Africa as a living laboratory : empire, development, and the problem of scientific knowledge, 1870-1950 / Helen Tilley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tilley, Helen, 1968-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Research Survey.

Research--Africa--History--20th century.

Research.

Research--Africa--History--21st century.

Imperialism and science--Africa--History--20th century.

Imperialism and science.

Imperialism and science--Africa--History--21st century.

Africa--Research--History--20th century.

Africa.

Africa--Research--History--21st century.

Africa--Colonization--History--20th century.

Africa--Colonization--History--21st century.

Great Britain--Colonies--Africa--History--20th century.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Colonies--Africa--History--21st century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (520 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

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

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9786613097668

9781283097666

1283097664

9780226803487

0226803481

OCLC:

719383041