[Sci-tech-public] Modern Times, Rural Places Seminar 2-4-2005

[Margo Collett]

Modern Times, Rural Places:

Seminar Series at MIT



Helen Tilley

Assistant Professor of History, Princeton University



Africa as a Living Laboratory: Science, Nature, and Imperial Development in 
the British Tropics





Scholars have long likened colonial territories to laboratories, but the 
analogy was first an actorscategory and one that had multifaceted 
roots.  The laboratory motif provides a compelling framework to concentrate 
not simply on scientific discourse, an arena already pursued by several 
scholars of Africa, but on the diverse modes of scientific production. How 
were natural and social phenomena actually studied? What kinds of 
experimental methods were used?  What were the social networks and 
institutions that formed and interacted through this process?  This talk 
begins by exploring what effect the Scramble for Africa had on the nature 
of metropolitan scientific debates about Africa (focusing predominantly on 
Britain). It then turns to consider how scientific research was 
incorporated into colonial state-building and how this work helped to 
generate an approach to colonial development that emphasized local 
specificity, natural complexity, and interdisciplinary problem-solving. In 
the conclusion, it considers how an emphasis on the production of 
scientific knowledge sheds new light on imperial efforts to bring Africa 
into the 'modern world'.

Friday, February 4, 2005

2:30 to 4:30 pm

MIT, Building E51 Room 095



Sponsored by MIT's History Faculty and the Program in Science, Technology, 
and Society
For more information or to be put on the mailing list, please contact Margo 
Collett at <mailto:mcollet at mit.edu>mcollett at mit.edu
For location visit http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg
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