Publications by Nicole Pacino
Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas /Anuario de Historia de América Latina, , 2022
After coming to power in April 1952, the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) looked to a... more After coming to power in April 1952, the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) looked to address Bolivia’s economic problems, in part, through initiatives encouraging population growth. A 1953 report highlighted underpopulation as a cause of Bolivia’s limited economic potential. The solution to Bolivia’s “lack of demographic capacity” was public health measures that would lower morbidity and mortality rates and encourage reproduction to boost the country’s human capital. This article analyzes prevalent pronatalist tendencies in the MNR government, including positive eugenics and criticism of birth control, to demonstrate the centrality of population growth to the MNR’s political and economic agenda. At a time when other Latin American countries began implementing population control measures as a pathway to economic growth and political stability, as recommended by the United States and international organizations, Bolivia diverged from global discourses about overpopulation and embraced pronatalism. While the MNR welcomed some global development ideologies associated with modernization, they rejected population control and reframed population debates towards population growth and demographic reorganization. They married pronatalism with a modernizing agenda and revolutionary nationalism, demonstrating that MNR policies were fundamentally conservative on matters of reproduction and gender roles.
The Latin Americanist, 2020
This article explores three epidemic episodes in 1950s Bolivia: a typhus outbreak in Oruro in Sep... more This article explores three epidemic episodes in 1950s Bolivia: a typhus outbreak in Oruro in September 1954, a typhoid outbreak in Cochabamba in January 1956, and a polio outbreak along the Bolivia-Argentine border in March 1956. Each case discusses state-imposed quarantine and sanitation measures, using newspaper reports and editorials, letters to health officials, and government publications to document institutional responses to these epidemic episodes and people's reactions. Through press coverage, the article analyzes praise and critiques of government responses to these epidemics to assess what measures public health authorities implemented, how effective they were, and how Bolivians felt about their political and medical leadership during these crises. These case studies evidence that Bolivians did not respond uniformly to government containment policies, and responses varied by region and disease. They also demonstrate that quarantines are effective even if not always popular, and that the public's perception of the measures' efficacy and implementation impact their feelings about state legitimacy. Finally, they show that disease outbreaks create opportunities for citizens to critique government officials and push for improvements to public health.
Revista CS, 2018
Chronic malnutrition was one of the health problems the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario ta... more Chronic malnutrition was one of the health problems the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario tackled after the 1952 Bolivian National Revolution. Actors working on the local, national, and international levels had different definitions of nutrition, understandings of the problem, and proposed solutions. These debates demonstrate the existence of hierarchies of expertise; national officials deemed knowledge about nutrition produced outside of Bolivia more valuable than that created by Bolivians working on the local level. These hierarchies of expertise caused tensions, miscommunications, and circular conversations that stymied the development of effective and efficient national programs.
After the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) took power in the 1952 National Revolution... more After the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) took power in the 1952 National Revolution, the party expanded rural public health programs to address what early twentieth-century elites called the " Indian problem: " the idea that indigenous culture was an impediment to Bolivia's modernization. After 1952, the MNR used public health as a project of cultural assimilation, and state-sponsored health programs sought to culturally whiten the population by transforming personal habits. This essay analyzes the language with which health workers discussed the indigenous population to show that despite the regime's intention to move away from defining the rural population on racial terms, medical and political elites continued to define indigenous customs as an obstacle to progress and a remnant of an antiquated past.
During the pre-Columbian and colonial periods, Andean cosmological understandings shaped indigeno... more During the pre-Columbian and colonial periods, Andean cosmological understandings shaped indigenous approaches to maternal health. Women typically gave birth at home with the assistance of a midwife (also called a partera or comadrona in Spanish). Birthing and post-partum care relied on local herbal remedies and followed specific social rituals. Women drank teas derived from anise or coca during the labor process, gave birth in a squatting position (toward Mother Earth, or Pachamama), and drank sheep soup after labor to replenish strength and warm the body. Rooms were kept dark because the common perception was that bright light injured newborn babies’ eyes. After labor, families buried or otherwise disposed of the placenta to keep the baby and mother healthy and facilitate lactation, as per Andean tradition.
Changes in maternal health rituals began in the eighteenth century as colonial rule became more consolidated. The rise of a distinct medical profession and government interest in population growth gradually shifted responsibility for maternal health from the Catholic Church and charitable organizations to the state. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the state’s and the medical profession’s growing power and authority led doctors and urban-based reformers to attempt to change long-standing Andean birthing practices, which they considered unmodern and unsanitary. These reforms emerged from a desire to reduce infant mortality rates and replace traditional healers with medical professionals that were trained, licensed, and regulated by the state. As reformers looked to replace Andean maternal health and healing practices with new scientific understandings of the female body and birthing process, they also worked to discredit and displace midwives’ knowledge and practices. In particular, they encouraged women to give birth in newly constructed hospitals and seek the guidance of medical professionals, like obstetricians. However, these reforms met with limited success. In the Andes today, midwives still attend to roughly fifty percent of all births, and in some remote areas the figure is as high as ninety percent. It is also more common today to see the merging of biomedical and ritual practices to increase women’s access to and acceptance of health services and reduce overall mortality rates.
