Racist and sociological academic trends converged in rejecting African assimilation

Evidence

Finally, by the end of the nineteenth century assimilation had been rejected in Parisian colonial circles influenced by both racist and progressive trends in the social sciences. … Physical anthropology since mid-century had emphasized Africans’ racial inferiority and insisted that they were incapable of following the same trajectory as Westerners. The newer discipline of sociology also stressed the differences between human societies; but it studied cultural rather than racial differences, and did not see these differences as immutable. Despite their antithetical conclusions, both trends argued against a continued policy of assimilation. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 267

Categorization

• XREF: This connects to the reader’s interest in how republicanism was forced onto West Africa — the intellectual foundation that pushed France toward differentiating, not assimilating, colonial subjects.