Race and Empire

The legacies of geography's historical complicity with the racialized logic of empire are profound and have had significant impacts on the ways in which race, racism, and racialization have been approached within geography. The geographies of empire from the late 19th century through the early 20th century demanded attention to a theorization of race; however, as Britain's imperial ambitions waned, the centrality of the study of race within the discipline was displaced. Race became closely entwined with various colonial efforts, and geographers were often complicit in this process. This is not to say that the study of race ceased to be part of geographic thought, but it certainly did not hold the same place within the discipline following World War I. In understanding the history ...