Science, Sexuality, and Race in the United States and Australia, 1780s-1890s

Smithers, Gregory D.

doi:10.4324/9780203887813

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…The industrialization of animal bodies was advanced by the emergence of data collection and genealogical record keeping, which arose together in the eighteenth century (Ritvo, 1987;Orland, 2004). Prize animals served the rhetorical purpose of reflecting good breeding on their owners (Ritvo, 1987(Ritvo, , 1996 at a time when whether 'good breeding' was the result of upbringing or parentage was a heated debate in English society (Smithers, 2009). As we learn from Clarke (1998), many techniques now used in human reproductive medicine were developed for use in cattle.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the historical entanglements of human and bovine genealogy and reproductive technologies, how might we think about human reproduction, family history, and genealogy in light of the analytic 'pedigree practices' and the case study of Precision 1680? Discourses of biological inheritance, good breeding, and an interest in the rhetorical power of pedigrees co-arose in both domains in the eighteenth century, concomitant with a fascination with races, species, and other biological kinds (Ritvo, 1987(Ritvo, , 1996Smithers, 2009).…”

Section: Genealogy As Reproductive Interventionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The breeder remarked that it was up to the farm hands to reproduce because 'most people are too inbred'. This was an astounding claim, demonstrably untrue, but it signalled the fraught entanglements of genealogy and reproduction with discourses of 'good breeding' (Smithers, 2009). Tellingly, when the conversation turned to breeding methods for horses, the breeder described a programme of very close line breeding, of inbreeding, used to stabilize breeds by producing animals who are homozygous for desirable traits: 'I always mate the son back to the mother or the daughter to the father'.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Certified Angus, Certified Patriot: Breeding, Bodies, and Pedigree Practices

Calvert

2013

Science as Culture

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The pedigree chart is a cornerstone technology for producing bodies and value in livestock pure breeding. It organizes a cluster of processes, technologies, and discourses gathered under the rubric 'pedigree practices'. Angus breeders commonly use artificial insemination to import performance 'genetics' into their herds, using the 'expected progeny differences' predicted by massive pedigree databases that now also contain phenotype data reported by cattle growers. Discourses of biological inheritance, good breeding, and pedigrees arose in the eighteenth century, concomitant with a fascination with races, species, and other biological kinds. A case study from Angus cattle breeding illustrates pedigree practices and the bodies made through them, showing how information and computing technologies, assisted reproductive technologies, and discourses of good breeding, purity, health, and disease leveraged a single bull and the two genetic diseases he carried into the pedigrees of up to 10% of the Angus herd. Technologies now widely used in human reproductive medicine were developed for use in livestock animals, especially cattle, extending a long relationship between cows and humans. While the development of these pedigree practices represents increased control over animal reproduction and bodies, it has also been instrumental in rendering all animal bodies, including human bodies, not only more technically but also more rhetorically available for reproductive interventions. These interventions may amplify anxieties about health, species, breed, and kin while also providing opportunities for contesting the boundaries of these nature -cultural categories.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Genealogy As Reproductive Interventionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Certified Angus, Certified Patriot: Breeding, Bodies, and Pedigree Practices

Calvert

2013

Science as Culture

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“…Advocates of Racial Whitening believed that the Black race would improve genetically (or even disappear completely) within a few generations of mixed breeding between Whites and Blacks (Skidmore, 1974). For many White progressives, Darwinian sexual selection offered an answer to stopping the "Negro problem," because racial mixing would ultimately eradicate the "oligarchy of the skin" (Smithers, 2008). Gordon (1964) refers to this phenomenon of Racial Whitening as "identificational assimilation," which posits that racial mixing can lead to the "Whitening" of racial minorities thanks to the removal of non-White racial distinction.…”

Section: Multiraciality In the United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Race of the Future: Mixing of Colors in the United States Leading to One Race?

Matusitz

Davidson

2015

Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment

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This article examines the impacts of the race of the future theory on the U.S. population. By and large, the theory posits that the mixing of different races-due to the process of miscegenation, especially in marriage, cohabitation, or sexual relations-will blend all races, so much so that, in the future, the end result of this mixing will be a panracial formation (i.e., one race). In this analysis, the authors attempt to determine whether the mixing of colors currently happening in the United States will lead to one race and what the race of the future in the United States will "look" like. One of the major conclusions is that, although the possibility of the existence of the race of the future has yet to be established, the degree of multiraciality in the U.S. population is rapidly growing (based on data and statistics from the U.S. Bureau of the Census).

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“…As Smithers demonstrates narratives of 'Whiteness' were frequently a prelude to racial separatism, or to complete exclusion. 17 Social Darwinist ideas and projects provided the underpinning for a flourishing culture of scientific investigation that fostered crude, dismissive stereotypes of other ethnic and religious identities. A notable feature of recent scholarship in this area is analysis of the degree to which other settler societies, particularly the United States, drew from the example of the Australian colonies.…”

Section: Scientific Racism and 'Whiteness' In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Chinese Emigration to Australia around 1900: A Re‐examination of Australia’s ‘Great White Walls’

Taylor

2013

History Compass

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This article reassesses the debates around Chinese emigration into the Australian colonies before Federation in 1901. Drawing on the literature relating to the emergence of the Chinese community in Australia, it argues that pressures exerted by anti‐Chinese organisations that thrived following the expansion of representative democracy in the Australian colonies, and the emergence of organised labour parties, were instrumental in the creation of exclusionary campaigns waged against Chinese migrants. By depicting the Chinese as temperamentally unsuited to democracy and through campaigns to highlight the impact of imported, low cost manual workers into the Australian colonies, the new forces of colonial labour led by radical politicians were at the heart of an attempt to erect ‘White Walls’ against migrants from South‐East and East Asia. These campaigns drew on a fund of images and popular fears that cohered around the role of the opium den, and the solitary, itinerant Chinese male.

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Science, Sexuality, and Race in the United States and Australia, 1780s-1890s

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Certified Angus, Certified Patriot: Breeding, Bodies, and Pedigree Practices

Certified Angus, Certified Patriot: Breeding, Bodies, and Pedigree Practices

Race of the Future: Mixing of Colors in the United States Leading to One Race?

Chinese Emigration to Australia around 1900: A Re‐examination of Australia’s ‘Great White Walls’

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