Infrastructures of Race: Concentration and Biopolitics in Colonial Mexico

Border Hispanisms

by Daniel Nemser

Winner, Humanities Book Prize, Mexico Section of the Latin American Studies Association, 2018 Many scholars believe that the modern concentration camp was born during the Cuban war for independence when Spanish authorities ordered civilians living in rural areas to report to the nearest city with a garrison of Spanish troops. But the practice of spatial concentration—gathering people and things in specific ways, at specific places, and for specific purposes—has a history in Latin America that reaches back to the conquest. In this paradigm-setting book, Daniel Nemser argues that concentration projects, often tied to urbanization, laid an enduring, material groundwork, or infrastructure, for the emergence and consolidation of new forms of racial identity and theories of race. Infrastructures of Race traces the use of concentration as a technique for colonial governance by examining four case studies from Mexico under Spanish centralized towns, disciplinary institutions, segregated neighborhoods, and general collections. Nemser shows how the colonial state used concentration in its attempts to build a new spatial and social order, and he explains why the technique flourished in the colonies. Although the designs for concentration were sometimes contested and short-lived, Nemser demonstrates that they provided a material foundation for ongoing processes of racialization. This finding, which challenges conventional histories of race and mestizaje (racial mixing), promises to deepen our understanding of the way race emerges from spatial politics and techniques of population management.

Genres: History

228 pages, Hardcover

Published May 23, 2017

Reviews

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book would have definitely been a five-star, but the last chapter was a bit disjointed. I get the point the author was trying to make, but it definitely could have used more elaboration and connection with the original thesis and material of the book.

[Allison Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fascinating monograph for my Critical Infrastructures class. The book combined my understanding of infrastructure with the critical theory I learned in undergrad to an area of history I was really interested to learn more about, which will be super helpful for my review due in a week —yay! I am excited to write about it. Super good criticism and then application of Foucault in a colonial context (he is sooooo eurocentric), and also now I need to read Federici's book on Women and Primitive Accumulation. I do think a bit of background in critical theory is necessary to fully understand this and extract its meaning, but it's also fairly manageable. I do agree with some reviews that the last chapter on imperial botany and biopolitics disturbed the flow of Nesmer's argument *a bit*, but it still worked and supported the general theme of infrastructure and the creation of racialized categories. I feel smarter after reading this and also I would kill to take a critical theory class in any capacity wow I miss ENGL360 at McGill.