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... Feminist, post and decolonial studies 1 and critical social scientists have a long tradition of uncovering the uneven power dynamics that shape what knowledge is considered legitimate, showing how power privileges Western science while dismissing other knowledge systems (e.g., McLeod, 2000;Jasanoff, 2004;Lizcano, 2006;Harding, 2009;Blaser, 2013;Todd, 2015). Accordingly, an increasing body of literature critically engages with climate change knowledge politics, analysing how knowledge is produced and whose knowledge and voices are heard (Hulme, 2010;Goldman et al., 2018;Mahony and Hulme, 2018). ...
... Historical literature was reviewed and coded in NVivo. We present the results following three historical periods defined based on the main socio-economic and political changes in Senegalese history: 1900Senegalese history: -19601960-2000 (independence with socialist government and structural adjustment programs); 2000-nowadays (liberal period). For each period, we coded information on reported crop diversity, crop diversity trends, interventions, and crops affected by the interventions. ...
... An interfering factor can also be added: the turn in the field of imperialism studies, or imperial history, which built its own tradition from the late nineteenth century. But along with the "end of empire" and progressive decolonization movements in the 1960s came an increasing interest in science and technology as instruments of postcolonial development (MacLeod 2000). This new perspective questioned the underlying imperialism: "imperialism was more than a set of economic, political and military phenomena. ...
... The three "movements" or tendencies mentioned above led to a process of crossfertilization, which may be considered to be at the heart of the qualitative and quantitative spread of colonial and decolonial history of science studies. During the 1980s, the history of science within imperial and colonial contexts had also become a new "venue," expressing the convergence of interests from scholars in economic history, world/global history, the history of medicine, diseases and public health, and environmental changes throughout history (MacLeod 2000). Some notable developments resulting from this convergence for institutions and their renewed practices include the Latin American Society for the History of Sciences and Technology (SLHCT, Sociedad Latinoamericana de Historia de las Ciencias y la Tecnología) and the Sciences and Empires Commission. ...
... An interfering factor can also be added: the turn in the field of imperialism studies, or imperial history, which built its own tradition from the late nineteenth century. But along with the "end of empire" and progressive decolonization movements in the 1960s came an increasing interest in science and technology as instruments of postcolonial development (MacLeod 2000). This new perspective questioned the underlying imperialism: "imperialism was more than a set of economic, political and military phenomena. ...
... The three "movements" or tendencies mentioned above led to a process of crossfertilization, which may be considered to be at the heart of the qualitative and quantitative spread of colonial and decolonial history of science studies. During the 1980s, the history of science within imperial and colonial contexts had also become a new "venue," expressing the convergence of interests from scholars in economic history, world/global history, the history of medicine, diseases and public health, and environmental changes throughout history (MacLeod 2000). Some notable developments resulting from this convergence for institutions and their renewed practices include the Latin American Society for the History of Sciences and Technology (SLHCT, Sociedad Latinoamericana de Historia de las Ciencias y la Tecnología) and the Sciences and Empires Commission. ...
... An interfering factor can also be added: the turn in the field of imperialism studies, or imperial history, which built its own tradition from the late nineteenth century. But along with the "end of empire" and progressive decolonization movements in the 1960s came an increasing interest in science and technology as instruments of postcolonial development (MacLeod 2000). This new perspective questioned the underlying imperialism: "imperialism was more than a set of economic, political and military phenomena. ...
... The three "movements" or tendencies mentioned above led to a process of crossfertilization, which may be considered to be at the heart of the qualitative and quantitative spread of colonial and decolonial history of science studies. During the 1980s, the history of science within imperial and colonial contexts had also become a new "venue," expressing the convergence of interests from scholars in economic history, world/global history, the history of medicine, diseases and public health, and environmental changes throughout history (MacLeod 2000). Some notable developments resulting from this convergence for institutions and their renewed practices include the Latin American Society for the History of Sciences and Technology (SLHCT, Sociedad Latinoamericana de Historia de las Ciencias y la Tecnología) and the Sciences and Empires Commission. ...
... Whenever historians of science have looked beyond these spaces, they have remained mostly interested in science in 'expedition-exploration mode' (Heggie, 2014) or in field work and 'collecting science' (Kohler, 2007) -neglecting permanent scientific places 'elsewhere,' especially in remote locations. This article thus sheds light on scientific places at the margins of the overseas territories inherited from France's colonial empire, and thereby contributes to the literature on how the power of industrialised European societies, their modes of governability and even scientific modernity itself, are often rooted in remote (post)colonial scientific experiments (MacLeod, 2000). ...
... Indigenous elites often perceived their engagement with novel forms of knowledge as opportunities for cultural and intellectual renewal. Contemporary analysis further highlights the localized nature of knowledge, suggesting that the genesis of new knowledge is contingent upon the dialogic engagement between differing epistemic frameworks, fostering the emergence of new knowledge institutions 14 . ...
The exchange of knowledge between India and Europe during the early modern period represents a multifaceted phenomenon that has predominantly been perceived as a unidirectional flow. This study delves into the peripheries of the British Empire, specifically the princely state of Tanjore in 19th century India, to highlight the critical role of Raja Serfoji II in the promotion of knowledge production and exchange. Situated on the fringes of the colonial empire, Tanjore emerged as an exceptional locus for scholarly activities, while simultaneously engaging with the expansive global intellectual landscape. The endeavors of Raja Serfoji II, most notably the founding of the esteemed Saraswati Mahal Library, are scrutinized as central nodes for the conservation and diffusion of knowledge. Utilizing a multidisciplinary methodology that integrates historical analysis, archival exploration, and cultural studies, this research endeavors to disentangle the intricate networks of knowledge exchange within Tanjore during this timeframe. It underscores the necessity of appreciating the reciprocal nature of knowledge exchange in the expansive narrative of colonial history, thereby enhancing our understanding of the intricate dynamics that characterized these interactions.
