Peruvian scientific racism in context. Javier Prado and the “Social State” (1894)

Abstract

The article proposes a focused analysis of academic racialist discourse in Peru in the second half of the 19th century and in the early twentieth century, from the written and academic-political work of Javier Prado y Ugarteche (1871-1921). Particularly emphasizing his 1894 text: Estado Social del Perú durante la dominación española (Social State of Peru during Spanish domination). The hypothesis is that it is possible to trace and expose, around this famous text by Prado, a network of intertextuality. This is because this text-discourse had a ‘successful’ reception at the moment (context) that produces a discursive effect, that is, it generates a debate. Thus, it is possible to articulate around it other discourses that will function as explicit antecedents, contemporary and later texts that will make direct and indirect references to the 1894 text. From there, it aims to help understanding the phenomenon of Peruvian academic racialism more broadly, which in addition to some ‘solitary and arrogant’ discourses at the time constitutes itself as an ‘academic culture’. Understanding Peruvian scientific racism in its production context.