Naturalizing the Nation: Physical Anthropology in Greece, 1880s–1950s

The history of physical anthropology in Greece from the late-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century coincides with a watershed in national and international efforts to redraw national and imperial borders, assert peoples' ancient origins and contemporary belonging, and control demographic changes and human mobility. The thesis draws on the previously unexamined archive of the Anthropological Museum at the University of Athens and a wealth of published sources to narrate a novel story from a history of science perspective. It reveals how the narrative of continuity between ancient and modern Greeks was central and scientifically consequential in national as well as international debates among those scientists who sought to measure and classify human bodies and minds. By paying attention to national and transnational projects that facilitated and controlled the movement of knowledge embodied in people, research products, and things, the thesis makes five contributions. Firstly, it demonstrates the complex negotiations between national and transnational science, which Greek anthropologists tried to navigate by upholding to the ideal of an objective, neutral, and apolitical comparative scientific endeavor. Secondly, it unveils the equal importance of multiple localities—the laboratory, the museum, the press, scholarly societies, meetings, and publications—where racial knowledge was simultaneously produced and communicated. Thirdly, it highlights the creative local appropriations of contemporary theories and methodologies, and how Greek scholars attempted to hold pace with their international peers, but also contribute on equal footing. Fourthly, it illuminates the long coexistence of often presumed contradictory theories of evolution and heredity, newer and older methodologies of measurement, and diverse eugenic styles. Finally, it offers a new appreciation of the link between the science of race and politics, and the enduring presence of power relations in the national and transnational encounters among those who defined human bodies and the bodies which were subjects of research.