Racial science, geopolitics, and empires: Paradoxes of power

ISIS

Volumn 105, Issue 4, 2014, Pages 773-781

  Tilley, Helen ^a  

^a NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANCESTRY GROUP; ANTHROPOLOGY; BIOMEDICINE; CLASSIFICATION; HISTORY; HUMAN; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; ORGANIZATION; POLITICAL SYSTEM; POLITICS;

ANTHROPOLOGY; BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE DISCIPLINES; COLONIALISM; CONGRESSES AS TOPIC; CONTINENTAL POPULATION GROUPS; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; INTERNATIONALITY; POLITICS;

EID: 84920917602     PISSN: 00211753     EISSN: 15456994     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/679424     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. Quotations in this paragraph are from “First Universal Races Congress—Questionnaire,” n.d., enclosed in Gustav Spiller to John Scott Keltie, 2 Dec. 1910, “Universal Races Congress,” Correspondence Block 1881-1910, Royal Geographical Society (RGS) Archives, London. For the epigraphs see A. C. Haddon, “The Universal Races Congress,” Times (London), 8 Aug. 1911, p. 6, col. E
2. Jean Finot, The Death-Agony of the “Science” of Race (London: Stead’s, 1911), p. 156.
3. “For the original announcement see Gustav Spiller, “Proposed Universal Races Congress,” Oct. 1909, “Universal Races Congress,” RGS Archives.
4. For the observer’s comment see Ulysses Weatherly, “The Universal Races Congress,” American Journal of Sociology, 1911, 17:315-328.
5. Saint Nihal Singh, “Trying to Solve the World’s Problems of Race,” Review of Reviews, 1911, 44:339-343.
6. For the papers see Gustav Spiller, ed., Inter-Racial Problems: Papers from the First Universal Races Congress Held in London in 1911 (London: P. S. King, 1911).
7. On the need for the specialists to frame the discussion see A. C. Haddon to Keltie, 27 Jan. 1910, RGS Archives.
8. Record of the Proceedings of the First Universal Races Congress Held at the University of London, July 26 -29, 1911 (London: P. S. King, 1911), pp. 4-28.
9. At the preliminary meeting Haddon gave talks on “race mixture” and “race and environment” and also did a “lantern presentation,” “Demonstration of Racial Types.” See also A. C. Haddon, The Races of Man and Their Distribution (London: Milner, 1909).
10. W. E. B. Du Bois, “Editorial: Races,” Crisis, Aug. 1911, 2:157-158.
11. Writings in Periodicals Edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, ed. Herbert Aptheker, Vol. 1: 1911-1925 (Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson, 1983), pp. 13-15
12. Felix Adler, “Report of the First Universal Races Congress,” in Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year Ending June 30, 1911, Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1912), pp. 609-617.
13. Only Brajendranath Seal referred to genetics in his remarks; see Seal, in Record of the Proceedings of the First Universal Races Congress (cit. n. 5), p. 34
14. Seal, “Meaning of Race, Tribe, Nation,” in Inter-Racial Problems, ed. Spiller (cit. n. 3), pp. 1-13.
15. Iaminvoking Elazar Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Racein Britain and the United States between the World Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992).
16. This content downloaded from 125.17.16.94 on Sat, 10 Jan 2015 21:45:38 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
17. There are already several studies of the Universal Races Congress. See Michael Biddiss, “The Universal Races Congress of 1911,” Race, 1971, 13:37-46
18. Paul Rich, “‘The Baptism of a New Era’: The 1911 Universal Races Congress and the Liberal Ideology of Race,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1984, 7:534-550
19. Robert Holton, “Cosmopolitanism or Cosmopolitanisms? The Universal Races Congress of 1911,” Global Networks, 2002, 2:153-170
20. the three contributions to Radical History Review, 2005, no. 92; and Tracie Matysik, “Internationalist Activism and Global Civil Society at the High Point of Nationalism: The Challenge of the Universal Races Congress, 1911,” in Global History: Interactions between the Universal and the Local, ed. A. G. Hopkins (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 131-159.
21. Anthony Hazard Jr, Postwar Anti-Racism: The United States, UNESCO, and “Race,” 1945-1968 (New York: Macmillan, 2012).
22. The statements were issued in 1950, 1951, 1964, and 1967; see Four Statements on the Race Question (Paris: UNESCO, 1969).
23. Felix von Luschan, “Anthropological View of Race,” in Inter-Racial Problems, ed. Spiller (cit. n. 3), pp. 13-24
24. Haddon, “Universal Races Congress”
25. A. C. Haddon, “The First Universal Races Congress,” Nature, Sept. 1911, N.S., 34:304-306
26. Jean Finot and his editor, William Stead, a congress Executive Council member, were two of the participants who espoused the view that there was “no such thing as race.” See Finot, Death-Agony of the “Science” of Race (cit. n. 1), p. 7.
27. “First Universal Races Congress—Questionnaire,” RGS Archives. See also Gustav Spiller, “Science and Race Prejudice,” Sociological Review, 1912, 5:331-348.
