Imperial Ecologies: Detoxing from Colonial Sciences and Practices

In the pioneering volume of 1990 titled Imperialism and the Natural World historian John MacKenzie edited a series of essays that highlight various aspects of the close relationship between science, nature, and colonialism. In the Introduction to the volume MacKenzie also points out that disciplines such as “economic botany” actually originated from the collection of botanical specimens in the British colonies of North America and the West Indies. These disciplines, then known as “colonial sciences,” are to be considered collectively as part of a coordinated and coherent colonial project. Among the many intriguing contributions, Deepak Kumar's work investigates the founding of the Geological Society of London in 1807. Within the year following its establishment, the society mobilized its members and resources for a geological survey in Raniganj, India, with the aim of exploring the possibilities of exploiting coal from the local mines. Kumar emphasizes the often-underestimated role of geological research in colonial expansion and its fundamental contribution to the acquisition of raw materials and the development of new technologies. More recently, Kathryn Yusoff (2019) has examined how the grammar of geology is foundational to establishing extractive economies under colonialism and slavery.

Amiria Henare (2005) observed that while the eighteenth-century exploratory voyages focused on space, the nineteenth century, in colonial spaces, juxtaposed geological and archaeological research. This was not only through specially designed scientific missions but also incidentally through excavations aimed, for example, at the construction of railways. In this light, mineralogical artefacts from the imperial space preserved in European museums gain new interest and significance, revealing close ties to the colonial history of major powers, the global and globalized capitalist economy, and the environmental exploitation of occupied territories. These natural specimens serve as evidence, on one hand of an “encyclopaedic obsession,” a need to take possession of entire foreign worlds (including their flora, fauna, and land) that, with due differences, unified all colonial powers through the centuries. On the other hand, they attest to the need to showcase the wealth of the colonies, encouraging investments, the transfer of settlers, and the use of raw materials from one's own colonies rather than others' (a circumstance peculiar, for example, of fascist Italy's autarkic policy).

If numerous studies in recent decades have examined the relationship between science and colonialism, and the construction of scientific knowledge in relation to imperialism, it is undeniable that for a long time, science was conducted (and written about) with almost no consideration for the agency of the local populations (Chambers, Gillespie 2000; Seth 2009). A clear example in this regard pertains to botany: Pratik Chakrabarti (2010) has highlighted how, within the British imperial context, the knowledge of colonized societies regarding medicine and, in particular, medicinal plants, was systematically ignored, instead presented as a “discovery” by European naturalists. This perspective aligns with the primary moral justification of colonialism, namely, the superiority of the science, health, and hygiene of the colonizing countries and, consequently, the role of European science in aiding the civilizing and modernizing effort worldwide (a perspective that persisted well beyond the end of colonial empires, within the realm of the so-called “development cooperation”).

This distortion persists today, evident in the existing disparity among centres of conservation, research, and science production. For instance, a significant imbalance is observable in the field of palaeontology: researchers from high-income or upper-middle-income countries, for example, monopolize the production of palaeontological knowledge, contributing to 97% of fossil data. Another example in this regard comes from the field of botany: it is not coincidental that herbaria in countries with a colonial history now preserve 70% of the existing botanical specimens on the planet, continuing to benefit from this reservoir of knowledge.

Botany, in fact, has been considered the quintessential science of colonial empires: over the centuries, European naturalists transferred numerous specimens of live and dried plants to the institutions of colonizing nations that sought to exploit the biological resources of the colonies. For example, the physician and naturalist Hans Sloane (1660-1753), through his family's involvement in the slave trade, extensively travelled in the British Caribbean colonies where he acquired numerous plant specimens (often employing his own slaves as plant collectors for scientific purposes). His collections formed the basis of the Natural History Museum in London, which became one of the major centres of scientific knowledge in the world.

The ambition to obtain a truly representative and “scientific” view of past (more or less distant) biodiversity is therefore closely linked to the objective of diversifying and decolonizing the disciplines associated with it.

In October 2016, a group of black South African students from the University of Cape Town initiated the Science Must Fall movement, asserting that science “as we know it today” remains oppressive and exploitative towards former colonial peoples (particularly Africans). They argued that scientific research centres (and consequently, power structures) are concentrated in the Global North, predominantly administered by a predominantly white elite. Given the centrality of knowledge conservation to knowledge production, several studies have highlighted that 80% of scientific papers produced by researchers from Central African countries result from collaborations with foreign researchers, with the former colonizer being the primary scientific partner. Moreover, in most collaboration cases, the role of local researchers is limited to field data collection (reminiscent of Sloane's era), while the analyses are carried out by scientists employed by “Western” institutions. This pattern reinforces a colonial perspective suggesting that “travellers never leave home but merely extend the limits of their world by taking their concerns and apparatus for interpreting the world along with them” (Schiebinger 2016).

Therefore, the call to “decolonize science”, professions, cultural institutions, and natural history museums in recent years, it has become increasingly persistent. This summon is accompanied by the need to assess and recognize the ecological impact of empires, particularly from zoological, agronomic, and botanical perspectives. Museums, too, have not escaped this critical process, leading to initiatives such as Museum Detox, which aims to achieve equity for all non-white individuals working in the museum sector.

In recent years, scholarly scrutiny has extended beyond the realms of museum conservation and the dissemination of scientific knowledge. The preservation of nature has also come under the examination of scholars and activists, who perceive it as one of the numerous concealed legacies of colonialism.

In the work The Big Conservation Lie: The Untold Story of Wildlife Conservation in Kenya (2016), John Mbaria and Mordecai Ogada underscored the abuses and injustices stemming from the “conservation industry” in Africa. They highlighted the negative impact of conservation not only on indigenous populations but also on the environment itself: in their view, the extensive ecological knowledge held by indigenous and local communities was completely suppressed during and after the colonial period, while Western “white saviours”, now focused on preserving wildlife (as much as previously on hunting it) for economic reasons, continue to be recognized as the ultimate and trustworthy authority for African environmental conservation. In this regard, the numerous offerings of “ethical safaris” presented by travel agencies and online platforms with increasing diligence to the public demonstrate that, although they advocate for the well-being of animals and fair remuneration for guides, it is precisely the fundamental principles of safari that are not being questioned.