The medicalization of childhood as an optimization of the labor force in Spain. Hygienism, child population and biopolitics (1800-1850)

Abstract

The intention of this work is to analyze the recurring dynasties of certain discourses (most of them of medical and legal inspiration, although not only) that began to break into the political scene of our country since the last quarter of the 18th century. Since then, attention to the health status of the population has increased: the high number of infant mortality, the increase in the spread of contagious diseases, the high crime rate, have caused the phenomenon of what was called the "degradation of the population”. In this case, we are going to focus on the analysis of a set of these reform proposals aimed at caring for children, raised by the most liberal pole of the Spanish sociopolitical framework of the time. Applying an archaeogenealogical examination, we intend to show how attention to the "weak population" (women and minors) facilitated the transformation of the old disciplinary model into a new model of biopolitical organization that absolutely colonized the private space of families. With the "profit for anomalies" a discourse on the family economy emerged that was unprecedented until then, which quickly managed to introduce reforms in the civil and criminal codes. Until then, no measures aimed at the child population had been contemplated in these fields.