Abstract:
This article traces how historical constructions of Jews – informed by
protean notions of social, cultural, and physical difference in Europe –
were transplanted into the colonial imagination, infusing the writings of
scientists, state officials, and the popular press at the Cape colony from the
late nineteenth century onwards. It focuses in particular on how eugenic
ideas were expressed in the scientific literature, adding momentum to
calls for the segregation and sterilization of social “undesirables”, and for
greater regulation and control by the nascent South African state.
