Introduction: Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia and the Caucasus

Abstract

This section brings together a wide variety of countries from three very different regions around the world. These regions are not grouped together with any expectation of similarity or coherence across historical narratives but rather as a result of a lack of data and research on the classification of mixedness. This chapter thus tries to summarize the state of research and measurement outside of the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific: across the rest of the world, our ‘Other’ category. This does not mean that these regions and the countries within them are unimportant for the study of mixedness and ethnic classification—in fact, it means the contrary. These regions are exceptionally diverse, with long histories of mixing and intermingling, classification and conflict, colonialism and struggles for independence. Each country would present a fruitful area for future research, looking at the histories and complications around mixed race, ethnicity, religion, and culture. This introduction provides a brief overview of these immensely complex areas of the world, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, followed by seven chapters which illustrate this complexity and analyse the importance of categorizing (or not categorizing) mixed race and ethnicity in these contexts. These were chosen both on the weight placed on racial/ethnic data in measurement and on the availability of scholars, something which proved a significant challenge for this section.