Race, Science, and the Legitimization of White Supremacy in South Africa, 1902-1940

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Periodical article

Title:	Race, Science, and the Legitimization of White Supremacy in South Africa, 1902-1940
Author:	Rich, Paul
Year:	1990
Periodical:	International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:	23
Issue:	4
Pages:	665-686
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	segregation history Politics and Government Ethnic and Race Relations Law, Human Rights and Violence History and Exploration
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/219503
Abstract:	Recent efforts at refining historical knowledge on the nature and trajectory of South African segregationist ideology indicate that it has to be taken far more seriously in its impact on the political economy of South Africa than many historians of an earlier liberal generation have imagined. Segregation was not simply the atavistic product of a preindustrial frontier but was part of a wider pattern of modernization of South African society. To this extent, segregation can be seen as an extremely adaptive and protean ideology that focused a drive towards the 'highest stage of white supremacy'. As part of this drive, there was a clear desire to incorporate modern and 'scientific' modes of discourse within the segregationist lexicon. This paper shows how this was for a period an important part of the South African debate on race before the emergence of apartheid. It was superseded in the 1930s by a language that was influenced by an anthropology emphasizing cultural rather than racial differences. Notes, ref.