Race in Iberia and Latin America

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article discusses the different scientific and political uses of “race” in Iberia and Latin America at the beginning of the twentieth century. It analyses how “race” became infused with perspectives that drew on broadly Lamarckian and Mendelian understandings of the malleability or fixity or racial characteristics. Coursing through eugenicists’ and racial scientists’ understandings of race in these geographical areas was the anxiety or usefulness of “racial mixtures”: in some cases, these were viewed as positive developments, fortifying the race and culture more generally; in others, mixtures were viewed as deleterious to racial robustness and the survival of a distinct racial identity. The article illustrates how diverse eugenic theories were in Iberia and Latin America and how they shed light on international debates about “race”, inheritance and the nation.