Genetics and the Political Economy of Fascism
Genetics and the Political Economy of Fascism
The project aims to go beyond traditional visions of ‘Science under Fascism' by trying to understand the process of co-evolution of genetics research and fascist rule. The project will include scientific institutions from Italy, Germany and Portugal, brought together in a comparative framework never previously tried in the international literature of history of science. We will follow the trajectories of plants and animals as they were transformed into objects of scientific inquiry under the scrutiny of laboratory instruments. But we also intend to follow these objects as they get out of the laboratory and become part of fascist polirtical economy, namely autarky efforts. How were those objects appropriated and used by different institutions, be it ministries or corporations, the military or propaganda agencies, to build a fascist society? How were wheat, pigs or potatoes transformed into scientific objects to be used in production campaigns, internal colonization projects or war efforts? The project aspires not only to fill a gap in Portuguese general historiography of Estado Novo, as it also tries to make a more general contribution to the important relation between ‘Science and Fascism'.
Estatuto:
Proponent entity
Financed:
No
Keywords:
Fascism and Science, Autarky, Plant Breeding, Science and Corporatism
The project aims to go beyond traditional visions of ‘Science under Fascism' by trying to understand the process of co-evolution of genetics research and fascist rule. The project will include scientific institutions from Italy, Germany and Portugal, brought together in a comparative framework never previously tried in the international literature of history of science. We will follow the trajectories of plants and animals as they were transformed into objects of scientific inquiry under the scrutiny of laboratory instruments. But we also intend to follow these objects as they get out of the laboratory and become part of fascist polirtical economy, namely autarky efforts. How were those objects appropriated and used by different institutions, be it ministries or corporations, the military or propaganda agencies, to build a fascist society? How were wheat, pigs or potatoes transformed into scientific objects to be used in production campaigns, internal colonization projects or war efforts? The project aspires not only to fill a gap in Portuguese general historiography of Estado Novo, as it also tries to make a more general contribution to the important relation between ‘Science and Fascism'.
Objectivos:
To contribute to a renewal of the historiography on ‘Science and Fascism', by not limiting the analysis to the Nazi case and extending it to Italy and Portugal; <p>To make history of science a relevant discipline for the understanding of the way fascist regimes work;</p><p>To understand scientific research in the Portuguese Estado Novo through the lenses of current international historiography of science;</p>To make the Portuguese case a significant one for international scholars dealing with ‘Science and Fascism' issues.
State of the art:
<p>The question of the interactions between science and fascism has been a recurrent subject for historians of science. Traditionally, pseudo-science, forced migrations and internal exiles formed a general framework to understand scientific activity under fascism, marking a dark exception to the rules of normal scientific behavior. Genetics played a central role in all those narratives as the scientific discipline most directly connected to the theories of Aryan supremacy that lead to the Shoa. In recent years, by shifting the centre of attention from antiscientific practices to the work of the many scientists contributing to the construction of a fascist society, historians started to produce new accounts of the relevance of laboratories in fascist regimes, namely in Nazi Germany. Stories of ideological influences or politicized science lost their grip in favor of thick descriptions of scientists in action. In particular, the published results of the research program fostered from 1999 to 2004 by the Max Planck Society on the "History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in the National Socialist Era" offered an important renewal of our understanding not only of the science of the period but of Nazism itself. </p><p>The new way of dealing with science and Nazism, more than just maintaining the previous interest in genetics, greatly enhanced it. To be sure, the subject of research in human genetics unconstrained by moral norms kept its central place, but plant breeding has become one of the most productive topics in illuminating the deep relations between science and the Nazi State. The Kaiser Wilhelm laboratories are now perceived as crucial sites for understanding autarky policies and the eastern ambitions of the Third Reich in its quest for Lebensraum. The current project proposal places itself in such historiographical trend putting forward a comparative approach which includes scientific institutions from Italy, Germany and Portugal, underlining links between them. Be it the german ideology of ‘Blood and Soil', the Italian initiatives of internal colonization (bonifica integrale), or the Portugal rural Arcadia of Salazar, plat geneticists were fundamental in developing new fodders for German fields, creating rice starins for reclaimed marshes in the Lazio region, or selecting seeds for the wheat fields of Alentejo.</p><p>The election of Italy, the prime world example of a fascist regime, and Germany, the most radical form of fascism, guarantees the international relevance of the project. The choice of Portugal has the double purpose of avoiding theories of Portuguese exceptionalism by placing it in the significant context of international fascism, and making the case about the importance of knowing the most enduring example of fascist rule in history. The project thus not only aspires to fill a gap in Portuguese historiography, putting it in tune with international literature, as it also tries to make a general contribution to the relation between science and fascism. </p>
Parceria:
Unintegrated
