Scientific Cultures in Africa: Part 1 - Science and the Colony

Science in Africa has often been perceived as a tool of empire, a force of ‘epistemicide’, or as diametrically opposed to African knowledge. Recently, historians of science have adopted a more nuanced view which, while sensitive to colonial hierarchies, emphasises circulation, appropriation, and translation of knowledge between the West and Africa. These proposed paired-panels bring together such trends by examining scientific cultures in both colonial (part one) and postcolonial (part two) periods in south and east Africa. This panel brings together four case studies situated within colonial periods. Here, panellists examine how African knowledge shaped sleeping-sickness research and tropical medicine in the Lake Victoria region; how Zulu knowledge was mobilised as evidence for and against animal-trypanosomiasis control strategies in Zululand; how rodent control in plague-infected Mwanza drew upon constructed ideas of African culture; and how the construction of Standard Swahili, intended as a tool of colonial power, became the language of Tanganyikan nationalism. Our papers show that Africans not only served as sources of field data for scientists, but sometimes provided foundations for scientific theories. Likewise, the ‘tools of empire’ were often turned upon their creators: scientific projects had unintended consequences and exposed the limits of colonial dominion. This would have lasting impacts after decolonisation, where scientific institutions were transformed into centres of national development. Together, these two panels attempt a different reading of scientific cultures in Africa, showing how science could both oppress and empower, and how indigenous and foreign forms of knowledge-making interacted and influenced one another.