... More contemporary perspectives emphasize the local character of knowledge and that new knowledge can only be created when disparate epistemologies engage and give rise to institutions of knowledge . 14 In the Indian context, the dispersion of Enlightenment ideals and the growth of knowledge production have always been understood in terms of the interests of the British colonial masters. The focus has been limited to the big colonial cities of British India like Calcutta, Madras, Lucknow etc. Furthermore, the process of the emergence of Science and Enlightenment in Colonial India was explained with the help of the evolutionary diffusionist model of George Basalla, which has been long criticized for being Eurocentric and teleological. ...
Knowledge exchange between India and Europe during the early
modern period is a complex phenomenon primarily understood as a linear
process. Focusing on the periphery of the British Empire, the princely state of
Tanjore in 19th century India, the study uncovers the pivotal role played by Raja
Serfoji II in fostering knowledge production and exchange. Tanjore, positioned at
the edges of the colonial empire, emerged as a unique centre for intellectual
pursuits while engaging with the broader global landscape. Raja Serfoji II's
initiatives, including the establishment of the renowned Saraswati Mahal Library,
are examined as pivotal hubs of knowledge preservation and dissemination. This
paper employs a multidisciplinary approach, combining historical analysis,
archival research, and cultural studies to unravel the complex web of knowledge
networks operating within Tanjore during this period. The research argues that
knowledge exchange during this era extended beyond the mere transmission of
ideas, as the British in India actively engaged with Indian Knowledge Systems,
impacting not only their own understanding but also shaping the global
intellectual milieu. By offering a comparative perspective and grounding its
analysis in theoretical frameworks of post-colonialism and global history, this
paper illuminates the underexplored narrative of knowledge exchange at the
periphery of empire, reinforcing the importance of understanding the dynamics of
two-way knowledge transmission in the broader context of colonial history.
... It also reflects the tensions, discontinuities, and contradictions that emerge when contrasting local perspectives based on distinct cosmological, ontological, and epistemological grounds with the scientific discourse that dominates climate change debates. Feminist, post and decolonial studies 1 and critical social scientists have a long tradition of uncovering the uneven power dynamics that shape what knowledge is considered legitimate, showing how power privileges Western science while dismissing other knowledge systems (e. g., Blaser, 2013;Harding, 2009;Jasanoff, 2004;Lizcano, 2006;McLeod, 2000;Todd, 2015). Accordingly, an increasing body of literature critically engages with climate change knowledge politics, analysing how knowledge is produced and whose knowledge and voices are heard (Goldman et al., 2018;Hulme, 2010;Mahony and Hulme, 2018). ...
Mainstream discourses frame anthropogenic climate change as a biophysical apolitical problem, thus privileging Western science and silencing other worldviews. Through a case study among the Bassari, an ethnic group in South-Eastern Senegal, we assess the local, embodied, and situated understandings of climate change and the tensions that arise when the apolitical global climate change discourse interacts with situated understandings. Drawing on data from 47 semi-structured interviews and 176 surveys, we find that while the global climate change discourse has not permeated into the Bassari, they experience climate change through its many impacts on the biophysical and socio-economic systems. Results also highlight that climate is not considered the main or only driver of change, but that changes in elements of the climate system are inextricably linked with political and economic dynamics and environmental degradation. Finally, our results point toward the importance of values and supernatural forces in defining situated ways of conceptualizing, interpreting, and responding to change. By including situated worldviews in theoretical understandings of climate and environmental change, we contribute to the claims about the need to reframe how climate change is conceptualized. Our research emphasizes the importance of a relational view of climate change, which requires moving beyond understanding isolated climate change impacts towards defining climate change as a systemic problem. Building on feminist and decolonial literature, we argue for the need for more plural and democratic ways of thinking about climate change, crossing epistemological and ontological boundaries and including local communities and their knowledge and understandings.
... Por una parte, son centrales la forma y el detalle con los que la autora presenta y analiza las maneras en las que los recolectores de barbasco hicieron suyo el lenguaje de la química y de la ciencia, lo que les posibilitó abrirse nuevas vidas en el campo mexicano y desafiar "nociones locales y nacionales de lo que implicaba ser campesino a mediados del siglo XX en México" (Soto Laveaga, 2020, p.290). Por otra parte, es particularmente significativa la manera en la que la autora analizó cómo los químicos y científicos de diferentes compañías farmacéuticas transnacionales y nacionales se apoyaron en los numerosos y supuestamente intangibles conocimientos que los campesinos mexicanos tenían de la flora y de sus usos para descubrir la síntesis de los esteroides (MacLeod, 2000). Y es precisamente la detallada conjunción de lo anterior lo que posibilitó a Gabriela Soto Laveaga escribir un estudio innovador sobre los intercambios y las apropiaciones que forman parte central de las historias de las ciencias. ...
... The use of science by political units -states or empires, especially during wartime -has been widely studied (Forman, 1987;Hamilton, 2003;Herken, 2000;Kevles, 1995;MacLeod, 2001). While most works focus on the mobilization of scientists domestically, the intensification of migratory processes in recent decades has led to increased scholarly attention to the challenges and potential associated with 'scientific diasporas' (Barré et al., 2003), sometimes labeled as 'intellectual diaspora networks', 'diaspora knowledge networks', or 'expatriate knowledge networks' (Brown, 2002;Meyer and Wattiaux, 2006). ...
The nexus between transnational mobilization and Science and Technology Studies (STS) offers a productive platform for studying the formation of scientific activism, the influence of mobilization on scientific developments, and the ways science is used to achieve government goals. Integrating concepts from both sets of literature – particularly national sociotechnical imaginaries and socio-spatial positionality – this article explores how Dr Chaim Weizmann, a prominent chemist and a Zionist leader, attempted to construct and mobilize a ‘scientific diaspora’. Empirically, the article draws on new archival evidence, revealing the hitherto unknown early efforts of the Zionist movement to acquire nuclear reactor and utilize the Jewish involvement in the American nuclear project for political leverage abroad. Theoretically, rather than beginning the analysis with a scientific-diasporic network that was ready to be mobilized, we trace the selective and tailored practices employed by Weizmann to animate the Jewish connection among nuclear scientists and professionals.
