ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Science and Empire in the Anthropocene: Towards an Environmental Shift 2 - Making Imperial Worlds

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

This symposium, sponsored by the Science and Empire Commission, aims to reinforce discussions on the complex intertwinements between Science, Empire, and Environment in order to assess the possibilities of an environmental shift for the Science and Empire. This second session critically investigates how different sciences, from natural history and botany to zoology and meteorology, have shaped society and nature across different colonial, imperial, and post-colonial settings, including Brazil, Angola, India, and Britain. Conversely, the presentations examine forms of resistance and contestation, revealing the existence of plural worlds.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Anderson Antunes, University of Évora

Individual Presentations

• Landscapes of Difference: Natural History and the Shaping of Colonial Stereotypes - Catarina Simões, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa

• Cotton, Botany and Empire: Tracing botanical sciences in the archive of the first industrial city - Arianna Tozzi

• Collecting the empire. Natural history collections as committed colonial practice - Catarina Marques Madruga, Technische Universität Berlin

• Empires of time and weather in Brazil: keeping time, predicting weather, and being contested by the public - Sabina Ferreira Alexandre Luz

Session Organizers

• Matheus Alves Duarte da Silva, King's College London

• Sabina Ferreira Alexandre Luz