Article
ID: CBB317778701

From Racial Types to Aboriginal Clines: The Illustrative Career of Joseph B. Birdsell (2020)

unapi
Colonialism Morphology Physical anthropology Indigenous peoples; indigeneity Science and race 20th century Australia Birdsell, Joseph B.

The mid-twentieth century Australian fieldwork of Joseph B. Birdsell illustrates, perhaps uniquely, the transition from typological structuring in physical anthropology before World War II to human biology’s increasing interest in the geographical or clinal patterning of genes and commitment to notions of drift and selection. It also shows that some morphological inquiries lingered into the postwar period, as did an attachment to theories of racial migration and hybridization. Birdsell’s intensive and long-term fieldwork among Aboriginal Australians eventually led him to criticize the settler colonialism and white racism that had made possible his expeditions and data collection. Yet he continued to regard Aboriginal communities as “island laboratories” and to treat Aboriginal people as convenient research subjects, distancing himself from their life worlds and experiences of dispossession and exploitation.This essay is part of a special issue entitled Pacific Biologies: How Humans Become Genetic, edited by Warwick Anderson and M. Susan Lindee.

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Authors & Contributors
Roque, Ricardo
Anderson, Warwick H.
Venegas, Cristina
Tyler David Morgenstern
Rice, Carla
Manning, Dolleen Tisawii'ashii
Journals
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Transfers
Science, Technology and Human Values
Perspectives on Science
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
Intellectual History Review
Publishers
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of Hawai'i Press
National University of Singapore Press
University of Minnesota
Concepts
Science and race
Colonialism
Indigenous peoples; indigeneity
Physical anthropology
Cross-cultural interaction; cultural influence
Eugenics
People
Smith, Grafton Elliot
Flinders, Matthew
Baudin, Nicolas
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
20th century, late
20th century, early
18th century
Early modern
Places
Australia
Indonesia
United States
Canada
Great Britain
Queensland (Australia)
Institutions
World Health Organization (WHO)
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