Fellow Seminar

Dr. Kristina Popova will make a presentation on the topic "The Joy of Service". Biopolitics and Biographies between New York, Sofia and Gorna Dzhumaja in the First Half of the 20th Century" on 19 January 2012 (Tuesday) at 16.30h at CAS Conference Room

Short summary:

"The Joy of Service". Biopolitics and Biographies Between New York, Sofia and Gorna Dzhumaja in the First Half of the 20th Century

The research is focused on the biographies, careers and networks of Bulgarian and American nurses as agents of biopolitics in the process of their collaboration during the establishment of the modern nursing education in Bulgaria. The main research base is the intensive correspondence between leading American and Bulgarian nurses in the 20-es - 30-es preserved in the Nursing School Archive (in the Central State Archive Sofia) as well as their publications (articles, books, reports etc.). Another research source is: the correspondence between Nursing School Heads and Bulgarian Nurses who started their practice at that time as well a private correspondence between two women employed in the Nursing School.
Regular correspondence between nurses was a common practice in the first half of the 20th century. That kind of documentation is an inseparable part of a female biography. Female correspondence was very important in women history. For nurses it was also an important tool to communicate professional information, to establish professional norms and values, to share female images and models. The main goal of this project is to contribute to the history of biopolitics in its perspective as history of women as social reformers and agents of biopolitics as well as to the importance of their "imagined societies" and networks.
The central terms for my research are "biopolitics" and "pastoral power" introduced by Michel Foucault. In the time of industrialization and urbanization in 19th and 20th century when population became an object of regulation, new methods of "administration of life" appeared. The health and welfare of individuals and populations as well as the power strategies used to "normalize" individuals and populations became the main concern of the policy. Michel Foucault introduced the term "biopolitics" as a term for this development and "biopower" for the power aspects of public health politics and institutions. Women were both subjects and agents of biopolitical measures in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Women societies contributed to the development of new social techniques as a possibility to raise the social activities and awareness of women. In the new techniques of pastoral power women took part as professionals as well as voluntary activists. They were the key figures in instructing working class and rural mothers, home visiting practices, health centers. They worked as doctors, midwives, public health nurses and instructors, social workers, journalists etc. The role of women as agents of the biopolitical measures were often constructed as "social motherhood" or as "duty". It was propagated as a "Joy of service" in the public discourse. As visiting nurses, charity and professional social worker, they were the people who touched poverty and made possible to enter into the people's homes and to negotiate social support. Family work, case work, home visits, mother's and housewives education courses and other practices and methods were developed in women charity organizations and further on by trained professionals. In women's public spaces in 19th century - homes like nursing houses, sisterhoods and settlements ideas and practices were discussed and new periodicals started.
The place of women as agents of biopolitics could be seen not only in terms of new possibilities for vocational training, power positions for women and participation in the social reforms, but also as a part of a new patriarchal gender order as well as a gender division in which men took power positions. That's why the mutual support of women, their networks, international contacts, women movement organizations raised their self-confidence and motivated them to join such vocational trainings and careers.
After the First World War American Red Cross, the Rockefeller Foundation and Near East Foundation supported actively biopolitcal measures, public health institutions and training courses for public health allover Europe, especially in its Southeastern part in order to reduce the very high infant mortality rates and the spread of social diseases like tuberculoses and malaria. In Sofia a new Nursing School was opened, led by the American Nurses: Helen Scott Hey (1869 - 1932) and Rachel Torrance (1886-1937), later on by Theodora LeGros and Hazel Goff (1892 - 1973). Most of this American Nurses worked on the Balkans as American Red Cross activists: instructors and nurses during the War. Their Bulgarian students Nevena Sendova, Kristanka Pachedjieva, Boyana Christova and many others continued their study in the 20-es in USA and in England. Coming back to Bulgaria they took the responsibility for the Nursing education, opened new training courses and health centers.
During their study abroad the young Bulgarian nurses corresponded with their American colleagues in Sofia. As the Americans left Bulgaria they kept their contacts to Bulgarians establishing a network of professional and personal contacts. The Sofia Nursing School Directors sent their regular reports to Clara Noyes (1869-1936), Director of the Nursing Service by the American Red Cross. In the way of such "sisterhoods" both Bulgarian and American women exchanged their experiences and reflections of their professional and personal everyday life.
The aim of the research project is a qualitative analyses of the correspondence between American and Bulgarian nurses in order to reveal their communication, personal and professional topics and power relationships, to research the personal side of this development and to stress its gender aspects, to present women as agents of biopolitcis in the process of their individual careers and important international as well as local networks.
A case of organization of a Health center for rural children and mothers (1933 - 1936) by the Rockefeller Foundation (led by Hazel Goff and Todorina Petrova) in the village of Golemo Konare (Saedinenie) will be presented and the different ways it was reflected in the nurses' correspondence.