Unstable Races?

Abstract The article examines a specific connection between practices of cultural appropriation and racialising attributions that emerged in the aftermath of the English conquest of Ireland in the late Middle Ages and early modern period. It will be examined whether or to what extent analogies to modern concepts of race can be observed in this context. To this end, the focus is placed on contemporary perceptions of the adoption of cultural phenomena by the English conquerors who settled in Ireland from the 12 th century onwards and in some respects assimilated into their social environment. These perceptions are then linked to contemporaneous forms of ethnic stereotyping put forward by the English in relation to the native Irish in order to legitimise the conquest of the island. It is argued that the transfer of this stereotyping to those actors who, as descendants of the English colonists, had adapted to their cultural environment in Ireland was accompanied by the formation of a specific concept of ‘race’ in the sixteenth century, which is instructive in terms of the discursive orders in which it emerged. Against this background, similarities and differences between medieval and modern concepts of race are discussed.