Biopolitics and restorative justice. Coming to terms with historic sterilization policies

The fellowship will serve to intensify cooperation between the applicant and researchers in the areas of biopolitics, gender studies, and politics of historic justice at the Stein Rokkan Centre/University of Bergen. It will build on existing contacts that have evolved at international conferences and through joint grant proposals and research projects, for instance with researchers Ole Brekke, Tone Hellesund, Thorwald Sirnes. Specifically, the fellowship will serve to launch a joint book project by the ap plicant and researcher Ole Brekke. The book will present findings from an empirical research project on eugenics and restorative justice, lead by the applicant and funded by the German Research Association, which includes a case study on Norway for which Brekke provides empirical data and social science analysis. The project studies in a comparative perspective whether and how contemporary democratic societies are coming to terms with sterilization programs in the past. It studies the capacity of modern d emocratic societies to reflect on sterilization policies as human rights violations and manifestations of the dark sides of modernity. The purpose is to understand the factors that enable or constrain this capacity. It seeks to explore why and to what ext ent coming to terms with past sterilization policies is put on the political agenda, by whom, what the outcomes are and which lessons have been learned. The stay at the University of Bergen will serve to share and discuss findings and develop the outline of the book. In addition, the applicant will give a seminar on her research and participate in academic life at the Centre and the University. Not least, the stay will serve to develop plans for further cooperation, for instance in form of joint grant pro posals, among the applicant and researchers at the Stein Rokkan Centre.