar in all Nordic countries.

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“…Svenbro's focus is on understanding Nilsson's views on anti‐Semitism and Nazi Germany, and he makes careful comparisons between the two articles published by Nilsson in Hereditas – the one discussed here and a later article published in 1939 with the title ‘Über Genetik und Geschicht’ [On Genetics and History]. Anssi Saura, previous Editor‐in‐Chief of the journal, also discusses these two articles in his study in the current issue of Hereditas on the papers of Race Biological nature published in the journal up until WWII (Saura ). My interest is not so much with Nilsson himself or the history of the journal.…”

Section: The Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strange history: the fall of Rome explained inHereditas

Bengtsson

2014

Hereditas

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In 1921 Hereditas published an article on the fall of Rome written by the famous classical scholar Martin P:son Nilsson. Why was a paper on this unexpected topic printed in the newly founded journal? To Nilsson, the demise of the Roman Empire was explained by the "bastardization" occurring between "races" from different parts of the realm. Offspring from mixed couples were of a less stable "type" than their parents, due to the breaking up by recombination of the original hereditary dispositions, which led to a general loss of competence to rule and govern. Thus, the "hardness" of human genes, together with their recombination, was - according to Nilsson - the main cause of the fall of Rome. Nilsson's argument is not particularly convincingly presented. Human "races" are taken to have the same genetic structure as inbred crop strains, and Nilsson believes in a metaphysical unity between the individual and the race to which it belongs. However, in my view, Martin P:son Nilsson and his friend Herman Nilsson-Ehle had wider aims with the article than to explain a historical event. The article can be read as indicating strong support from the classical human sciences to the ambitious new science of genetics. Support is also transferred from genetics to the conservative worldview, where the immutability and inflexibility of the Mendelian genes are used to strengthen the wish for greater stability in politics and life. The strange article in Hereditas can, thus, be read as an early instance in the - still ongoing - tug-of-war between the conservative and the liberal ideological poles over how genetic results best are socially interpreted.

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A tale of two papers

Cited by 21 publications

References 23 publications

Eugenics, Admixture, and Multiculturalism in Twentieth-Century Northern Sweden: Contesting Disability and Sámi Genocide

Eugenics, Admixture, and Multiculturalism in Twentieth-Century Northern Sweden: Contesting Disability and Sámi Genocide

Race biology

Strange history: the fall of Rome explained inHereditas

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