Addressing the nation’s high infant and maternal mortality rate became a paramount priority follo... more Addressing the nation’s high infant and maternal mortality rate became a paramount priority following the 1952 Bolivian National Revolution. High infant mortality jeopardized the literal reproduction of the nation, therefore motherhood had to be reformed, sanitized, and modernized to fit new revolutionary ideals. Reproduction and women’s bodies were consequently at the heart of the revolutionary project.
Attempts to improve child welfare drew women out of their homes and into health clinics where employees oversaw their nutrition, hygiene, and childcare regimens. They also fostered female solidarity linked specifically to maternal responsibilities, thereby inventing a notion of revolutionary motherhood inextricably linked to revolutionary goals. This process of expanding and modernizing maternal and infant health services reveal the gendered politics of nation building under the MNR, whose program for political change, economic development, and cultural transformation depended on a healthy and productive populace.
Conference Presentations by Nicole Pacino
construction of a new Bolivian society.‖ As the President explained to his fellow countrymen and ... more construction of a new Bolivian society.‖ As the President explained to his fellow countrymen and women, this project focused on economic development and diversification by controlling the country's natural resources and environment. However, he also noted that sustained economic growth would be impossible without accompanying programs to improve Bolivians' living conditions, especially in rural regions with large indigenous populations. 1 It is well understood that the MNR wanted to integrate Bolivia's indigenous inhabitants into the nation economically, politically, and culturally. To achieve this objective, party leaders emphasized cultural mestizaje as the basis for a future Bolivian national identity. 2 Therefore, Paz's -construction of a new Bolivian society‖ included more than an economic restructuring of Bolivian society and an extension of political rights to historically disenfranchised indigenous groups; it also intended to turn them into active citizens through educational programs, public health campaigns, and consumerism. For this reason, in his speech he described an idealized
Book Reviews by Nicole Pacino
Websites by Nicole Pacino
Interview with Raúl Necochea López about his book, A History of Family Planning in Twentieth-cent... more Interview with Raúl Necochea López about his book, A History of Family Planning in Twentieth-century Peru (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014).
Eugenics Archives is an interactive, digital, collaborative work of scholars, sterilization survi... more Eugenics Archives is an interactive, digital, collaborative work of scholars, sterilization survivors, students, and university and community partners. Under the "World" learning module you will find information on individual countries, including my entry on Bolivia.
Papers by Nicole Pacino
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Publications by Nicole Pacino
Changes in maternal health rituals began in the eighteenth century as colonial rule became more consolidated. The rise of a distinct medical profession and government interest in population growth gradually shifted responsibility for maternal health from the Catholic Church and charitable organizations to the state. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the state’s and the medical profession’s growing power and authority led doctors and urban-based reformers to attempt to change long-standing Andean birthing practices, which they considered unmodern and unsanitary. These reforms emerged from a desire to reduce infant mortality rates and replace traditional healers with medical professionals that were trained, licensed, and regulated by the state. As reformers looked to replace Andean maternal health and healing practices with new scientific understandings of the female body and birthing process, they also worked to discredit and displace midwives’ knowledge and practices. In particular, they encouraged women to give birth in newly constructed hospitals and seek the guidance of medical professionals, like obstetricians. However, these reforms met with limited success. In the Andes today, midwives still attend to roughly fifty percent of all births, and in some remote areas the figure is as high as ninety percent. It is also more common today to see the merging of biomedical and ritual practices to increase women’s access to and acceptance of health services and reduce overall mortality rates.
Attempts to improve child welfare drew women out of their homes and into health clinics where employees oversaw their nutrition, hygiene, and childcare regimens. They also fostered female solidarity linked specifically to maternal responsibilities, thereby inventing a notion of revolutionary motherhood inextricably linked to revolutionary goals. This process of expanding and modernizing maternal and infant health services reveal the gendered politics of nation building under the MNR, whose program for political change, economic development, and cultural transformation depended on a healthy and productive populace.
Conference Presentations by Nicole Pacino
Book Reviews by Nicole Pacino
Websites by Nicole Pacino
Papers by Nicole Pacino
Changes in maternal health rituals began in the eighteenth century as colonial rule became more consolidated. The rise of a distinct medical profession and government interest in population growth gradually shifted responsibility for maternal health from the Catholic Church and charitable organizations to the state. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the state’s and the medical profession’s growing power and authority led doctors and urban-based reformers to attempt to change long-standing Andean birthing practices, which they considered unmodern and unsanitary. These reforms emerged from a desire to reduce infant mortality rates and replace traditional healers with medical professionals that were trained, licensed, and regulated by the state. As reformers looked to replace Andean maternal health and healing practices with new scientific understandings of the female body and birthing process, they also worked to discredit and displace midwives’ knowledge and practices. In particular, they encouraged women to give birth in newly constructed hospitals and seek the guidance of medical professionals, like obstetricians. However, these reforms met with limited success. In the Andes today, midwives still attend to roughly fifty percent of all births, and in some remote areas the figure is as high as ninety percent. It is also more common today to see the merging of biomedical and ritual practices to increase women’s access to and acceptance of health services and reduce overall mortality rates.
Attempts to improve child welfare drew women out of their homes and into health clinics where employees oversaw their nutrition, hygiene, and childcare regimens. They also fostered female solidarity linked specifically to maternal responsibilities, thereby inventing a notion of revolutionary motherhood inextricably linked to revolutionary goals. This process of expanding and modernizing maternal and infant health services reveal the gendered politics of nation building under the MNR, whose program for political change, economic development, and cultural transformation depended on a healthy and productive populace.