The Origins of 'Raza:' Racializing Difference in Early Spanish

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.