Redefining Race: UNESCO, the Biology of Race Crossing, and the Wane of the Eugenics Movement

Abstract

The Statements on Race published by the newly formed UNESCO between 1950 and 1969 represented a turning point in scientists’ thinking about race, finally laying to rest the idea that interracial mixing carried adverse, biologically mediated risks. This marked the end of racial science in the form that had informed Darwinism, eugenics and Nazi ideology. It also heralded a new era in scholarly work on racial mixing and mixedness that eclipsed both the ‘blind alley’ work on anthropometry and morally condemnatory tracts by social workers and other commentators. UNESCO’s thorough discrediting of the political use of racial science and the impact of its statements undoubtedly contributed to the wane of the eugenics movement in Britain after the Second World War.