Research Catalog

Title

A special hell : institutional life in Alberta's eugenic years / Claudia Malacrida.

Author

Malacrida, Claudia, 1953-

Publication

• Toronto ; Buffalo ; London : University of Toronto Press, [2015]
• ©2015

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xiv, 302 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

Using rare interviews with former inmates and workers, institutional documentation, and governmental archives, Claudia Malacrida illuminates the dark history of the treatment of "mentally defective" children and adults at the Michener Centre in Red Deer, Alberta.

Subject

• Michener Centre
• Michener Centre > History
• Sterilization, Involuntary > history
• Institutionalization > history
• Human Rights Abuses
• History, 20th Century
• Eugenics > history
• Disabled Persons > history
• People with mental disabilities > History > Red Deer > 20th century
• Sterilization (Birth control) > Red Deer > History > 20th century
• Alberta > Social policy
• Alberta

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-276) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introducing the Michener Centre -- Institutionalization and Eugenics in Context -- Economics, Productivity, and Exploitation -- Compulsory Schooling and Social Exclusion -- Normalization and the Growth of the Professions -- Psychology/Psychiatry and Normalization -- Eugenics, Race Suicide, and Gendered Panics -- Sterilization and the Institutions -- Conclusion -- 2. Entering the Gulag, Leaving the World -- Eugenic Traits -- The Institutional Record -- Survivors' Eugenic Traits -- Survivors' Families' Eugenic Traits -- Institutionalization, Education, and Eugenics -- Going to Live at Michener -- Parental Abandonment -- Loss of Identity -- Family Life and Social Death -- 3. Dehumanization as a Way of Life -- Dehumanization and its Functions -- Space and Its Uses -- Segregation and Dehumanization -- Panopticism on the Wards -- Privacy and Hierarchy -- Hygiene and Dehumanization -- Time and Its Management -- Staffing and Time Management -- The Effects of Time Management -- Sensory Deprivation -- Sensory Deprivation and Dehumanization -- Private Property and the Private Self -- Dehumanizing Recreation -- Conclusion -- 4. Ordinary and Extraordinary Violence -- Institutional Records on Ordinary Violence -- Ex-workers and Inmates Describe Ordinary Violence -- The Invisibility of Extraordinary Violence -- Staff Reporting and Extraordinary Violence -- Public Enquiry and Extraordinary Violence -- Survivor Stories of Extraordinary Violence -- Inmates and the Culture of Violence -- Institutionalized Violence -- The Side Rooms -- Side Rooms as Sites of Foucauldian Discipline -- The Side Room as a Space of Spectacle, Prevention, and Division -- Humiliation and the Gaze -- 5. Resisting the Institutional Order -- Weapons of the Weak -- Active Resistance -- Escape -- Death and Escape -- 6. Broken Promises: Education in the Institution -- Alberta's Educational Context -- Sense Training -- Regular School -- The Schoolhouse -- School Curriculum -- Occupational Therapy and Training -- Vocational and Agricultural Training -- Conclusion -- 7. Training, Exploitation, and Community Dependency -- Utility and the Institution -- Economics, Productivity, and Exploitation -- Productivity within the Institution -- Contributing to the Community -- Education and Employment for Non-inmates -- Conclusion -- 8. Bad Medicine: Drugs, Research, and Ethics -- Medical Treatment and Care -- Dental Care -- (Over)Medication -- Medications as Means of Social Control -- Medical Research -- Consent -- 9. Eugenics and Sexuality -- The Context of the Sexual Sterilization Act in Alberta -- The Sexual Sterilization Act and Its Amendments -- Sterilization and IQ Testing -- Surveillance and Sterilization -- The Eugenics Board -- Survivors' Descriptions of Sterilization -- Sterilization and Sexuality -- Sterilization After-Effects -- Conclusion -- 10. But That's All in the Past, Isn't It? -- Implications for the Current Alberta Context -- Implications for the Broader Context.

ISBN

• 9781442649538 (bound : alk. paper)
• 1442649534 (bound : alk. paper)
• 9781442626898 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 1442626895 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 9781442620490 (canceled/invalid)
• 1442620498 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

^^2015300692

OCLC

• 900814700
• SCSB-11308252

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library