The Politics of Surveillance in the Interwar Czechoslovak Periphery: The Role of Campaigns Against Infectious Diseases
The Politics of Surveillance in the Interwar Czechoslovak Periphery: The Role of Campaigns Against Infectious Diseases

Summary/Abstract: A post-Foucauldian view of public health as a tool of surveillance brings into analytical focus the nexus of ethnicity, disability, and gender as a main pathway for producing discursive practices justifying policies of inequality, exploitation, and segregation. Such a desirable deconstruction of this intersectionality relies heavily upon historicizing the practices of surveillance exposed by the most disfranchised groups, including the Roma. Over the past two centuries, presenting the Roma as a threat to people’s health has served diverse political aims across the countries. First introduced by Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann, scapegoating “filthy” Roma parents, especially mothers, for their unhealthy approach to their children transformed over time into an intractable prejudice aimed at connecting the resonance effect of genetic predisposition to various diseases and the lack of a healthy mode of life amongst the majority of the Roma population across the world. Several cohorts of racially minded scholars propagated a wide range of stigmas concerning the vulnerability of the Roma, explained by the limited ability of the Roma to care for their own health and the health of their children. Obesity, dental problems, high-risk pregnancy, and other health issues have had a long-term impact on the objectification of the Roma and the legitimization of severe forms of surveillance over them. Inequality in health remains one of the most visible pieces of evidence for the ongoing racialization of Roma, even where there are attempts to provide access to welfare services and ensure better care.

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