A EUGENIA NAS PÁGINAS DO JORNAL DIÁRIO DOS CAMPOS, PONTA GROSSA (PR) 1908-1916

Abstract

The present dissertation investigates the construction and complexities of the eugenics representations in the ponta-grossense society between the years 1908 and 1916. Eugenics was a scientific and social movement developed in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the from the works of the english anthropologist Francis Galton. Initially, the eugenics discourse had as objective to defend the possibility of the improvement of the human species. However, when eugenics was appropriated by enthusiasts from the most diverse regions of the world, it was received new meanings in order to meet the needs of the groups that used it, giving rise to a diversity of current of representations on the theme. Thus, the representations about eugenics built in their own local culture, although produced in relation to the galtonian discourse, also presented peculiarities. In Brazil, specifically in Ponta Grossa, eugenic discourses were appropriated and represented in order to fit the explanatory needs of local and national groups, especially of a middle and upper class made up of enthusiasts and medical intellectuals, jurists, teachers, writers and merchants. Ponta Grossa, at the beginning of the 20th century, was undergoing a period of intense social and cultural transformation with the development of a local urban society. In this city, as well as the installation of railroads, electric power and urbanization, the foundation of the Diário dos Campos newspaper was seen as a sign of progress toward progress. In the published pages, the signs and meanings of the eugenist discourse were amalgamated with concepts present in the identity of the population and used to respond to their own local needs. These processes gave rise to constructions of meanings for the eugenic discourse, so that among the representations on eugenics in the local, national and international concepts there were divergences, convergences and peculiarities. The research is conducted through a study based on the principles of the History of Representations and using as a source the publications of the newspaper Diário dos Campos between 1908 and 1916, carrying out the survey, analysis and reflection on the representations on eugenics present in the Diário dos Campos newspaper articles and in the search for signs, traces and clues in the interstices of the texts and complementary sources that help in the understanding of the debates and representative constructions on eugenics in the local newspaper. Thus, from this, it became possible to understand and point out the processes that involved the representative production and the senses acquired by eugenics in the ponta-grossense journal.