Introduction

This introductory chapter outlines the book's interventions in the study of race through the lens of the regulation of intimate relationships that traverse and destabilize its purportedly discreet boundaries. In contrast to Europe's self-presentation as a race-less and colour-blind continent, it argues that such regulations have been a mainstay across its colonial, metropolitan and postcolonial histories. It then proceeds to illustrate the chapters included in the volume, which are organized based on a typology of regulations that include but do not stop at overt marriage prohibitions, encompassing spatial-legal segregation, the regulation of the consequences of racial mixing, migration law, up to the enduring shadow of the law.