[Sci-tech-public] STS Special Lecture: Clapperton Mavhunga, Feb 25 @ 4 pm

[Debbie Meinbresse]

Please join us on Monday, February 25:

STS Special Lecture

FORCE MULTIPLIERS
'Pest Control' and the Origins of Rhodesia's Biological and Chemical 
Warfare Against Zimbabwean Nationalist Guerrillas, c. 1890-1980

Clapperton Mavhunga
University of Michigan

4:00 pm, MIT, E51-095

How is it that technologies designed to control 'nature' shift from 
being used for controlling animals and plants to controlling 
'people'? In other words, how do we arrive at the re-invention of 
people into pests (pesthood)? This presentation considers the ways in 
which poisons were used to combat "dangerous" insects, wild animals, 
and people in the British colony of Rhodesia in 1890-1974. The 
discussion revolves around the state's social engineering of 
"transgression" (of crops, livestock ranches, and sovereignty) and 
how the battle between state and pest was fought through mobility and 
technology. The argument is that British colonialism was virtually 
impossible without pest control work.




Debbie Meinbresse
STS Program, MIT
617-452-2390
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