Economic shifts toward industrial and mineral extraction drove new racial conceptions

Evidence

The shifts in prevailing racial conception are threaded through shifts in political economy, from slave-based economies to the industria l revolution, colonial expansion and solidification, and they are determin ed in part by the discovery of mineral resources in the colonies. The latter, in particular, was seen to necessitate a steady, adrninistratively managea ble, and inexpensive labor supply. Thus, the imperatives of exploitab iliry prompted by but also requiring a sense of quasior subhuma nness are tion of (legal) personhood for contractual purposes and legal managetied nevertheless to adminiStrative requirements demanding recogniment (Comaroff 1998). — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 35

Related

• Racialized colonial knowledge rested on flexible strategic attributes, not fixed essences (similarity 0.79)
• The Negro’s creation served Western economic and industrial development requirements (similarity 0.79)
• The colonial category ‘Negro’ was invented alongside slave labor growth (similarity 0.78)