Foreign Bodies: Oceania and the Science of Race 1750-1940

Time, indigeneity and white anti‐racism in Australia

“…From the moment Australia was first colonised, Indigenous culture has been considered by many Europeans to be on the verge of death. The inevitable extinction of ‘primitive races’ had been a European trope since the late 1700s, but was consolidated with the rise of ‘social Darwinism’ in the late nineteenth century (McGregor ; Brantlinger ; Douglas and Ballard ). Before Darwin, ‘primitive’ races were thought to be at risk of extinction through any combination of tribal or colonial warfare, introduced diseases, and ‘self‐extinction’ via the destructive effects of ‘savage’ customs.…”

Discovery and Empire: The French in the South Seas

“…History has long since absolved Baudin of the charges of brutality and incompetence that were levelled at him, concluding that his "bad reputation" was undeserved, even fabricated for political reasons. 7 The time is therefore ripe to re-open the case of his relationship to the extended family of French mariners, which, in turn, opens a much wider set of questions. What did it mean to occupy "worthily" the rank of scientific voyager at that particular time, that is, in the context of French maritime discovery of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries?…”

“…Constance Classen observes that "Different cultures present strikingly different ways of 'making sense' of the world", for different cultures recognise varying numbers of senses, and privilege different senses. 7 In the modern West it has long been maintained that the sense of sight dominates our way of thinking, and since the Enlightenment this sense has served "as an authenticator of truth, courier of reason, and custodian of the intellect". At the same time, the other senses were "essentially sidelined".…”

“…Over this period, a succession of voyages left France for the southern seas: Bougainville, Surville, Marion du Fresne, Kerguelen and Saint-Allouarn, La Pérouse, d'Entrecasteaux, Baudin. 7 Many of these navigators visited parts of Australia and Van Diemen's Land, some by accident, others by design. Such visits continued into the nineteenth century, with voyages such as those of Louis Freycinet, Duperrey, Hyacinthe de Bougainville and Dumont d'Urville continuing the tradition of French exploration in and around Australia and New Zealand during the fifteen year period that followed the fall of Napoleon.…”

“…Raynal continues on to underline the distinctly mixed consequences of the growing convergence that such expansion brought in its wake, arguing that because of it "a general intercourse of opinions, laws and customs, diseases and remedies, virtues and vices, was established throughout the world". 7 The impulses that drove Columbus and his contemporaries outwards from Europe were to be the main forces which promoted the more general convergence of humankind: the quest for God, Gold and Glory. These were the centripetal forces that from about 1000 AD began to counter the centrifugal forces that for millennia had led to the growing dispersal and divergence of humankind-chief among the latter being the quest for untapped resources and the attempt to escape one's enemies.…”