Race and Racism

Modern Understandings of Race

During the 19th century, scientists were concerned with the identification and classification of hierarchies of race. Geographers of that period, and of the early 20th century, sought to identify the relationship between these assumed a priori racial categories and place. For many geographers, race and place were intricately connected; particular kinds of places and particular kinds of climate produced particular kinds of racial characteristics. This form of knowledge construction—now described as environmental determinism—played an important role in both colonialism and the eugenics movement and was very influential in early-20th-century geography. It lost favor, however, after concerted attacks from human geographers, most notably Carl Sauer. It was also tainted by its association with Nazism. For a period from the 1940s onward, the issue of race dropped out of geography and geographic research. Geographers, in common with other social scientists, tended to research and write as if race did not exist.

The Problems of Race

From the mid-1960s onward, American geographers in particular became explicitly interested in issues of race. This shift coincided with the reinvigoration of the U.S. civil rights movement, which drew attention to the ways in which African Americans had been systematically discriminated against by structures of white privilege. This also coincided with a movement within geography to make the discipline more socially relevant. As a consequence, geographers began to engage with social “problems” such as segregation, riots, gerrymandering, and the creation of ghettos. In so doing, geographers sought to use a range of different techniques to map, identify, and analyze the ways in which social problems and race were linked. These included spatial analytic methods with an emphasis on spatial distribution, interactions, and inequalities. Although this started to make race more visible, spatial relations were the primary object of analysis. Race was understood, in this context, as an unproblematic[Page 400] explanatory variable. However, this approach exemplifies one of the three broad ways in which geographers have engaged with issues of racism: through identifying the spatial consequences of racist structures, processes, and practices. This form of engagement continues, most recently with developments in the area of environmental racism and environmental justice.

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