Institutional Utopias, Eugenics, and Intellectual Disability in Brazil¹

Occupying Disability Studies in Brazil

“…At this time, major disability rights associations formed a social movement and began to contest control of disabled people by the State, family and experts in the fields of health and rehabilitation. This movement was formed to lobby representatives in the Constitutional Assembly in 1987, and in 1988 this group wrote the early draft of sections of the current Brazilian Constitution that refer to specific 2 They included: Dr. Olivia Pereira, who advised Pamela in research methodology, guided her to consider the Pestalozzis to the APAEs in a historical perspective, and directed her to study the legacy of Helen Antipoff (Block 2007). Dr. Rosana Glat, whose 1989 book "Somos Iguais a Vocês" ('We are equal to you') was ahead of its time, incorporating analyses of gender and power in the personal narratives of women with intellectual disability.…”

Country profile: intellectual disability in Brazil

“…Medical professionals were divided between biologicaldeterminists, advocating technological fixes (Block, 2007, p. 186) including institutionalisation and sterilization (Diwan, 2007), and 'medical-pedagogic' theorists who sought solutions such as special education classes (Block, 2002). Block (2007) argues that the absence of a consistent theoretical and service framework had the positive consequence of watering down innate "pathological" inheritance theories.…”

“…Whilst the starting aim of the APAEs was to support individuals with LD to be employable and independent, similar outcomes to traditional day centres in other countries are evident. That is, the APAEs have tended to become an end in themselves rather than a means to an end with people with LD who entered the centres as small children still attending 40 or 50 years later (Block, 2007), stuck in routines and activities that people of a similar age without LD would have moved on from years before. The engagement with other people with LD, staff and volunteers enjoyed by APAE attendees obscures a reality of social isolation and marginalisation within their communities, and fails to profit from the power of integration between people with and without LD to stimulate social, intellectual and affective development in both groups (Mantoan and Valente, 1998).…”

“…However, Brazilian anthropologists and sociologists (see Roquette-Pinto, 1927) began to critique racialist constructions of LD with what might be termed a social causation theorythat "degeneration" is caused by environmental factors linked to poverty including poor sanitation and hygiene, inaccessibility of clean water and preventable illnesses (see Penna, 1918). Block (2007) demonstrates how Brazilian clinicians and educators from the early 1900s to the 1920s used slogans such as "sanitation-eugenics", advocating new educational technologies and better living conditions as a challenge to perceiving people with LD as a social threat. This more progressive attitude was influenced by Guggenbuhl's and Seguin's methods of education (see Trent, 1994) including early intervention, repetitive tasks, the use of concrete objects rather than abstract concepts, vitamin and mineral rich diets, and positive physical and social environments.…”

“…In 1956, Kubitschek's state presidency coincided with economic growth and post-war global civil rights which enabled APAE to grow. In 1960, the Pestalozzi Society collaborated with APAE to establish a federal division responsible for people with LD within the Ministry of Education and Culture, called the National Campaign of Education and Rehabilitation of the Mentally Disabled (CADEME) (Block, 2007(Block, , p. 190), and, in 1961, the first Law of Directives and Basis for National Education to emphasise education for persons with disabilities was established (Mantoan and Valente, 1998, p. 13). Even during the repressive 1964-1985 military dictatorship movements such as APAE were able to influence government action.…”