... Scholars have examined the deployment of Western science to construct racial boundaries and hierarchies (Dennis 1995;Tallbear 2013), and to justify domination over women (Tuana 1989) and non-humans (Haraway 1978). Scholars have also examined the role of Western science as a tool of colonialism (Dhillon 2020;Griffiths and Robin 1997;MacLeod 2000;Whit 2009). This role is multifaceted and includes the appropriation of Indigenous knowledge for colonial gains, the alignment of scientific and colonial objectives, and the misapplication of Euro-centric Western science in non-European ecological and cultural contexts. ...
Over the last century, the United States Forest Service (USFS) has reversed its stance on the ecological role of fire – from a militant enforcer of forest fire suppression to supporting prescribed fire as a management tool. Meanwhile, the Karuk Tribe has always prioritized cultural burning as a vital spiritual and ecological practice, one that has been actively suppressed by the USFS. This article examines the discursive evolution of USFS fire science through the critical lens of settler colonial theory. A content analysis of agency discourse reveals how the USFS deployed anti-Indigenous rhetoric to justify its own unsubstantiated forest management agenda. USFS leadership racialized light burning by deridingly referring to it as ‘Piute Forestry.’ The agency has also discredited, downplayed, and erased Indigenous peoples and knowledges in ways that invoke tropes of the ‘Indian savage,’ the ‘Vanishing Indian,’ and the concept of ‘Terra Nullius.’ It wasn’t until the 1960s – in the context of the Civil Rights and American Indian Movements – that the USFS began contemplating the value of prescribed fire. This research illustrates the complicated relationship between the settler state and Western science, as well as the malleability of scientific discourse in the face of changing social contexts.
... How technologies contributed to the construction of social identities in colonial contexts (or were instrumentalized this way) has been a particular focus of scholarly attention since Michael Adas famous "Machines as the Measure of Men" [27] (see also [159,[212][213][214][215][216]). Research on the techno-politics of colonialism has shown that technological imageries played a vital role in group and nation building processes as well as in the "othering" of outgroups [217][218][219]. ...
Much has happened since Dipesh Chakrabarty, at the turn of the millennium, paradigmatically called for a “provincialization of Europe”. The paper connects with three major trends in current history of technology, exploring these threads with regards to the Global South in general and post/colonial Africa in particular: (1) exemplifying and (later) disentangling transnational connections; (2) rethinking (colonial) infrastructures; and (3) exploring technologies-in-use, everyday practices and perceptions. Unpacking established Science and Technology concepts such as Thomas P. Hughes “Large (Socio)Technical Systems” (LTS) approach for post/colonial contexts, the paper argues that we need to move beyond the much-invoked “key figures” and drivers of global technological (ex)change and scrutinize place- and time-specific landscapes of technology instead. In particular, we need to pay closer attention to seemingly peripheral actors and actants as well as to the manifold interrelations between the human and the “natural” world.
... In the 19 th century, railways, guns and medical technologies served as indispensable "tools of empire" that enabled the expansion and consolidation of European colonial rule (Headrick, 1981). Colonies functioned as "living laboratories" where animal specimen and human subjects were utilized in medicine and the life sciences in ways that were not possible in the metropole (MacLeod, 2000;Tilley, 2011). Moreover, science and technology constituted core elements in the civilizing mission ideology. ...
In recent years, culture and heritage have explicitly entered into science diplomacy debates and initiatives within the EU system and in EU’s foreign policy. For EU’s external relations heritage offers opportunities for developing partnerships based on shared, entangled histories but also challenges posed by dealing with difficult pasts of domination and colonialism. The paper, therefore, presents a new conceptual model for European science diplomacy that can enable more equitable ways of dealing with colonial heritage in relations between EU countries and partners outside Europe. It does so by combining recent literature on science diplomacy, heritage diplomacy, decolonial thinking, and on the concepts of interculturality. We argue that to engage successfully with colonial legacies and heritage, the concept of science diplomacy needs to be developed from a traditional “diffusionist” understanding towards a dialogical approach, which is epismologically open and acknowledges the inequalities in global knowledge production. In the second part of the paper, the practical implications of the theoretical framework are fleshed out in a discussion of three cases involving colonial heritage: The Tendaguru Fossil Collection, the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Brussels, and the work of Canadian indigenous artist Sonny Assu.
... The scholarship on science and natural history in the Danish-English-Halle Mission is connected to the investigations in the broader field of the history of science in non-Western contexts during the Early Modern period. Central to this field is the constructivist view of science, not as a Western invention, but as a socially negotiated, produced, and situated form of knowledge, which develops through exchanges and practices in polycentric networks on a local and global scale (MacLeod 2000). In the colonial setting, this knowledge was created and utilized to various ends by both indigenous people and Europeans in the entangled and often asymmetrical power relations of the colonial encounter (Schiebinger and Swan 2005;Raj 2006;Cook 2007;Schaffer et al. 2009). ...
This paper explores the role of science in the protestant Danish- and English-Halle Mission in South India in the eighteenth century, c. 1706–1813. During this period, science, broadly construed and including natural history, was employed as a sort of intercultural translating medium for and in the mission. However, the way this medium was utilized changed significantly through three chronological phases. The first phase was one of pre-Linnaean science where the mission collected, transformed and circulated both
texts and objects of science from India with Europe. The aim was to aid religious instruction in Europe and raise support for the mission from Europe. The second phase saw the expansion of science from the mission’s Danish branch to the English branch as well as changes in the kinds of specimens collected and techniques of ordering them. In the final third phase, the role of science in the mission changed due to the introduction of Linnaean taxonomy and Physico-theology. Now scientific objects and instruments were employed as media in the evangelizing efforts of the missionaries within the local Hindu population.
