Malacrida, Claudia

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    Embodied action, embodied theory: understanding the body in society
    (M D P I A G, 2013) Low, Jacqueline; Malacrida, Claudia
    [No abstract available]
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    Bodily practices as vehicles for dehumanization in an institution for mental defectives
    (M D P I A G, 2012) Malacrida, Claudia
    This article analyzes the processes of dehumanization that occurred in the Michener Center, a total institution for the purported care and training of people deemed to be mental defectives1 that operated in Alberta, Canada. I report on qualitative interviews with 22 survivors, three ex-workers, and the institutional archival record, drawing out the ways that dehumanization was accomplished through bodily means and the construction of embodied otherness along several axes. First, inmates’ bodies were erased or debased as unruly matter out of place that disturbed the order of rational modernity, a move that meant inmates were not seen as deserving or even requiring of normal human consideration. Spatial practices within the institution included panopticism and isolation, constructing inmates as not only docile but as unworthy of contact and interaction. Dehumanization was also seen as necessary to and facilitative of patient care; to produce inmates as subhuman permitted efficiency, but also neglect and abuse. Finally, practices of hygiene and sequestering the polluting bodies of those deemed mentally defective sustained and justified dehumanization. These practices had profound effects for inmates and also for those charged with caring for them.
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    Living archives on eugenics in Western Canada : interview training handbook : interviewing protocols : conducted at the University of Calgary, May 5-7, 2011
    (University of Lethbridge, 2011) Malacrida, Claudia; Shields, Rachel; Dale, Georgia
    This training kit has evolved through several meetings, discussions, and workshops. It is compiled based upon several key documents including the CURA Living Archive on Eugenics (LAE) main protocol, interim workshop materials, and ethics proposals that have been submitted to the various partner universities. It has also been adapted from the Montreal Life Stories Training Workshop from the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, Concordia University, September 2010. This training aims to get interviewers thinking about how to conduct qualitative interviews, but more importantly, it seeks to engage interviewers with processes of how to be sensitive and aware of interviewees’ emotional and psychological needs during the research process. It will address questions of recruiting participants, legal and ethical considerations building up to the interview itself, conducting interviews with interviewees and community advocates, building trust and establishing rapport, working with interview technology, and more subtle questions of ethics, sensitivity and asking questions of people who have not only have been traumatized, but who may have intellectual disabilities or mental health challenges.