Eugenics and Sterilization Policies: The Case of Tattare
Eugenics and Sterilization Policies: The Case of Tattare

Summary/Abstract: In the first decades of twentieth century, eugenic theories were used by some of the Western countries to justify actions of biopolitics toward various categories of persons defined as “degenerated” (feeble-minded, criminals, ethnic minorities, “morally irresponsible” persons, alcohol and drugs addicted, vagrants, etc). One of the cruelest actions was the compulsory sterilization policies toward these categories, to whom was denied the right to have child in the name of “racial integrity” of the social body. Not only in Nazi Germany, but also, in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, and in the countries from Scandinavian area, Roma and other groups of nomads by similar customs were victims of these policies. Since second half of the nineteenth century, scholars in eugenics and criminology defined them as “hereditary wanderers” or “born criminals”. The article will focus on the case of Tattare, a group of nomads settled in Sweden and Norway since the sixtieth century, which was targeted by Swedish eugenic law. Between 1920 and 1950, Swedish scientists tried to prove the “racial inferiority” of Tattare, while politicians and economists stressed the impossibility of their integration in the Swedish society, and their condition of parasitism. Therefore, between 1935 and 1960, Swedish law included the Tattare in the eugenic national program of compulsory sterilization, contributing to their ethnocide.

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