... Without mentioning a "postcolonial" approach, other texts also mention the abandonment of "center-periphery" models. MacLeod (2000) suggested this and proposed instead to study the traffic of ideas and institutions, recognizing reciprocities and using perspectives "colored by the complexity of contact". Secord (2004, p. 669) proposed that the history of science be moved beyond ANT to "a more complete understanding, often nourished by anthropological perspectives, and [should] replace the divisions of center and periphery with new patterns of mutual interdependence". ...
In the form of a sociological pilgrimage, this book approaches some
topics essential to understanding the role of science in Latin America,
juxtaposing several approaches and exploring three main research lines:
First, the production and use of knowledge in these countries, viewed
from a historical and sociological point of view; second, the reciprocal
construction of scientific and public problems, presented through
significant cases such as Latin American Chagas disease; and third, the past and present asymmetries affecting the relationships between centers and peripheries in scientific research. These topics show the paradox of being “modern” and “peripheral” at the same time.
... Medicine has featured centrally in the project of nation-building in India (Amrith, 2006(Amrith, , 2007(Amrith, , 2009Pati & Harrison, 2008). The treatment of various systems of medicine has been a critical element in this project, notably with Western imperial gestures to 'civilise' its colonies (Drayton, 1999;MacLeod, 2000). Colonial administrators demonstrated 'tolerance' to indigenous systems and practices in India, largely because the footprint of biomedicine was limited: 'mostly employed in the growing State bureaucracyin the army, the jails, the railways and so on' (Jeffery, 1982(Jeffery, , pp. 1835(Jeffery, -1836. ...
Medicine and healing have been critical elements of nation-building and governance in India. There is a clear hierarchy: biomedicine, followed by systems like Ayurveda which are to be ‘mainstreamed,’ and local health traditions, which are to be ‘revitalised’. Mindful that power nonetheless resides in positions of marginality, this analysis drew from a health system ethnography on revitalisation of local health traditions in three southern Indian states. Data from multiple interviews with 51 healers, observations of meetings, healing sessions and events convened by healers, as well as a multi-stakeholder dialogue on local health traditions convened by authors were analysed using a grounded analytical process. The state was a source of power, but in an enmeshed, individualised form. Other sources of power included accomplished others who viewed healers and their practices with respect, healers’ collectives that produced and reinforced power through the exercise of certain rituals, and the sacred calling to heal, which assumed stringent criteria for practice and training, while also creating a moral imperative for service orientation. Our study shows how power rests in or is derived from multiple sites and sources that inhere and interact in critical ways with the state and other systems of medicine. © 2019
... Malgré l'asymétrie du rapport colonial, les auteurs observent que les populations colonisées élaborent des stratégies de contourneémerge au sein de l'ACI « Nadirane » à la fin des années 2000 et est alors employé par plusieurs auteurs, dont David Aubin, Jérôme Lamy et Fabien Locher. 4 Pour une présentation du diffusionnisme dans l'historiographie, consulter (MacLeod, 2000 ;Paty, 1992). Lewis Pyenson a publié une trilogie sur l'expansion scientifique des nations européennes au xix e siècle dont le dernier volume est consacré à la France et à ses colonies (Pyenson, 1993). ...
Entre 1830 et 1962, les Français installent des observatoires sur le territoire algérien qu’ils occupent. Trois régimes de spatialité sont identifiés entre 1830 et 1940. Une analyse de ces lieux de construction des savoirs scientifiques est réalisée selon plusieurs niveaux d’échelle spatiale et permet d’en identifier quelques caractéristiques. Enfin, la contribution s’achève par une étude comparative avec quelques observatoires français ayant fait l’objet de monographies historiques afin de définir les caractéristiques propres à la situation coloniale et celles qui relèvent d’une situation commune.
... It should be noted that statistics in India was not merely a (re)application of the technologies of probabilities onto the Indian landscape (Ghosh 1994;Ghosh et al. 1999Ghosh et al. , 2010. The Raj certainly visited number upon the Indian landscape in its large-scale efforts to integrate India into the empire (Kumar 1995;Barber 1998;Arnold 2000;McLeod 2000;Harrison 2005;Endersby 2008). But it also spawned an indigenous interest in the field, and the possibility of using numbers for liberation rather than colonial control. ...
In 1957, John Burdon Sanderson (JBS) Haldane (1892–1964), the world’s leading population geneticist, committed political radical and one of the three ‘founders’ of neo-Darwinian ‘Modern Synthesis’ of twentieth century biology (Sarkar 1995; Haldane 1932; Cain 2009; Smocovitis 1996), ostentatiously renounced both his British citizenship and his prestigious chair at University College London. In a decisively and very public anti-imperial gesture, ostensibly played out as a reaction to the Suez crisis (although his discontent was simmering for quite some time), Haldane, and his partner, geneticist Helen Spurway (1917–1977), turned their backs on Britain and set off to India to offer their considerable scientific prestige, their inexhaustible organisational abilities, along with their leading Journal of Genetics, behind the efforts to build a ‘modern’, democratic India emerging out of the ashes of colonial rule. Haldane’s support of independent India was a major triumph for the new state, itself in the midst of negotiating a fine balance between rapid modernization through science and technology and an postcolonial respect for traditional ‘non-Western’ values. Although his time in India was short, Haldane’s few years in India were marked by a frenzied engagement with the new India, its science, its government and its culture (Rao 2013).
... These links have been traditionally conceived as connecting essentially distinct areas, usually designated by highly polarized categories, such as center/periphery, or metropolitan/colonial (Basalla, 1967;Latour, 1987). In recent years, however, new perspectives on science and imperialism (MacLeod, 2000;Schiebinger, 2005;Seth, 2009), and greater attention to the geographies of science, as theorized by Livingstone (2003), have questioned these rigid categories, showing that the construction of knowledge is a much more complex process, involving encounters between people from different cultures, contributions from different sources, or the appropriation of knowledge for local purposes. Such views emphasize that the construction of knowledge is more accurately described by the concept of ''circulation'' (Secord, 2004;Gavroglu et al., 2008;Raj, 2010Raj, , 2013. ...
