The making of Brazilian Eugenics: Criminality, Race and Gender in Brazil (1890-1945)

There is something colossal and unsettling about working with archives that documented the lives of ordinary people. These archives retell the stories of individuals who come from the margins, from the bottom, obscure lives that are often thought of and seen as subalterns— people whose historical marks are usually only registered due to the shock of power. The French historian Arlette Farge argues it is colossal because of the volume of sources1 . However, it is also unsettling because even though the Judicial Archives are abundant, they are only small fragments. Sparks of people and their lives appear in historical sources for a moment, only to vanish, leaving no other trace behind. The judicial archives are compiled bodies that store the history of surveillance, security, and circulation— sources produced by and for the state and the ruling classes. These documents were never intended for outside eyes. Records made by the police, the courts, and the institutions of sequestration for social control, to produce knowledge, and to exercise power.