From history of science to history of knowledge? Themes and perspectives in colonial Australasia

Abstract

This overview article presents some of the main approaches to histories of colonial science in Australasia as well as suggesting future areas of research. Given the plurality of knowledge systems in the colonial period, we argue that a framework defined by history of knowledge, rather than history of science, better reflects the realities of colonial Australasia and opens up opportunities for fresh and innovative scholarship. A 'history of knowledge systems' approach, we contend, has the potential to free the study of non-Western knowledge systems from normative approaches that define other systems only in relation to Western science. A history of knowledge approach, we believe, enables scholars to explore the complex ways in which knowledge-making in colonial Australasia arose from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous traditions, perspectives and practices. | INTRODUCTIONOn his return to Scotland in 1862, physician and botanist William Lauder Lindsay (1829-1880) reflected on his recent tour of New Zealand. In the 1862 pamphlet Place and Power of Natural History in Colonisation, he observed that 'the systematic, economical, and complete development of … [Otago's] resources can be effectually accomplished only by the aid of scientific observations and deductions'. Such views typified his generation's approach to science in Australasia as being primarily concerned with utilitarian matters of practical use to colonial development.For historians of science too, Lindsay's outlook reflects the predominant focus of the field in Australasia on 'science in the service of empire' during the long 19th century (e.g., Gascoigne, 1998).In this short review article, we map such approaches to the history of science in Australasia, and make a case for new directions in the field. Provocatively, we argue that rather than the frameworks traditionally offered by the history of science, the application of a history of knowledge lens would better serve historians seeking to make sense of the ways in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples interpreted and understood the natural and

Imperialism, colonialism, and climate change science

“…Just how much this local knowledge and insights influenced Tyndall's now famous physics of heat and ice remains to be investigated. Moreover, as historians of science and empire often argue (Beattie & Morgan, 2021)…”

“…Just how much this local knowledge and insights influenced Tyndall's now famous physics of heat and ice remains to be investigated. Moreover, as historians of science and empire often argue (Beattie & Morgan, 2021), different knowledge systems hold the potential to influence each other. In what contexts and to what extent Indigenous and local knowledge of climate were themselves influenced by what would eventually become known as the distinctive discipline of climate science is in need of further research.…”

Indigenous Knowledge and Perspectives

“…The concept of Indigenous knowledge itselfincluding the tendency to collect and examine it in forms detached from its social and cultural contextsreflects the limits implied by how scientists recognize evidence, authority, and objects of knowledge (Cameron et al 2014). Reframing the history of science as the history of knowledge is one response: acknowledging that science is only one among many ways of knowing the world (Beattie and Morgan 2021). However, this reframing must also acknowledge the continuing influence of the assumptions and political commitments that underpin the distinctive authority of science.…”

Aboriginal knowledge, the history classroom and the Australian university

“…Those structures are beginning to wane in terms of their unquestionable authority and claims to timelessness, and thus the time is right to rethink how we know what we know, and why we believe it to be true (Dube, 2017; ten Hagen, 2019; Silva and Vieira, 2009). Scholars in the fields of history of knowledge and Indigenous methodologies have both observed the need to break out of our discipline-based thinking – “undisciplining” – in order to avoid the inevitable reproduction of colonialism (Schneider and Hayes, 2020; Beattie and Morgan, 2021). We apply this way of thinking to distinguish “History” (as a discipline embedded in Western knowledge trajectories) from history (ways of knowing about the past).…”