This paper discusses the life and scientific work of José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823–1907), a nineteenth-century Portuguese naturalist who carved a new place for zoological research in Portugal and built up a prestigious scientific career by securing appropriate physical and institutional spaces to the discipline. Although he was appointed professor of zoology at the Lisbon Polytechnic School, an institution mainly devoted to the preparatory training of military officers and engineers, he succeeded in creating the conditions that allowed him to develop consistent research in zoology at this institution. Taking advantage of the reconstruction and further improvement of the building of the Lisbon Polytechnic, following a violent fire in 1843, Bocage transferred a natural history museum formerly located at the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon to his institution, where he conquered a more prestigious place for zoology. Although successive governments were unwilling to meet Bocage’s ambitions for the Zoological Section of the newly created National Museum of Lisbon, the collaborators he found in different parts of the Portuguese continental territory and colonial empire supplied him the specimens he needed to make a career as a naturalist. Bocage ultimately became a renowned specialist in Southwestern African fauna thanks to José de Anchieta, his finest collaborator. Travels to foreign museums, and the establishment of links with the international community of zoologists, proved fundamental to build up Bocage’s national and international scientific reputation, as it will be exemplified by the discussion of his discovery of Hyalonema, a specimen with a controversial identity collected off the Portuguese coast.
The text follows the performance of the Latin American Society for the History of Science and Technology (LASHST) in the 1980s and analyzes its contributions to the integration and professionalization of the community of Latin American science historians. It also deals with the theoretical and methodological debates that it implemented, and that contributed to the consolidation of the institutionalization of the History of scientific and technical activities in Latin American countries and the implementation of contextualized approaches.
Les sciences et les technologies façonnent profondément les sociétés contemporaines. Au cours des deux derniers siècles, elles sont devenues un puissant moteur de transformation, comptant parmi les formes les plus significatives de l’activité humaine, inséparables de la vie sociale, politique et économique. Analyser leurs modes de production, les dynamiques de leur circulation, les différentes formes de leur mobilisation et leur contestation est un enjeu académique et politique majeur. Cet ouvrage propose un large panorama de travaux menés en France, d’un champ de recherche international pluridisciplinaire dénommé Science and Technology Studies (STS). Cette étude est le fruit de la collaboration d’une trentaine d’auteurs. Elle a pour ambition de présenter ce domaine de recherche, sa formation, ses apports et les nouvelles perspectives qui se dessinent, en rendant accessibles et en mettant en discussion des travaux insuffisamment connus en France, alors que, paradoxalement, de nombreux chercheurs des institutions françaises contribuent de manière décisive à la production internationale dans ce domaine.
Les découvertes de la fin du xixe siècle, surtout en minéralogie et en microbiologie, ont progressivement fait cesser les spéculations scientifiques au sujet d’un des phénomènes les plus étranges de l’histoire de la colonisation de Hong Kong : son atmosphère meurtrière. Décrits par de nombreux naturalistes, les mystérieux effets dévastateurs du climat s’articulent autour d’un double paradoxe. D’une part, bien avant que l’île ne soit occupée par l’armée britannique, les observateurs érudits de la fin du xviiie et du début du xixe siècle s’interrogent sur l’influence néfaste que le climat semble avoir sur la végétation locale. Située au niveau du tropique du Cancer, la région de Canton, à laquelle les îles de Hong Kong appartiennent, est l’une des plus riches et des plus peuplées de l’Empire chinois. Les Européens s’attendent donc à y découvrir des paysages fertiles et cultivés ainsi que de vastes jungles tropicales. Or, ils s’étonnent systématiquement de l’absence de forêt dont ils cherchent sans succès à déceler les causes naturelles. L’étrangeté du phénomène vaudra même à Hong Kong le surnom de barren rock, ou « rocher aride », dans la presse anglophone lorsqu’en avril 1841, la nouvelle de son acquisition parvient à Londres. D’autre part, au cours des premières années de l’occupation britannique, l’île s’avère rapidement invivable pour les soldats et les premiers colons qui y sont régulièrement victimes d’incessantes vagues d’épidémies baptisées Hongkong fever, ou fièvre hongkongaise. Appliquant les théories médicales néohippocratiques en vigueur au milieu du xixe siècle, les médecins coloniaux assurent que les agents pathogènes émanent, comme ailleurs sous les tropiques, de la végétation en décomposition. Cette conclusion suscite une vive controverse : comment est-il possible qu’une île dépourvue de forêt, connue pour son aridité et surnommée barren rock, le « rocher stérile », puisse favoriser une quelconque décomposition végétale ? Dubitatifs, les contemporains élaborent d’autres hypothèses, parfois contradictoires, qui conduisent même certains à recommander l’abandon immédiat de l’île. S’appuyant sur un corpus des comptes rendus écrits avant et après l’occupation de l’île en 1841, cet article propose d’analyser les conséquences de ce phénomène paradoxal sur le processus de colonisation. Quels types d’inquiétudes la mystérieuse nocivité de l’atmosphère suscite-t-elle alors chez les colons ? Comment les différentes théories médicales en cours au milieu du xixe siècle génèrent-elles de nouvelles anxiétés ?
What drives the implementation of international cooperation in science, technology and innovation (ST&I)? Why do negotiations in some areas evolve to concrete measures and others do not? What factors explain variations in implementation in initiatives with different countries? At which circumstances can implementation be effective from the point of view of developing countries? To answer those questions this paper proposes an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that draws on studies from international politics, political economy, foreign policy analysis, science and technology policy and history of science and technology. The paper departs from conceptual and theoretical elaborations on power and shows how they relate to ST&I and asymmetric negotiations involving developing countries and powerful counterparts. It concludes by an attempt to integrate key points raised by the revised literature, proposing four patterns on implementation and non-implementation and illustrating them with suggested cases for future research on Brazil-United States nuclear and aeronautic agreements and Brazil-China space and agriculture agreements.
