For a genealogy of the rapist. Penal practices, medical, psychiatric, and criminological discourses in the configuration of the sexual attacker in Argentina during the first half of the twentieth century

Abstract

The present research analyzes the definition and characterization of sexual violence in Argentina during the first half of the twentieth century. We propose to extend the analysis beyond the legal aspects, inscribing the problem on the exercise of a complex political technology assembling different kinds of knowledge and power relations crystalized through varied discourses and practices, which are inserted in a public-private institutional network of intervention, regulation, and control. With this perspective, we study the process of implementation of the sexual criminal as a clearly defined individual profile focusing on the emergence conditions, strategic integration and tactic productivity of a heterogeneous group of cognitive classifications which tried to provide an answer or a solution to sexual abusive behaviors.