How and why did that same concept subsequently come to be perceived as a dubious ideological notion based on weak evidence and pseudo-scientific reasoning? This book helps to shed light on these questions by examining the activities of Norwegian anthropologists in their national and international historical contexts. Anthropologists in Western Europe operated on the international stage: they were connected with each other through personal and professional networks, and they presented their research findings in anthropological journals, textbooks and conferences aimed at international academic audiences.
The actual research, however, was usually carried out within a national context, was often financed by national funding bodies and conducted by national research institutions, and had the principal aim of studying the racial composition and history of the national or colonial population. Thus, although the history of physical anthropology was affected by the interplay of national, transnational and international processes and contexts, the scope, subject matter and societal role of physical anthropology varied between nations.
Facts and viewpoints that were considered scientifically valid among anthropologists in one country, for example, might elsewhere be deemed controversial or unacceptable.
In the case of Norway, the rise and eventual fall of the concept of the Nordic master race was affected but not determined by shifts in its status within the international scientific world. Simply because they came from a small country, Norwegian anthropologists had a particularly strong international orientation, and therefore the history of Norwegian physical anthropology and its engagement with the idea of a Nordic race must be understood in an international context.
This book is not, however, a systematic comparative study, nor is it a general account of the international history of physical anthropology.
Instead, Measuring the Master Race limits itself to exploring important historical connections between physical anthropology, racial science and the concept of a Nordic race in Norway and in other countries with links to the Norwegian academic community. And all this research was entwined with ongoing academic, political and cultural tugs-of-war over Norwegian national identity.
Measuring the Master Race traces some of these interconnections. The book examines how physical anthropological race theories, and the idea of a Nordic master race in particular, shaped the national narratives advocated by Norwegian philologists, historians, archaeologists and public intellectuals; it offers an analysis of the influence wielded by these academic debates and ideological struggles over national identity on Norwegian anthropology.
Eugenicists feared that the biological evolution of humankind had been arrested by anti-selective forces in modern society, and they called for an interventionist population policy in order to protect superior elements from being outnumbered by inferior ones. Eugenicists generally turned their attention towards individuals and families carrying those genetic traits assumed to be inferior.
Some eugenicists, however, maintained that the primary goal of eugenics was to protect the superior races — first and foremost the Nordic race — against miscegenation and to help them expand at the expense of supposedly inferior races. According to these eugenicists, physical anthropology was highly relevant to eugenics, since the anthropological mapping of inferior and superior racial elements in a population was regarded as a way of assessing its genetic quality. This book elucidates the relationship in Norway between eugenics, anthropology and the concept of a superior Nordic race.
In addition to the Norwegian edition of this book, Kortskaller og langskaller , 1 a descriptive overview of the history of Norwegian physical anthropology was published in Norwegian in by the anatomist Per Holck. In addition to Holck various scholars have addressed specific issues in the history of Norwegian physical anthropology. Of particular importance has been the history of early twentieth-century physical anthropological research on the Sami, the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia.
This research included the excavation of a substantial number of human skulls from Sami graves in northern Norway, skulls still stored in the anthropological collection at the University of Oslo. The Sami grave excavations are today generally perceived as a racist undertaking characterised by a lack of respect for the affected Sami communities; there is an ongoing debate about the future of the skulls, some of which were reburied in The topical relevance of this issue has led to a number of historical inquiries into the physical anthropological research carried out in this period.
The most comprehensive of these works are those written by Per Haave and Nils Roll-Hansen, and my account of Norwegian eugenics is greatly indebted to them. However, neither Haave nor Roll-Hansen have specifically turned their attention to the relationship between physical anthropology and eugenics, which is one of the focuses of my research.
The book begins with a short account of some key events in the rise of the scientific concept of a Germanic race. In the s and s, Scandinavian anatomists, archaeologists, linguists, historians and ethnographers put forward a grand theory claiming that a succession of different races had migrated to Europe in prehistoric times and had given rise to the various European nations.
According to this theory, a Germanic race existed that could be scientifically delineated and identified. This race was tall, blond, blue-eyed and had an elongated head shape. It was assumed to have settled in Europe during the Iron Age, established itself as a ruling caste over the previously settled populations and ushered in the development of an advanced European civilisation.
This theory achieved great international acclaim and went on to have long-lasting effects on academic debates about history and national origin in Europe. These historians traced the roots of the nation back to the invasion of a Germanic Iron Age tribe and praised Norwegians for being the principal bearers of Germanic virtues. This national myth of origin was widely believed and endorsed by Norwegian historians, philologists and archaeologists in the mid-nineteenth century, but beginning in the late s it was overthrown by the views of a new generation of scholars.
This led to a revival of Norwegian ideas of nationhood based on racial determinism and Germanic racial superiority, and in chapter 4 I argue that such ideas had a significant, but not pervasive, impact on the prevailing concepts of nationhood among the Norwegian academic elite.
Around the turn of the century it was conventional to think that Norwegians had their prehistoric roots in a Germanic race; however, it was not commonplace to explain Norwegian culture and history as predominantly determined by inherited Germanic virtues.
Chapters 6 and 7 present the leading Norwegian anthropologists of the s and s, and argue that they all supported eugenics but had different views on the relationship between eugenics and anthropology. Despite the fact that Canada has made much progress, unfortunately racism and racial discrimination remain a persistent reality in Canadian society. This fact must be acknowledged as a starting point to effectively address racism and racial discrimination.
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