The growth of botany following European expansion and the consequent increase of plants necessitated significant development in classification methodology, during the key decades spanning the late 17th to the mid-18th century, leading to the emergence of a “natural method.” Much of this development was driven by the need to accurately identify medicinal plants, and was founded on the principle of analogy, used particularly in relation to properties. Analogical reasoning established correlations (affinities) between plants, moreover between their external and internal characteristics (here, medicinal properties). The diversity of plants, names, and botanical information gathered worldwide amplified confusion. This triggered the systematisation of the collection and referencing of data, prioritizing the meticulous observation of plant characteristics and the recording of medicinal properties as established by tradition: it resulted in principled methods of natural classification and nomenclature, represented by the genus, to enhance reliability of plant knowledge, which was crucial in medical contexts. The scope of botany increased dramatically, with new methods broadening studies beyond traditional medicinal plants. The failure of chemical methods to predict properties, particularly of unknown flora, amplified the reliance on analogy and on natural affinities.
Call for Papers per un numero monografico di Farestoria. Società e storia pubblica Rivista dell'Istituto storico della Resistenza e dell'età contemporanea di Pistoia-
Joe Pawsey’s was the first generation in which an Australian born child could think of growing up to be a scientist, as he was poised to do at the end of his undergraduate years. There was a new sense in Australia that science would be important for a nation growing in independence and confidence, and the modern world was being rapidly and profoundly reshaped by technology. In this chapter we set out the social and intellectual background to Pawsey’s Masters and PhD research and introduce the reader to the scientific staff of the Australian Radio Research Board, where Pawsey’s Masters was undertaken.
In March 1926, Pawsey entered the University of Melbourne, enrolled in a Bachelor of Science.
The point of the text is to contribute to a reflection on the production of knowledge in the modern era, considering a set of spatial configurations that also refer to the world scale.
In 1893, a group of colonial officials from thirteen countries abandoned their imperial rivalry and established the International Colonial Institute (ICI), which became the world's most important colonial think tank of the twentieth century. Through the lens of the ICI, Florian Wagner argues that this international cooperation reshaped colonialism as a transimperial and governmental policy. The book demonstrates that the ICI's strategy of using indigenous institutions and customary laws to encourage colonial development served to maintain colonial rule even beyond the official end of empires. By selectively choosing loyalists among the colonized to participate in the ICI, it increased their autonomy while equally delegitimizing more radical claims for independence. The book presents a detailed study of the ICI's creation, the transcolonial activities of its prominent members, its interactions with the League of Nations and fascist governments, and its role in laying the groundwork for the structural and discursive dependence of the Global South after 1945.
This chapter examines the work done in Latin American history of science during the past few decades. A social turn that could be traced to the 1970s sought to understand how science and modern scientific disciplines emerged. Studies assumed their origins to be mainly European or North American and concentrated on how science took roots in Latin America’s culture, society, and politics. The focus was on Latin American nations as self-sufficient entities and a criticism of Eurocentric approaches, and the key concepts of reception, adaptation, and negotiation were used. This turn was challenged toward the turn of the twenty-first century in a global turn, when novel investigations emphasized transnational connections and circulation of knowledge. The global turn questioned studies limited to what occurred in Latin American countries and examined intermediaries who established links not only with the Global North but also with Asia and Africa.
Bodies of the Weak tells the intimate history of the encounter between British collectors, indigenous bodies, and the people to whom they belonged in the British World between 1780 and 1880. It traces the movement of indigenous bodies as scientific objects across the globe. A reconstruction of their histories within the decentralized framework of their circulation, rather than the centralized framework of their accumulation in Europe’s museums, reveals that these indigenous remains embodied several worlds simultaneously. The fragmentation of these indigenous bodies, the circulation of their parts and their transformation into the raw materials of European classifications, I suggest, do not only reflect difference, but also reveal what is shared in the history of colonial entanglement. Examining accession records, letter books, museum catalogues, and travel narratives, I trace how British collecting of indigenous bodies emerges as a constitutive, though at times silenced, element in the history of British colonialism in the nineteenth century. The extension and extent of British power depended on the ability of collectors to mobilize and reassemble the remains of the indigenous dead. Nevertheless, the acquisition and circulation of indigenous remains only rarely make it into the historiography of empire. In the nineteenth century, empirical evidence that indigenous peoples were rapidly vanishing from the face of the globe quickly became widespread and invigorated attempts to collect and record their passing. Observers soon understood that these were the bodies of the weak. The remains of the indigenous dead became “contact bodies,” objects around which collectors and indigenous men, women and children formed unsettled relationships and articulated unsettling meanings. The act of collecting was thus not only accumulative but also transgressive. Seen through the eyes of collectors of the indigenous dead and their indigenous interlocutors, the regime of classification British collectors carried with them on board Her Majesty’s men of war, survey vessels and steam ships appears not so much as a paragon of Britain’s hegemony in the world, but rather, and more importantly, as a testimony to the unsettled nature of the social categories upon which her power depended. Collectors of indigenous remains, rambling, ransacking and rummaging through human debris in search of the raw materials from which to construct elaborate natural classifications, ended up confusing the very boundaries they were trying to delineate. In the space between British dominance and open indigenous resistance, alternative forms of power and appropriation developed. Borrowing, confiscating, purchasing, stealing, conquering, bone collectors found that easy oppositions between “colonizer” and “colonized,” “powerful” and “powerless,” could not survive in the nineteenth-century drive to acquire indigenous body parts. Indigenous men, women and children did not surrender the remains of their loved ones without a fight. Nor did they blindly collaborate with European collectors. They often withheld crucial information, showed indifference to the objects for which British collectors were risking their lives, and ridiculed these visitors and their curious obsession with the remains of the indigenous dead. The bodies of the weak presented indigenous men and women with exceptional as well as everyday opportunities to challenge the social categories they were meant to embody, to resist the extension of British power and influence, and to articulate alternative meanings of these remains.
