Biohistorical Narratives of Racial Difference in the American Negro: Notes toward a Nuanced History of American Physical Anthropology

Biohistorical Narratives of Racial Difference in the American Negro: Notes toward a Nuanced History of American Physical Anthropology

Current Anthropology
Volume 53, Number S5 (April 1, 2012) (Volume Supplement)
pages S196-S209
DOI: 10.1086/662416

Rachel J. Watkins, Associate Professor of Anthropology
American University, Washington, D.C.

This paper examines the scientific construction of racial differences through the lens of early twentieth-century bioanthropological studies of American Negro skeletal and living population samples. These studies, as well as the scientists who conducted them, are generally distinguished from one another based on their adherence to quantitative and/or qualitative measures of racial difference. However, these binary distinctions tend to obscure the rather complex processes of racial formation in which scientists and research subjects were engaged. Both racialist and nonracialist scholarship positioned American Negroes as products of white, African, and, sometimes, Indian admixture. As the singular label used in these studies connotes, “the American Negro” was also classified as a distinct racial type based on elements of skeletal and physical morphology. Studies reveal that multiple definitions and meanings of race were operating and being generated in the process of situating American Negroes in these seemingly opposed positions. Finally, I consider the implications of this discussion for developing critical histories of American physical anthropology and engaging contemporary public and academic discourse around race, health, and biological diversity.

Read the entire article in HTML or PDF format.

Tags: , ,