Att förstå tvångssterilisering idag: En genealogisk studie av människan genom tolkningen av tvångssteriliseringen från tidigt 1900-tal till 2014

Between 1934 and 1975 62 888 persons were sterilized in Sweden. About 21 000 of these cases were described as forced sterilization on people mainly seen as psychologically or morally disabled. My ambition is to scrutinize the interpretation of the sterilization laws both now and in the time when they were applied. Regarding method and theory it will be carried out through a Foucauldian genealogical ambition with focus on a displaced practice. This will be done through a reading of the relation between the human and, mainly, sterilization to see if and why some components were displaced while others are/ were still in use. The methodological fundament is retrieved from a Foucauldian view on the concept of power, knowledge and creation of subjects. About the result, the thesis provides a critique of the mainstream interpretation built on a great distance between sterilization and today’s practises. This mainstream view will be contrasted with the rationale the sterilization laws were based upon. Most important is however the contribution on how a different interpretation of the use of sterilization, as a necessity instead of an anomaly, makes it possible to see new relationship between apparatuses today and sterilization.