Racism/History

Races in the sense of this project are social, cultural or political constructions in the form of explicit or implicit racist ideologies, created for purposes like exploitation and suppression. Races in the sense of this institute are groups of people discriminated against (positively or negatively) by a racist ideology. The aim of the research is to find out how, when, where, by whom and for what reason and purpose such constructions have been created, how the ideas involved developed and how they influenced history. In this sense, the research of this institute may be called biased.

Scope
The scope of this project may include questions like:


 * Research about the origin of racism
 * in Western culture.
 * Where and when did the idea of dividing humans into "races" originate. Possible questions here are for example:
 * Is the origin of racism related to the Spanish reconquista, the crusades etc.?
 * Where, when and why did the specific anti-"black" form of racism in Western culture begin?
 * Does it stem from Arab-Muslim prejudices against non-Arabs during the Umayyad conquests?
 * Are its roots to be found in Biblical Israel, or earlier?
 * in Chinese Culture
 * What are the oldest Chinese records which state that non-Chinese peoples are racially inferior?

Initially, an annotated bibliography about this topic shall be developed. This can then be used to develop teaching materials and to improve the quality of the coverage of the subject on Wikipedia. (An example of the method to be used for this can be seen in the Department of African philosophy.)

Further goals of this project include:
 * Creating the basis for the improvement of the quality of coverage of these topics in Wikipedia.
 * Creation of teaching materials about the origins and history of racism for schools and universities worldwide.

Links
Racism