Children as “future citizens” Child placement processes in Switzerland between 1960 and 1980

The family is a prominent site in which nation states reproduce themselves (Moret et al. 2019). It is also considered the primary place where children are brought up, socialized and prepared for society (Richter & Andresen 2012). This gives rise to the welfare state's interest in controlling and managing the way children grow up (Gillies 2012; Wilhelm 2005). In this paper I focus the historical practice of child placements in Switzerland. During the 20th century over 100’000 children were placed in homes and foster families (Lengwiler 2018). Through the measure of child placements, the Swiss welfare state intervened “directly in the social relationships and biographical circumstances of the persons concerned” (Gabriel et al. 2018, 13) and often did so under threat or use of coercion (Lengwiler et al. 2013). While juridically, child placements were intended as a “protective measure” (art. 284 SCC), they also implicated disciplinary and discriminatory logics (Weber 2015; Galle 2016). How did these children (and thus their families) come under the scrutiny of the welfare authorities? How were they categorised and assessed? The paper will address these questions drawing on archival research on child placement process in two Swiss cantons, Berne and Ticino, between 1960 and 1980. The data shows how imaginaries of the “good” family as well as the assessment of children as “future citizens” were classed, racialized and gendered. Based on these insights, the paper sheds light on how the community was imagined and the complex ways society was governed through the measure of child placements.