Historicizing Anti-Racism: UNESCO’s Campaigns Against Race Prejudice in the 1950s by Sebastián Gil-Riaño A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology University of Toronto © Copyright by Sebastián Gil-Riaño, 2014 Historicizing Anti-Racism: UNESCO’s campaigns against race prejudice in the 1950s Sebastián Gil-Riaño Doctor of Philosophy Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology University of Toronto 2014 Abstract This dissertation offers a revised historical account of how scientific experts associated with the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the post- WWII era sought to overcome the legacy of scientific racism. Situating UNESCO’s anti- racism initiatives within the geographic context of the South and North Atlantic and the intellectual context of Latin American, Francophone, and Anglo-American social science this study shows that mid-century discussions of ‘race’ were intertwined with the multiple narratives of modernization and societal change that emerged in tandem with decolonization and the Cold War. Thus, one of this dissertation’s key arguments is that anti-racist projects in the post-war era were often cast as projects of redemption that involved coming to terms with the painful and destructive legacy of scientific racism and the anticipation of an improved ii and harmonious future where ‘race’ did not figure as a source of conflict and tension. However, because mid-century anti-racist scientists hailed from a variety of cultural, linguistic, and racial backgrounds the question of redemption took on different meanings and involved different stakes. This study examines social science experts’ anti-racist narratives of redemption in the context of four different UNESCO initiatives from the 1950s: 1) in projects of ‘cultural change’ (which were predicated on the anti-racist notion of the inherent educability of all peoples) 2) in UNESCO’s study of race relations in various locations in Brazil 3) in the elaboration of anti-racist approaches to ethnographic observation, and 4) in UNESCO attempts to produce anti-racist handbooks for teachers. These projects reveal how anti-racist experts from the 1950s were very much haunted by ‘race’ and concerned with neutralizing and dampening the affective and political impact of racial conceptions in the geopolitics of post-war era. Thus, this dissertation argues that rather than indicating a definitive retreat from ‘race’ UNESCO’s anti-racism initiatives in the 1950s speak to the persistence and plasticity of ‘race’ and of the fraught attempts to escape its legacy. iii Acknowledgments To begin, I’d like to express deep gratitude to my dissertation committee who provided invaluable guidance through the many stages of this project. Many thanks to my wonderful supervisor Michelle Murphy who always challenged me to keep a broad interdisciplinary readership in mind as the project developed, and whose insightful feedback showed me how to amplify the analytical and political stakes of my writing. I often found myself swimming with new thoughts after my meetings with Michelle and for this I owe her many thanks. I am also very grateful to Mark Solovey and Marga Vicedo, who have been incredibly supportive of this project from its earliest beginnings during their graduate seminars. Thank you Mark for your close and attentive reading of my work and for encouraging me to articulate my arguments with precision and careful framing. Many thanks Marga for all of your practical career advice over the years and also for your helpful editorial feedback. I’m also very grateful to both of my external examiners for their perceptive reading of my dissertation and for opening up new horizons for future iterations of this work. Thank you Eric Jennings for your suggestions on how to bring my work into closer conversation with the fascinating work being done by French colonial historians. I would like to express a special note of gratitude to Alejandra Bronfman for her careful reading of my dissertation iv and her encouraging and highly thought-provoking commentary. Alejandra’s feedback will serve as an invaluable point of reference as I further develop this work. In keeping with the transnational scope of this project, this dissertation was funded and supported by various institutions on both sides of the Atlantic. My graduate studies and the research for this dissertation would not have been possible without the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the University of Toronto. I received additional support for travel and research from the Consortium for the History and Philosophy of Biology, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. While conducting my archival research in Paris, I benefitted greatly from the administrative support and resources of the Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et Techniques at the Université Paris 1. During my archival research, I was incredibly fortunate to receive assistance from many archivists and scholars. At the UNESCO archives, Alexandre Coutelle, Jens Boel, and Adèle Torrance were very helpful in navigating the holdings and Claudine Frank provided useful research advice. For assistance at the Archives des Ethnologues at the Bibliothèque Claude-Lévi-Strauss, I owe many thanks to Marion Abélès, and also to Christine Laurière who provided many useful sources concerning the history of French anthropology. During my time in Paris, I also benefitted greatly from the support of people at the IHPST and in v particular the guidance of Jean Gayon and the administrative support of Alexandra Arapinis. For their friendship and help navigating the city of Paris, I also thank Antonine Nicoglou and Hilary Drummond. When I began writing my dissertation I benefitted immensely from a two-month visit to the Historicizing Knowledge About Human Biological Diversity research group at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. During my visit, the conversations I had with Veronika Lipphardt, Staffan Müller-Wille, Sandra Widmer were incredibly useful for giving my project momentum and their feedback on my writing was also very helpful in sharpening the focus of my study. Many thanks also to Birgitta Mallinckrodt and Ricky Heintz for their assistance in getting settled at the MPI. For help with accommodations and with getting to know the city of Berlin thanks to Christian Reiss, Mike Laufenberg, Sophia Davis, and Brigit Ramsingh. Over the course of my graduate studies, the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto has provided a great intellectual home, and my debts to IHPST are numerous. My fellow graduate students were an incredible source of solidarity, debate, and friendship over the years. In particular, I’d like to thank Nicolás Sanchez-Guerrero, Rebecca Moore, Agnes Bolinska, Alex Koo, John Christopolous, Delia Gavrus-Clarke, Vivien Hamilton, Isaac Record, Boaz Miller, Mike Thicke, and vi Michelle Hoffman. For useful help and feedback on my writing and grant applications I must also thank several faculty members including Denis Walsh, Anjan Chakravartty, Lucia Dacome, Bert Hall, and Chen Pang Yeang. For their tireless administrative support and encouragement over the years I extend a special note of gratitude to Denise Horsley and Muna Salloum. The University of Toronto, in general, has been an excellent academic home that has provided many fruitful venues for presenting my research and honing my teaching skills. During workshops held at U of T, I received valuable feedback from Matt Farish, Mariana Prado, Nathan Cardon, and Jared Toney. For the past six years, I have been fortunate to be involved with numerous iterations of an undergraduate course examining the history of gender and race in science. While I was a TA for this course I picked up countless pedagogical tips from Brian Beaton and also from my fellow TAs, Sarah Tracy and Sheena Sommers. Over the years my family and dear friends have been an incredible source of love, patience, and moral support. For their friendship I thank Ed Crummey, Maggie Hutcheson, Clare Crummey, Marjory Ditmars, Jordan White, and Matt Klass. Many thanks to my extended family in Toronto for all of their encouragement, and particularly to my tias Julia and Clara, and my cousin Cristina Sanchez. My aunt Yvonne Riaño and my uncle Larryn vii Diamond provided me with valuable academic advice over the years and have always been an excellent model for how to be a successful academic while keeping a sense of humour. For the confidence they’ve shown in me and their nourishing hikes and trips, I must thank my two fathers: Daniel Gil and Barry Wright. My grandparents Cecilia and Jaime and my aunt Jeannette have always had the highest of expectations for me and been immensely supportive during every stage of my studies. I am so grateful for all their kindness. I am deeply grateful to my mom, Pilar Riaño, for all of her enthusiasm, unwavering support, and tenacity, and for providing me with such a wonderful model of how to blend scholarly and political commitments. Muchisimas gracias Mama. And, lastly, a loving note of gratitude to my partner Adriann Moss who stuck with me even when my writing seemed to take over, and patiently listened to my half-baked ideas and challenged me to make them more intelligible. Thank you for