本文探討近代種族知識在臺灣的展開。從近代自然史成立以來，種族成為以全世界人種為普遍參照架構的一個人類社群分類的全球概念。對於異文化知識生產的學科發展上，由自然史逐漸發展成人類學。而種族知識建構，也從種族型態的描述，逐漸發展到人群單位的分類，乃至其社會屬性的分析。種族知識建構的參與者，或有個別目的，如傳教、商業、與統治，卻不約而同地透過種族概念，或是延伸的社群單位概念，再現所遭逢的異文化社會。臺灣在十九世紀末到二十世紀初，透過西方博物學家、傳教士、以及日本人類學家之手，將地方社會紛雜的人類社群現象，分類編入種族的全球普遍性知識架構中。種族概念的科學宣稱，排除了其他社會再現的地方知識。人類社群的近代知識建構，即便在其他社群分類概念取代種族後，可辨識的、互相區隔的社群單位，形式上仍繼續留存。

This paper explores the unfolding of modern knowledge of race and racial classification in Taiwan. Ever since natural history became a discipline of study in the early modern era, race has emerged as a global concept of universal human classification. The scientific study of diverse human societies as a discipline began with natural history and evolved into branches of human science, namely ethnology and anthropology. The knowledge construction of human diversity had also changed its focus from identifying distinctive racial characteristics and cataloging human taxonomic units to analyzing the social functioning of human groupings. Although participants in knowledge construction of race carried with them various purposes, such as evangelization, commercial or political interests, they all re/present the societies under study using race, or other concepts of human unit derived from it. At the turn of the 20th century, the diverse local human societies of Taiwan were classified and categorized within the global knowledge framework of race by naturalists, missionaries, and anthropologists. The scientific claim of race knowledge in Taiwan made by missionary-naturalist George MacKay and anthropologist Ino Kanori had excluded other representation of local knowledge. Despite of the emergence of other concepts of social classification in modern knowledge construction of human society, race still remains nominally a social unit for identification and distinction.