Strider om ett antirasistiskt rasbegrepp : Gunnar Dahlberg och människokategoriseringarnas vetenskaplighet 1933-1955

In this thesis I study how geneticist and racebiologist Gunnar Dahlberg, through his own writings and participation in the UNESCO statements on ”race”, came to define the concepts of ”race” and ”science”. Dahlberg was a stark opponent of the ”Nazi race doctrine”. He was also in a unique position as head of the State Institute for Human Genetics and Race Biology, during the period here examined. Questions have recently been raised as to how to understand scientists like Dahlberg when he, as well as many other antiracists of his time, did not deny the existence of visible and scientifically provable ”races”. One conlusion I draw is that Dahlberg, nevertheless, in many ways sought to replace the ”race” concepts in his time, for the biological concept of ”isolates”. I also state, in accordance with what other historians of scientific racism has shown, especially when dealing with the UNESCO statements, that the furthering of biological notions was upheld by other scientific areas, such as anthropology. The case was also vice versa, making ”race” at its core biological, but to its exterior a question of social environment. Relying on Thomas F. Gieryns theories of Boundary-work, I want to further our knowledge of how this was made possible. The aim is to show how Dahlberg, rethorically, drew boundaries for the ”scientific truth” about ”race”. I also intend to shed some light on how these contests for authority where percieved and related to by others. In this respect, one conclusion is that concepts of ”modernity”, and different uses of history where employed as demarcations. I will also show how, in dealing with the criticism of the statements, UNESCO produced a pluralist concept of science. Withall, this is a history that raises important questions about science, politics, and the work – consensuses and contests – that foregoes the categories later used to describe and, or, divide human beings.