“My thesis “Borderlines of Empire” investigates how Georgian and Victorian-era depictions of mixed-race figures disrupted British racial ideologies as the empire expanded. The field of “race science” first emerged in the early eighteenth century, seeking to systematize human difference into a fixed hierarchy that served European imperial interests. Yet the existence and varied portrayals of mixed-race individuals, particularly in the context of the British Empire, exposed the instability of these rigid racial categories. Critical analysis of different visual and textual sources from both Britain and the colonies demonstrates how representations of mixed-race figures revealed race to be an inconsistent tool of empire, fuelled by anxieties about national identity and social order. In essence, my thesis argues that mixed-race representation played a crucial role in exposing the artificiality of race as scientific truth and revealing its strategic use as an imperial instrument of control and boundary-making.”