Keywords
raza
racism
blood purity
breed
How to Cite
Abstract
The concept and terminology associated with the Spanish raza developed as a culturally and linguistically situated metaphor during the medieval period and first decades of the early modern period. The early biologization of raza appears after a first conceptual transfer from the textile field reinforced through semantic overlapping transfers from gemology and metallurgy lexicons. A second push toward this biologization came from an administrative language that leveraged existing though unsystematized vocabulary of (marked) selective reproduction. These developments played a key role in the early racialization of difference.
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