Scientific answers for political questions: Creating universality in the UNESCO Race Statements, 1950- 1951.

Abstract

In 1945 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) was founded with the purpose of ‘building peace in the minds of men.’ Its directorate believed that if it could explain the ‘misconceived notion of racism’ to the world, it could end worldwide racism. To do so, UNESCO brought together a group of renowned scholars, that published a Statement on Race. This scientific summary suggested to replace the term ‘race’ with ‘ethnic group’. Controversy arose when a group of British anthropologists criticized and this statement on scientific grounds. In reaction, UNESCO published a second, more modest statement. In this thesis, I focus on the strategies employed by UNESCO and how this supra-national organisation adhered to scientists. I investigate how UNESCO’s Committee of Experts created a new universal picture of race. In trying to give scientific answers to political questions, it shaped the outlook of race after the Second World War.