Grand absent des sciences sociales, le vol spatial habité (i.e. tout programme spatial impliquant l’envoi d’êtres humains dans l’espace) n’en est pas moins omniprésent dans les imaginaires sociaux. En France, le vol de Thomas Pesquet en 2017 a accordé à cette profession, et à l’univers fantasmé qui l’entoure, une place particulièrement centrale dans l’actualité médiatique et éditoriale : récits de vols d’astronautes, livres illustrés pour enfants, rééditions préfacées par l’astronaute d’œuvres de fiction, etc. La saturation médiatique est à la hauteur du manque de regard critique et d’étude académique « de l’intérieur » du monde astronautique. L’une des raisons de cette absence demeure la difficulté d’accès à un tel terrain, les astronautes formant une élite sociale relativement fermée et les agences spatiales contrôlant fortement les inclusions d’outsiders.
Première étude menée sur le sujet avec la rigueur de méthodes d’enquêtes en sciences sociales (ethnographie, interviews, analyse d’archives) dans le cadre d’une thèse de doctorat, et alors que les médias français s’embrasent à l’annonce du second vol de Thomas Pesquet en avril 2021, cet ouvrage propose une analyse des mécanismes moraux, corporels et politiques de la « fabrique » contemporaine des astronautes (essentiellement européens et russes) durant leurs entraînements, ainsi que durant leurs missions à bord de la Station Spatiale Internationale (en orbite depuis 1998). Retraçant le parcours de ce qui « fait » ces corps apprenant, éprouvant et fantasmés des astronautes d’aujourd’hui, l’ouvrage propose notamment une réinscription des politiques spatiales européennes contemporaines dans leur histoire sociale et politique, particulièrement au regard des coopérations entre Europe occidentale et Union Soviétique.
Construit sous forme de récit de terrain dans lequel les lecteurs sont invités à suivre l’ethnographe dans différents espaces, ce livre témoigne de l’enquête in vivo conduite pour ce travail durant trois ans en Allemagne, Autriche, France, Russie, au Canada, Japon et aux Pays-Bas. Par conséquent, il comporte des extraits de carnet ethnographique narrant des scènes d’entraînement ou de rencontres entre astronautes aux quatre coins du globe, ainsi que des extraits d’entretiens par lesquels ces derniers mettent en récit leur expérience durant leurs missions à bord de la Station. Complémentaire de la perspective des astronautes, l’ethnographie de salles de contrôle européennes prend également une large place dans cette étude, montrant comment l’organisation bureaucratique du quotidien d’un programme spatial peut témoigner de (ou contribuer à) la place de ce programme dans l’exercice politique des États européens.
Des points aveugles du monde des vols habités sont également analysés dans cette étude : outre les coulisses des entraînements et des récits de vols prenant en compte des acteurs habituellement invisibilisés (les opérateurs des centres de contrôle et les instructeurs des centres d’entraînement), la nature-même de l’expérience de l’entraînement comme épreuve de masculinité amène à s’intéresser particulièrement à la place des femmes astronautes : à leur faible nombre et à la spécificité de leurs épreuves. En suivant, c’est finalement à une analyse des minorités qu’une sociologie intersectionnelle des astronautes conduits, en considérant les rapports de pouvoir entre classes, ethnicités et sexes que l’entraînement suppose – et ce faisant, la reproduction d’un ordre social dominant au gré de l’institutionnalisation des programmes spatiaux.
Between 1820 and 1850, the Dutch government sent several scientists to the Netherlands Indies as part of the Natuurkundige Commissie (Natural History Committee). One of these was naturalist Eltio Alegondus Forsten (1811–1843), who was sent on a collecting mission to Celebes (Sulawesi). This paper explores the ways in which Forsten was in a relationship of mutual interdependence with four spheres of influence, two in the Netherlands (those of the Dutch government and the natural history museum in Leiden) and two in the Dutch East Indies (those of the governor‐general and the local population of Forsten's collecting grounds). These four entities served as focal points for Forsten's practice, and tried to use his mission for their own purposes. At the same time, Forsten negotiated their demands deftly and turned them to his own advantage in order to serve his own future career. Throughout, I draw parallels with the experiences of various other members of the Natural History Committee. I ultimately propose that this case study of Forsten provides a glimpse of a possible pattern for the relationship between government‐sponsored science and empire in the Dutch East Indies in the first half of the 19th century.
Global histories of technology tend to tell one-sided stories of transfer and exploitation, and they usually analyze the activities of large corporations, nation states or the military. By focusing on missionary societies in the colonial era, this article tells a different story. On the basis of primary sources from German missionaries in the Dutch East Indies, it shows how the application of various techniques at missionary stations was the outcome of transcultural interaction. Although missionaries brought with them tools and materials from home, they remained dependent on the knowledge and skills of local artisans, as well as the material and goods the locals provided. Missionaries’ wives tried to uphold a Western lifestyle but found themselves using local household technologies. The missionary station was a trading zone: Although the abilities of Europeans and Asians to communicate were socially and linguistically limited, they proved able to exchange information and skills in a successful manner. By revisiting the anthropological background to Galison’s trading zone, the authors re-appropriate this concept to improve our understanding of cross-cultural exchange in non-scientific settings.
Several fields of research associated with the history of the early modern Iberian world have experienced a significant boost in recent decades: Iberian science as it relates to the Atlantic world, the history of European colonial empires, and the study of knowledge production in Latin American cultures. This expansion has coincided with a renewed interest of historians of the early modern period in practical knowledge and artisanal cultures. This paper presents an updated historiographic review of both lines of research as well as of their close interconnections. In addition, it offers a re‐interpretation of Iberian imperial science in the context of the European maritime expansion through the lens of artisanal epistemology.
