Participation as Pedagogy : Imagined Race and the Exhibit of Swedish Peoples-Types.

Participation as Pedagogy – Imagined Race and the Exhibit of Swedish Peoples-Types. This essay will analyse and give a deeper picture of the ”The Exhibit of Swedish People-Types” by focusing on the pedagogical ideals that formed the exhibit as an participatory media. The exhibit was led by the famous race-biologist Herman Lundborg and toured Sweden in 1919 displaying the racial constitution of the Swedish population using material gathered by the public itself. The exhibit has been described as an important tool in popularising eugenics in Swedish society during the early 20th century with the ambition of gaining funds to create the first race-biological institute and to influence policy-making. Nevertheless there has not been a single study which has focused solely on the exhibit and how the pedagogical ideals that permeated it affected the relation between the public and the media itself nor the political implications of this relation. I will show that the interactive participation enacted through the exhibit both defined a hierarchical relation between public and race-biological expertise, as well as it articulated a new “imagined community”, i.e., an “imagined race”. This participatory relation was not only key in creating the exhibit but also had implications on how the public should position itself and act in relation to society at large regarding eugenic matters. This gives me an opportunity to deepen our historical knowledge of the eugenics-movement and main-line racebiological networks in early 20 h century Swedish society. This essay also contribute to the history of participatory media and the popularisation of science