Race and Historical International Relations

This chapter provides a reflection on race and Historical International Relations (IR). It draws from emerging scholarship on the intersections between race, history, and IR and interrogates histories of race in IR and politics. It discusses the importance of race as a lens to understand the development of the modern international state system as well as forming the basis for disciplinary inquiry in IR. This chapter then points to the ongoing discussions and methods used by scholars to recentre race in IR. Drawing from these discussions, it considers the racialization, colonization, and displacements of indigenous communities in North America, noting how intellectual displacements and the displacement of indigenous bodies were facilitated by the development of residential schools. Using this example, we highlight how analysing race can reveal the material and ideational legacies of colonialism, the false division between the domestic and international, and the centrality of race in the maintenance of the current global order and IR.