Undesirable citizens: Education, care and control of the “Feeble-minded” in the Swedish Province of Malmöhus, 1900–1950
This paper contains the main results of a recently completed historical research project about the situation of persons cate- gorized as“feeble-minded” in Sweden. In this study, the case of Malmohus province constitutes the microhistorical core. Here, educational and care institutions such as schools, asylums and working homes were particularly established in the first half of the 20th century. The motives behind these foundations will be discussed and the working routines in those institutions will be analysed in terms of teaching and after-care of the inmates and their exclusion justified by social constructs such as “uneducable” or “moral imbecile”. This paper aims at demonstrating how feeble-mindedness was perceived as a social problem, and how close the efforts of education and care were connected to eugenic ideology and control. Thereby, the history of the feeble-minded will be interpreted as a striking example of the contradictions of modernity. The coincidence of social inclusion and exclusion was a characteristic of the situation of an undesirable group of citizens in the Swedish society under the era of modernization. This outcome is of high relevance for understanding the early historical development of the Nordic welfare state.
Disability History in Scandinavia: Part of an International Research Field
Abstract The growing academic interest in the history of disability, both in Scandinavia and internationally, is strongly linked to the political disability movement and its need to face present and future struggles for independence, equality and citizenship by constructing a new history of disability. Another origin of interest is more genuinely academic, with increasing awareness among scholars in various disciplines of how boundary work in relation to concepts of normalcy, deviance and disability may function as a powerful tool in historical analyses. A third point of departure for historical research on disability may be labelled “skeleton research” aroused by media revelations of past social practices, which are now seen as abusive and repressive. This paper argues that by adding an international historical context of comparison to the field of disability research, new theoretical perspectives on disability studies in general are offered, supporting the idea of applying disability as a theoretical to...
The Russian language maintenance and language contacts
In our introductory article, we outline the main sociolinguistic features of Russian as a heritage language of post-Soviet immigrants in European settings and beyond. We offer a general overview of the evolution of Russian as a global language, with a particular focus on its geodemographics and economic and social value as a lingua franca . Based on this, we analyse the main principles defining the maintenance of Russian as a language of migration and as a heritage language in different countries, and emphasise the most important questions that still need to be addressed in this field of research. The main objective of this special issue is to combine the most recent research on the vitality of different languages of post-Soviet republics in new political milieu, with a particular focus on European and Asian countries, but there are other objectives as well. We propose to explore the factors that have either favoured or hindered the maintenance and transmission of languages of post-Soviet immigrants and repatriates, and how these sociolinguistic processes become evident in language vitality on both private and public levels. Our special issue primarily addresses the questions of family language policy, new language contacts and their management, and linguistic landscape in heritage speakers, diasporas and their new settings in Europe, Asia and the US.