28. Giuseppe Sergi, in Record of the Proceedings of the First Universal Races Congress (cit. n. 5), pp. 26-27 This content downloaded from 125.17.16.94 on Sat, 10 Jan 2015 21:45:38 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
29. Sergi, The Mediterranean Race: A Study of the Origin of European Peoples (London: Scott, 1901), preface and Ch. 3
30. Sergi, “Differences in Customs and Morals and Their Resistance to Rapid Change,” in Inter-Racial Problems, ed. Spiller (cit. n. 3), pp. 67-73.
31. Sergi considered his research a challenge to existing Aryan hypotheses; ironically, his studies were used in the United States to limit immigration of southern Italians; see
32. Peter D’Agostino, “Craniums, Criminals, and the ‘Cursed Race’: Italian Anthropology in American Racial Thought, 1861-1924,” Comparative Studies of Society and History, 2002, 44:319-343.
33. “Special Resolutions,” in Record of the Proceedings of the First Universal Races Congress, pp. 9-10.
34. William Stead, Finot, Death-Agony of the “Science” of Race (cit. n. 1), p. 6.
35. Adler, “Report of the First Universal Races Congress” (cit. n. 6), pp. 610-611.
36. John Robertson, “The Rationale of Autonomy,” in Inter-Racial Problems, ed. Spiller (cit. n. 3), pp. 40-49.
37. Andrew Thompson, “The Language of Imperialism and the Meanings of Empire: Imperial Discourse in British Politics, 1895-1914,” Journal of British Studies, 1997, 36:147-177.
38. Spiller to Rt. Hon. Augustine Birrell, MP, 24 Feb. 1911, Oscar Browning Papers, King’s College, Cambridge, OB/1/1546.
39. Mojola Agbebi, “The West African Problem,” in Inter-Racial Problems, ed. Spiller (cit. n. 3), pp. 341-348.
40. For a careful study of endogenous idioms in East Africa see Jonathan Glassman, War of Words, War of Stones: Racial Thought and Violence in Colonial Zanzibar (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 2011)
41. for comparisons between racial science and racial idioms among Maori see Damon Salesa, Racial Crossings: Race, Intermarriage, and the Victorian Empire (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2011), esp. Ch. 5.
42. I am thinking here not just of the work of historians of science, but also that of imperial historians, including recent monographs by George Steinmetz on the German empire, Emmanuelle Saada on the French colonies, Paul Kramer on U.S. imperial endeavors, and the classic edited volume on Latin America by Richard Graham.
43. Helen Tilley, Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950 (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 2011). This content downloaded from 125.17.16.94 on Sat, 10 Jan 2015 21:45:38 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
44. C. P. Lucas, [Assistant Under-Secretary of State], Native Races in the British Empire— Confidential Colonial Office Memorandum, 31 Dec. 1907, CO885/19/7, British National Archives, London
45. W. Wybergh [former administrator in Southern Rhodesia], “Imperial Organisation and the Colour Question, Parts I and II,” Contemporary Review, 1907, 91:695-815 prepared for the fifth Colonial Conference
46. Nationalities and Subject Races: Report of Conference… Westminster, June 28 -30, 1910 (London: P. S. King, 1910) and correspondence in CO 323/715/35, “Native Races and Peace Terms, 1916,” British National Archives.
47. Philip Kerr, Patrick Duncan, House of Assembly, Cape Town, 22 May 1930, GD40/17/247, Lord Lothian Papers, National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh. Kerr served as private secretary and foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Lloyd George during the Paris Peace Conference.
48. Iris Borowy, Coming to Terms with World Health: The League of Nations Health Organization, 1921-1946 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2009).
49. J. E. W. Flood minute, 17 Feb. 1937, and Arthur J. R. O’Brien minute, 17 Feb. 1937: CO847/8/2, “Survey of the Blood Groups of African Natives by Dr. Ronald Elsdon-Dew [1937],” British National Archives.
50. Elsdon-Dew had an appointment at the South African Institute of Medical Research in Johannesburg and was asking for access to territories overseen by the Colonial Office. Total funding for blood group and sickle-cell research, including funds spent on research posts in the United Kingdom, amounted to £24,845 out of the more than £18 million allocated between 1950 and 1961: figures derived from Command Papers of the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers from 1950 -1961: Cmd. 8063, 8303, 8665, 8971, 9303, 9626; and Cmnd. 52, 321, 591, 938, 1215, 1584. For a useful exploration of blood group research see
51. Jenny Bangham, “Blood Groups and Human Groups: Collecting and Calibrating Genetic Data after World War II,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2014, 47:74-86.
52. Bronislaw Malinowski, “Anthropology,” in Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year (1938), in Malinowski Papers, London School of Economics. This content downloaded from 125.17.16.94 on Sat, 10 Jan 2015 21:45:38 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions