The history of segregation is usually concentrating on modern racial forms of it, in colonial settings or in large urban conglomerates. Mathematical definitions of segregation refer to the ratio between the type of segregated element (e.g. Blacks) in a given larger area and its sub-area. We are suggesting that pre-modern as well as postcolonial forms of segregation are far less determined by this space/race-alignment. For a long-term history of segregation concerned with many other dominating themes and objects of segregation (such as religion, non-racist ethnicity), we propose to concentrate on the fluid cognitive dimension of what segregation is, close distance: ‘distance’ can refer to physical space, but it is also far more open to cognitive forms of distance. ‘Closeness’ aims to draw attention to the fact that both the processing and enacting of separation and difference, from the early to the late period of colonialization, may have nothing to do with how far away or how close together people actually live. Ignorance and ignoring are one of the most important elements of this epistemic core of segregational behaviour and of what creates close distance in societies.

中文翻译：

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近距离。贸易帝国和殖民地的社会隔离——介绍

种族隔离的历史通常集中在殖民环境或大型城市集团中的现代种族形式。偏析的数学定义是指给定的较大区域与其子区域中偏析元素（例如黑人）的类型之间的比率。我们认为前现代和后殖民形式的隔离远不那么受这种空间/种族对齐的影响。对于涉及许多其他主要主题和隔离对象（例如宗教、非种族主义种族）的长期隔离历史，我们建议专注于隔离是什么的流体认知维度，近距离：“距离”可以指的是物理空间，但它对距离的认知形式也更加开放。“亲近”旨在引起人们注意这样一个事实，即从殖民化的早期到晚期，分离和差异的处理和制定，可能与人们实际生活的距离或距离有多近无关。无知和忽视是种族隔离行为认知核心的最重要元素之一，也是造成社会中近距离的原因之一。