African scientists in colonial and postcolonial contexts, 1800-2000
This conference responds to important concerns within the history of science by highlighting the lives and careers of African scientists who lived during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The papers address how scientists from Africa who were Black, indigenous, or other people of colour defined ‘science’ and how they drew from local knowledge about the natural world and the human body.
African Scientists in Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts, 1800-2000
The story of African scientists in the 19th and 20th centuries, and how European science was shaped by colonial and postcolonial contexts.
The story of the historical relationship between science and empire is often told in brushstrokes, with scientists who originated from outside Europe being relegated to supporting roles. In recent years this approach has been challenged both inside and outside the academy, with scholars and journalists alike calling for more studies which seek to understand the proactive roles played by individual scientists who originated from indigenous colonial communities.
This conference responds to this important concern within the history of science by highlighting the lives and careers of African scientists who lived during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The papers address how scientists from Africa who were Black, indigenous, or other people of colour defined ‘science’ and how they drew from local knowledge about the natural world and the human body. The overarching aim is to create new routes of historical enquiry that afford deeper insight into the personal and professional ways in which European science was shaped by colonial and postcolonial contexts.
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Programm
Session 1: Central and East Africa
Megan Vaughan (Chair), University College London
Nancy Jacobs, Brown University, USA. Not an Ornithologist but the Bird Expert, Nonetheless: Jali Makawa of Central Africa
Lawrence Dritsas, University of Edinburgh, UK, ‘Pure Research in Developing Countries’: The Career of Thomas R. Odhiambo
Session 2: South Africa
Rebekah Lee (Chair), Oxford University
Suryakanthie Chetty, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, The Scientific Life of William Anderson Soga
Diana Davis, University of California, Davis, USA, Decolonizing Veterinary History? Reading the Partial Archive of the First South African Veterinarian, Dr. Jotello Soga
Session 3: West Africa
Noémi Tousignant (Chair), University College London
Abena Dove Osseo-Asare, University of Texas, Austin, USA. The Very Reverend Professor B.W. Garbrah of Ghana and the Interchangeability of Nuclear Physics from the Soviet Union to the UK
Matthew Daniel Eddy, Durham University, UK, _The False Theories of Anthropologists
Dr Africanus Horton and the Relationship between Race and Climate Science in 19th-Century Sierra Leone_
Session 4: Mauritius and Beyond
Matthew Daniel Eddy (Chair), Durham University, UK
Michael J. Aminoff, University of California, San Francisco, USA. The Man from Mauritius: An Erratic Visionary of Science
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