Historicizing Race PDF
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Historicizing Race i ii Historicizing Race MARIUS TURDA AND MARIA SOPHIA QUINE Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY iii Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC 1B 3 DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2018 © Marius Turda and Maria Sophia Quine Marius Turda and Maria Sophia Quine have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-i n-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN : HB : 978-1-4411-8424-5 PB : 978-1-4411-4367-9 e PDF : 978-1-4411-8016-2 eBook: 978-1-4411-5824-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-i n-Publication Data Names: Turda, Marius, author. | Quine, Maria Sophia, author. Title: Historicizing race / Marius Turda and Maria Sophia Quine. Description: London; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifi ers: LCCN 2017032614 (print) | LCCN 2017049175 (ebook) | ISBN 9781441158246 (ePUB) | ISBN 9781441180162 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781441184245 (hardback) | ISBN 9781441143679 (paperback) Subjects: LCSH: Race–History. | BISAC: HISTORY / Modern / General. Classifi cation: LCC HT1507 (ebook) | LCC HT1507 .T87 2018 (print) | DDC 305.8009–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017032614 Cover design: Adriana Brioso Cover image: Our Goddess of Liberty. United States, 1870. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress, L C - USZ 62–136241) Typeset by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To fi nd out more about our authors and books visit w w.bloomsbury.com . Here you will fi nd extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters . iv CONTENTS Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 1 History 13 2 Culture 33 3 Nation 49 4 Genealogy 71 5 Science 87 Conclusions 107 Notes 117 Bibliography 157 Index 183 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project originates in a separate, but shared interest in the history of race and racism. For much of the 1990s and fi rst decade of the twenty-fi rst century, Maria Sophia Quine taught an undergraduate course on evolutionary science and race at Queen Mary, University of London, both alone and occasionally, and much more enjoyably, with Daniel Pick. One of the core aims of that course was to introduce students to new and interesting historical examples and case-s tudies. In England, most university courses on race and racism focus on Britain, France, and Germany alone; it seemed then and seems still today very important to try to broaden and deepen understanding of the entirety of the European and international experience of race and racism. Another intention was to bring new life into the fi eld of political science which is called “nationalism studies” by exploring the connections between constructions of race and nation in new ways. In the autumn of 2014, Marius Turda began teaching an undergraduate course at Oxford Brookes University on the history of race and racism. His concern has been to introduce students to the vast historical, sociological, philosophical, and anthropological material that has characterized the development of the idea of race in the modern world. The shape and contents of this book refl ect the desire of the co-a uthors to redress some of the shortcomings in the historical literature and current syllabi. We would like to move away from highly specialized debates, found in such segregated fi elds as the history of anthropology, the history of science, the history of ideas and nationalism studies, and be more interdisciplinary and integrative in our approach. We hope to present the material in such a way that is attractive to a student who is interested as much in history as in philosophy, science, and politics. At the same time, we have consciously chosen not to limit our gaze to the past alone. Though we are both historians, we have tried to pose important questions about the continuing and perplexing presence of ideas of race in our lives. The book itself began before the co-a uthorship started. Marius had been ruminating about writing a book “On Race” for some time and would like to express his gratitude fi rst to Claire Lipscomb, who has now left Bloomsbury, but who never gave up on the project. It is mainly due to her insistence, support, and patience that this book is published today. Both Marius and Maria Sophia would like to thank Emma Goode, also at Bloomsbury, who was always tremendously helpful, generous, and vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii understanding whenever we ran into diffi culties and missed deadlines. We are grateful to Paul King, our copy editor, who has laboured diligently and effi ciently over the entire book. Marius is also very grateful to Mark Hardy, Thomas Loughlin, Lisa Pine, Patrícia Ferraz de Matos, Karim Murji, Chloe Hadjimatheou, Simon J. Wilson, Tudor Georgescu, and Mark Galt for their critical readings of the manuscript and their attentive comments. Maria Sophia would like to express her most heartfelt thanks to Deirdre Storey, Lucy Blake, Rachel Long, Sarah Gelpke, and Shirin Syed, all wild and wise “wimmin,” who persistently enquired for over a year about the progress of the book and courageously awaited and endured her sometimes despairing replies. We are blessed to have such good friends. Authorship is never an easy process; co- authorship can be impossible at times. Nonetheless, we are both aware of the special gift that is intellectual partnership and feel that this book is a true melding of ideas and styles, rather than the single-a uthored chapters that we had initially discussed. That our friendship is still intact is also testament to its strengths and to our tenacity. This book benefi tted from the intellectual environment provided by the School of History, Philosophy, and Culture at Oxford Brookes University. Marius shared his thoughts and ideas with colleagues across the university, including Roger Griffi n, Tom Crook, Mariama Sheriff, Graham van Wyk, Christiana Payne, and Joanne Begiato. Marius thanks them all for their encouragement and support. Social anthropologist Jeremy MacClancy convened a seminar on anthropology in the spring of 2015 and he was generous enough to invite Marius to discuss the fi rst draft of the book. Marius extends his very warm thanks to him. Now ensconced as Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Medical Humanities at Oxford Brookes, Maria Sophia also benefi ts from the community and conviviality found there. Personal bonds are just as sustaining as scholarly ones. Last but not least, Marius would like to express his deepest thanks to his family and his parents. They have always been there for him and, particularly so, during the last stages of this book. Maria Sophia would like to dedicate this endeavour to Sam Quine-Church and Luke Haughton, in thanks for their many words of encouragement and acts of kindness during the course of writing this book. The occasional cocktail and glass of Gavi helped too. London and Norwich July 2017 viii Introduction Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. 1 The defi nition of race has been the subject of a prolonged debate for which, perhaps, there is no satisfactory solution. As recently noted by sociologists Karim Murji and John Solomos “what is interesting about much of the literature about race and racism is the absence of commonly agreed conceptual tools or even a common framework about the general parameters of races and racism as fi elds of study.” 2 Nothing in this area of research, then, is clearly defi ned or securely labelled. Such imprecision, it has to be recognized, further complicates the attempt to explain why people continue to believe that races are real, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence to the contrary which is provided by evolutionary biologists, population geneticists, and other scientists working in disparate fi elds today. When encountered in daily conversations, race predominately refers to a group of people who share common descent and genealogy and whose biological and social realities have been shaped by culture and environment. A standard description of race therefore includes both biological and cultural determinants. Perhaps more than any other idea in the history of human culture, race is imbued with a great deal of responsibility. It is not just another abstract concept with little social and political impact outside academia or the university. During the time of its ascendancy as an organizational principle of society, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the idea of race has fundamentally changed the history of many countries, individuals, and communities across the world. It was a source of both national self- esteem and national disgrace, particularly during the Second World War. Many peoples have been oppressed, marginalized, and killed for not belonging to the “right” race. Notwithstanding this painful history, racial stereotypes continue to exist in contemporary society and various representations of race still inhabit and invade our lives in disturbing ways. 1
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