How would you like to be identified?
University of Cambridge

I primarily work on
Biology
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Medicine and Health

About Me
I completed my undergraduate education at the University of Cape Town (South Africa) in 2015, and graduated with an MSc in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology at the University of Oxford in 2017. I study histories of the life sciences in southern Africa, c. 1890s-1930s with a focus on the relationship between wild animals, pest control, agriculture, zoonotic diseases, and industrialisation.

My broader PhD project charts the development of an autonomous scientific culture in South Africa, and its role in shaping a new ontology of nature, c. 1890s-1930s. I examine how 'settler science' was utilised in maintaining control over borderlands settlements and 'pristine wilderness', through an examination of zoonotic diseases, animal and insect mobilities, cartography, and labour. I am particularly interested in how settler science, 'indigenous knowledge', and so-called folk biology intermingled, but necessarily complicate the boundaries between these forms of knowledge.

I have a side interest in videogaming, game-cultures, and the connection between colonialism and virtual imperialism. Here, I am also interested in the possibilities digital media provides for telling new kinds of histories.

1. Scientific Cultures In Africa: Part 1 - Science And The Colony

2. Starving Flies, Exterminating Animals: The Game-Nagana Link, The Great Game Drive, And The Dynamism Of ‘Zulu Knowledge’, Ca. 1890s-1920s

1. Scientific Cultures In Africa - 26 Jul, 2019