Colonial Knowledges: Environment and Logistics in the Creation of Knowledge in British Colonies from 1750 to 1950.

The effects of colonial power dynamics on knowledge creation in the long nineteenth century and beyond are well known and have become the foundation of a postcolonial reading of British scholarship in the context of empire. What has been less well examined are the practical effects of the colonial context on knowledge making. This seminar series seeks to explore how logistical and practical factors, such as the physical environment including climate and distance from the metropole, influenced the creation of both scientific and humanistic knowledge in British colonies.

Seminar 5

Ali Bennett, Paul Mellon Centre: 'Colonial Knowledge Production and its Challenges in Twentieth Century East Africa: Case Studies on The East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society and Uganda Museum'

This paper will examine some of the complex logistics surrounding natural history knowledge production in colonial East Africa during the early twentieth century.

Using the archives of the East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society (UEANHS) and the Uganda Museum (UM) as its focus, the paper will illuminate a number of logistical challenges faced by these institutions in the course of their construction and development. These issues largely revolved around: colonial governmental funding (or lack thereof) for learned societies in the region; housing such organizations and storing and administering their collections; and maintaining communication among members of this scholarly network in the face of vast geographical distances (both within eastern Africa and with the metropole). In probing these issues, this paper will demonstrate the vital role of the UEANHS and UM in the colonial knowledge project. At the same time, it will expose a number of significant logistical tensions within the colonial community and state, and also highlight the critical roles of specific individuals in challenging the overwhelmingly elite, white, male colonial power structures underpinning these institutions of knowledge.

Vera-Simone Schulz, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut: '“Potentially the Pompeii of East Africa”: Archaeology, Colonialism, and the History of Tourism in Swahili Stone Towns in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries'

When Mortimer Wheeler called the ruined Swahili stone town Kua in the Mafia Archipelago in today’s Tanzania “potentially the Pompeii of East Africa”, his comparison with one of the most famous ruined sites of the world raised the most diverse associations. This talk will unravel these various connotations of Wheeler’s statement. It will shed new light on knowledge about and perceptions of Swahili stone towns in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. The talk will show how this knowledge was shaped in a very Eurocentric perspective in the colonial context, and it will make clear how these previous conceptions remain a challenge when addressing Swahili stone towns today.