8.14.2006

History of race mapping

Do we have any good histories of race mapping?

Such a history should cover the attempts to map out races such as we see in the 19th century, and at first sight we'd be limited to that time period when the modern meaning of race was in use (in the west); that is, as a small number of natural groups occurring over large, continental territories, since say the 18th century.

On the other hand, it is worth including the early encounter maps produced by Europeans during the 15th and 16th centuries, which effectively mapped (or pictured around the margins anyway) indigenous peoples. That's more indirect and would shade into mappings that attempted to claim territories within Europe, or the Monarchs, Ministers and Maps stuff.

Also you'd want to show how even in 19th-20th century Europe and America that smaller groups of people within a continent could be mapped (for example, by language) and to what extent this was race-based. Today we certainly map populations of one sort or another but the distinction would be whether the claim is that these show natural groupings (ie., race is innate in the peoples) or are a human construct done for convenience, one of many such groupings.

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