In this thesis I study how geneticist and racebiologist Gunnar Dahlberg, through his own writings and participation in the UNESCO statements on ”race”, came to define the concepts of ”race” and ”science”. Dahlberg was a stark opponent of the ”Nazi race doctrine”. He was also in a unique position as head of the State Institute for Human Genetics and Race Biology, during the period here examined. Questions have recently been raised as to how to understand scientists like Dahlberg when he, as well as many other antiracists of his time, did not deny the existence of visible and scientifically provable ”races”. One conlusion I draw is that Dahlberg, nevertheless, in many ways sought to replace the ”race” concepts in his time, for the biological concept of ”isolates”. I also state, in accordance with what other historians of scientific racism has shown, especially when dealing with the UNESCO statements, that the furthering of biological notions was upheld by other scientific areas, such as anthropology. The case was also vice versa, making ”race” at its core biological, but to its exterior a question of social environment. Relying on Thomas F. Gieryns theories of Boundary-work, I want to further our knowledge of how this was made possible. The aim is to show how Dahlberg, rethorically, drew boundaries for the ”scientific truth” about ”race”. I also intend to shed some light on how these contests for authority where percieved and related to by others. In this respect, one conclusion is that concepts of ”modernity”, and different uses of history where employed as demarcations. I will also show how, in dealing with the criticism of the statements, UNESCO produced a pluralist concept of science. Withall, this is a history that raises important questions about science, politics, and the work – consensuses and contests – that foregoes the categories later used to describe and, or, divide human beings.

This dissertation examines two daily newspapers’ representations of eugenics from the incipient racial biological investigation 1919 until 1958, and the State Institute for Racial Biology is reorganized. The dissertation also aims to examine whether there are any distinct turning points where the newspapers distance themselves from the ideas and the research of eugenics. The analysis material is based on newspaper articles from two national dailies, i.e., Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter. The theoretical framework and method are based on Fairclough’s discourse theory and analysis to observe and elucidate how eugenics is represented over a longer period of time. The conclusion of the dissertation is that the newspapers continuously designate racial biology as something unique and being the salvation from degeneration until Herman Lundborg resigns as head of the institute. After Gunnar Dahlberg took over the managerial position the activities at the Institute changed course and the research undertaken there became engaged in medical genetics and social medicine instead of racial biology. The main argument for the establishment of the institute was that it would provide protection for the Swedish race. The norms and attitudes were more about the science and somewhat about nationalism, while what we now call racism did not seem to be included at all. The discourses about racial biology that have arisen have been maintained in society through the newspapers, as the recipients have been continuously fed with praiseworthy and warning words. This fits with Foucault’s reasoning and theory which he clarifies the fact that discourses are conditioned by how society discusses about something that over time has been an influence on how people are classified or treated by the newspapers that maintains it.