ABSTRACT
The background of the UNESCO statement on "the race question" cannot be explained without acknowledging the historical backdrop of the atrocities committed during World War II, including the Holocaust and the focus on eugenics. The aspect to consider is who the members of the committee that drafted and wrote the statement were. Lavik points out, a clear example of this is how the link between intelligence and "race" is debunked in the statement to remove the idea that human behavior, intellect and cultural and social development are interlinked. The conflation of "race" and "ethnicity" creates a hybrid between not only "ethnicity" and "race" per se, but also between two taxonomies and perhaps even two epistemologies. The turn away from "biology as destiny" or from "race" to "ethnicity" is underlined in the statement by a "culturization" of the body or rather the perceived differences between various "races".
