ISBN:
9780226803487
Language:
English
Pages:
1 Online-Ressource (520 p)
,
8 color plates, 2 halftones, 8
Edition:
[Online-Ausgabe]
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als Tilley, Helen, 1968 - Africa as a living laboratory
Keywords:
Imperialism and science History
;
20th century
;
Africa
;
Imperialism and science History
;
21st century
;
Africa
;
Imperialism and science History 20th century
;
Imperialism and science History 21st century
;
Research History
;
20th century
;
Africa
;
Research History
;
21st century
;
Africa
;
Research History 20th century
;
Research History 21st century
;
SCIENCE / General
;
Afrika
;
Naturwissenschaften
;
Imperialismus
;
Geschichte 1870-1950
Abstract:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- INTRODUCTION: Africa as a Living Laboratory -- CHAPTER ONE. An Imperial Laboratory: Scientifi c Societies, Geopolitics, and Territorial Acquisitions -- CHAPTER TWO. A Development Laboratory: The African Research Survey, the Machinery of Knowledge, and Imperial Coordination -- CHAPTER THREE. An Environmental Laboratory: "Native" Agriculture, Tropical Infertility, and Ecological Models of Development -- CHAPTER FOUR. A Medical Laboratory: Infectious Diseases, Ecological Methods, and Modernization -- CHAPTER FIVE. A Racial Laboratory: Imperial Politics, Race Prejudice, and Mental Capacity -- CHAPTER SIX. An Anthropological Laboratory: Ethnographic Research, Imperial Administration, and Magical Knowledge -- APPENDIX: African Colonial Service Employment, 1913-51 -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Abstract:
Tropical Africa was one of the last regions of the world to experience formal European colonialism, a process that coincided with the advent of a range of new scientific specialties and research methods. Africa as a Living Laboratory is a far-reaching study of the thorny relationship between imperialism and the role of scientific expertise-environmental, medical, racial, and anthropological-in the colonization of British Africa. A key source for Helen Tilley's analysis is the African Research Survey, a project undertaken in the 1930s to explore how modern science was being applied to African problems. This project both embraced and recommended an interdisciplinary approach to research on Africa that, Tilley argues, underscored the heterogeneity of African environments and the interrelations among the problems being studied. While the aim of British colonialists was unquestionably to transform and modernize Africa, their efforts, Tilley contends, were often unexpectedly subverted by scientific concerns with the local and vernacular. Meticulously researched and gracefully argued, Africa as a Living Laboratory transforms our understanding of imperial history, colonial development, and the role science played in both
Note:
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
,
In English
DOI:
10.7208/9780226803487
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