Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

The definition of race has come under scrutiny by a number of researchers (Case, 2012; Soudien, 2010; Rose & Paisley, 2012). This can include the arguments surrounding the ‘one drop rule.’ This has its origin in the racial segregation laws in the USA that defines the extent to which any person can be considered African-American relates to their having just one African-American ancestor. ‘A black is any person with any known African black ancestry’ (Davis, 2001, p.5). A difficulty with this definition is the fact that race can also be affected in both directions. As Davis (2001, p.6) points out, ‘many of the nation’s black leaders have been of predominantly white ancestry.’ Definition of race can vary from country to country, and the use of the ‘one drop rule’ – as defined in law – is particular only to the USA. Similarly in the UK, as with the USA, despite a significant proportion of individuals self-defining as Mixed Race whilst partaking in respective census measures, the media in each country has continued to define ‘people of colour’ as black. Miscegenation promotes assimilation with all other racial groups, but for African-Americans it disadvantages the white element; for other racial groups it advantages the non-white element (Soudien, 2010). This varied definition of race can thus undermine the fuller understanding of the intersectionality between race: in the USA, not even all non-white groups are discriminated against equally. This renders patterns of discrimination more complex and multilayered than might otherwise be considered.

J. J. Lindsley, “Peggy McIntosh (1997: 291) describes White privilege as ‘an invisible package of unearned assets’. A discussion on the relative advantages and disadvantages of this analogy in advancing our understanding of Whiteness,” Medium, January 8, 2017. https://medium.com/@JohnJLindsley/peggy-mcintosh-1997-291-describes-white-privilege-as-an-invisible-package-of-unearned-assets-732c671f5fb5.

The Presumption of Indigeneity: Colonial Administration, the ‘Community of Race’ and the Category of Indigène in New Caledonia, 1887–1946

Posted in Articles, History, Law, Media Archive, Oceania on 2012-07-07 15:33Z by Steven

The Presumption of Indigeneity: Colonial Administration, the ‘Community of Race’ and the Category of Indigène in New Caledonia, 1887–1946

The Journal of Pacific History
Published online: 2012-06-29
pages 1-20
DOI: 10.1080/00223344.2012.688183

Adrian Muckle, Lecturer in History
Victoria University of Wellington

From 1887 to 1946, the administrative apparatus known as the indigénat provided French administrators in New Caledonia with a set of exceptional measures to streamline the governing and summary repression of persons defined as indigènes (‘natives’). This paper examines the place of the indigénat, the role of colonial administrators in defining one or more communities of race and the variable status of the category of indigène in New Caledonia in the period to 1946. Particular consideration is given to the influence (or absence thereof) of the science of race on administrative thinking about native policy in New Caledonia, the distinctions drawn between different categories of indigène, the extent to which cultural and political divisions between the Grande terre (mainland) and the Loyalty Islands were imagined or constructed in racial terms and the situation of métis (‘half-castes’). The paper argues that an incipient definition of the indigène as a person of Melanesian, Polynesian, mixed or Oceanian race must be understood in the context of the development of the indentured labour and immigration regimes (the importation of workers from Asia and other parts of Oceania) as well as the ways in which the indigénat was differently applied and experienced between New Caledonia’s mainland and its dependencies (notably the Loyalty Islands), as well as by métis.

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Tags: Adrian Muckle, Journal of Pacific History, New Caledonia, The Journal of Pacific History

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The Presumption of Indigeneity: Colonial Administration, the ‘Community of Race’ and the Category of Indigène in New Caledonia, 1887–1946

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