Through dialogue, this article explores the works of Sylvia Wynter to elicit some implications for science studies. In particular, we explore her analysis of the ideological construction of Man as the paradigm for humanity and how this structures the Othering or exclusion of non-White-cis-straight-men from the definition of human in the extant Western Colonial period. We also explore the ways such ideologies find expression in the logics of some central work of science studies. We discuss the ways her oeuvre articulates with science studies, especially research conducted from a postcolonial frame, especially in her notion of a “new science” or scientia. The article also explores her notion of the “pieza,” the standardized black body of the slave trade, in relation to theories of objectivity and objectification. Finally, the dialogue considers the need to start with the writing, thinking, and scholarship of those writing from positions of exclusion, in struggle for liberation, and freedom, to recover the human within science studies.
This paper addresses a nineteenth century African manuscript map which has hitherto remained 'invisible'. This manuscript was produced by Friedrich Welwitsch (1806-1872), an Austrian botanist in the service of the Portuguese government, and held by the National Museum of Natural History and Science, University of Lisbon Museums/Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Museus da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal (MUHNAC). This historical document contains names of several travellers, many of them 'invisible' explorers, located in different parts of the African continent, depicting the relationships in both a visual and geographical way with notes and relevant historical observations. Welwitsch, as so many contemporary fellow botanists, was in contact with many scientists, exchanging not only correspondence but knowledge and collections. This map is a key document, a true hub of Welwitsch's network of knowledge in which the scientific networks, the types of actors, interactions, methodologies and practices of botany are revealed, providing insights into the botanical exchanges that contributed to the making of Welwitsch's African collections.
The History of Colonial Science and Medicine in British India: Centre-Periphery Perspective
Mit ihrem Anliegen, eurozentrische Wissenssysteme und Wissensordnungen kritisch zu untersuchen, entwickelte sich die Forschungsrichtung der Postcolonial Studies in den letzten Dekaden zu einem zentralen Zweig in der Geschichte des Wissens und der Wissenschaften.
HISTEM and the Making of Modern India ? Some Questions and Explanations
Science and Empires: Historical Studies about Scientific Development and European Expansion edited by Patrick Petitjean, Catherine Jami and Anne Marie Moulin. Pp. xiii + 411. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991. £61.00 and 59.95. ISBN 0–521–45077–2.Nature, The Exotic, and The Science of French Colonialism by Michael Osborne. Pp. xvi + 216. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. £32.50. ISBN 0–2533–4266‐X.
Zusammenfassung: Der Beitrag beginnt mit einem wissenschaftssoziologischen Diskurs, der sich der generellen Frage nach Zusammenhängen zwischen großen gesellschaftlichen und politisch-ideologischen Strömungen auf der einen Seite sowie intellektuellen Innovationen und den Wissenschaften auf der anderen Seite widmet. Problemfelder wie „class and education” und deren Interdependenz mit den klassischen von Max Weber geprägten Beeinflussungskräften jeder entwickelten Zivilisation werden berührt. Gegenüber den deskriptiven „Baconian sciences” scheinen die exakten Wissenschaften am wenigsten offenkundig ideologisch beeinflußt oder beeinflußbar.
Von diesem Eindruck ausgehend widmet sich der Beitrag der Frage, ob ein solches Vorurteil haltbar sein kann, und kommt dann zu der weitergehenden Frage, wie die exakten Wissenschaften durch den westlichen Imperialismus geformt werden konnten und wurden. Hauptsächliches Untersuchungsobjekt des Verfassers ist die französische Überseephysik der zwanziger und dreißiger Jahre dieses Jahrhunderts insbesondere in Algier und Shanghai. Als Kristallisationskerne der Darstellung dienen die Biographien von Jean Coulomb (Algier) und Pierre Lejay (Shanghai). Darüber hinaus werden exemplarisch Zusammenhänge zwischen den exakten Wissenschaften und dem Versuch Frankreichs herausgearbeitet, an seiner imperialen Peripherie Kultur- bzw. Zivilisationsmission zu betreiben. Der Verfasser umreißt mit seiner Fragestellung nach der Rolle der exakten Wissenschaften im Zusammenhang mit der französischen Kulturmission in Nordafrika und in Ostasien zugleich die Geschichte eines letztlich gescheiterten ideellen Projektes. Durch den engen Konnex zwischen Wissenschaftlern an der kulturkolonialen Peripherie und dem Wissenschaftsmanagement in der Kolonialmetropole Paris wurden nämlich sowohl die kritische Reflexion über die metropolitane Physik als auch deren kreative Umsetzung und Ausweitung an der Peripherie verhindert.
Historical studies on the place of science in the development of nations and in the relationships between the more wealthy powers and dependent countries have succeeded progressively in broadening the field of history of science to embrace situations and problems not previously appreciated. Such investigations can help widen the notion of science in keeping with what is really experienced in practice, by taking in several factors: the actors in science and technology, the contents of knowledge, the context and the social and cultural implications. If these 'differential' research approaches are confronted (involving studies of spatially and temporally well-defined subjects according to discipline, etc.), they provide essential elements for comparative analysis which can trace out the structural features of the diffusion, conjunction and integration of the different sciences. These elements allow us to pick out some significant epistemological problems posed by this rich chapter in the history of science.
The subject of this paper is the nature and development of the scientific enterprise in Australia, with a particular focus on the period from the 1880s to 1916. At its beginning, this period was dominated by the formation of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, and at its end it witnessed the formation of the Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry. The `colonial' characteristics of Australian science are considered by means of a critical examination of George Basalla's analysis of the spread of Western science from its `centre' to peripheral regions. This is followed by a more detailed historical treatment of aspects of Australian science in the period 1888-1912. I argue that the nature of the Australian scientific enterprise of these years was increasingly conditioned by changing local economic imperatives, a reflection of the loosening of more established imperial relations.