South Africa's Environmental History: Cases and Comparisons

Dodson, Belinda; Dovers, Stephen; Edgecombe, Ruth; Guest, Bill

doi:10.2307/4129104

Cited by 9 publications

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“…77 By 2002 the first publication was out. 78 There was a follow-up on work that had earlier started in close collaboration with environmental historians in Australasia. Beinart and McGreggor's work, Social history and African environments, marks a further development in the field.…”

Section: African Environmental Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental history and sustainable cultural dynamics

Tempelhoff

2005

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A notable sophistication has taken place in the field of environmental history, as a result of the endeavours of historians in the United States of America, Britain and Europe in recent years. In the article a number of trends are considered. Attention is given to the conceptualization of environmental history, nature, culture, dynamics and sustainability. Reference is made to global environmental history, as a result of its growing significance. Then more detailed attention is given to cultural environmental history. Historiographically the focus is on the United States of America and Britain where some of the definitive work in the field of environmental history has taken place. In the final section of the study cursory attention is also given to the development of the discipline in Africa and Southern Africa. “Wenn Menschen einer bestimmten Zeit ihre eigene Natur und die Natur um sie herum in bestimmter Weise wahrnehmen, so heist das nicht dass diese Art der Wahrnehmung willkürlich ware. Natur-Konstrukte sind nur dann von Dauer, wenn sie nützliche Erfahrungen enthalten. Wo der pure Konstruktivismus die Naturdiskussion in einem ahistorischen Milieu immer wieder an einen toten Punkt manövriert, beginnt für den Historiker das Nachdenken über die historisierte Natur.”

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Section: African Environmental Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental history and sustainable cultural dynamics

Tempelhoff

2005

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The Intimate Politics of Ornithology in Colonial Africa

Jacobs

2006

Comp. Stud. Soc. Hist.

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A tendency in studies of science in colonial Africa is to focus on the "big politics" of resource extraction, environmental control, and the governmentality of subject bodies. As a result, we now recognize that colonial science was a highly political enterprise in which the pursuit of knowledge was infused with the dynamics of starkly exclusionary societies and extractive regimes. Scientific improvements in medicine and agriculture yielded benefits that underwrote colonial projects 1 and the construction of authoritative knowledge in medicine, racial biology, and social science created disciplinary power over Africans as scientifically objectified colonial subjects. 2 It has been observed that the failure of science to heed indigenous knowledge led to a "misreading" of the landscape and inappropriate intervention. 3 Recently, some historians have attempted to mitigate overly stark depictions of colonial science, making good cases that the practice of scientific ecology, agronomy, and medicine in colonial Africa had motivations and effects beyond the service of extraction and governmentality. 4 They have rightly informed us that the assessment of applied sciences in colonial Africa cannot be reduced to their role in European domination. Clearly, these are critical issues that merit attention. Yet the focus on ways science did (or did not) support various colonial agendas may have impeded the development of a more representative understanding of Euro-American scientific pursuits in African colonies. Non-instrumentalist sciences such as ornithology, lepidoptery, and noneconomic botany ranked high among scientific pursuits in Africa, but as Acknowledgments: Archival materials held at the Ornithology and Rothschild Library of the Natural History Museum, Tring, U.K. are quoted and reproduced here by permission of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum. Materials from the R. E. Moreau archive are used with permission of the Oxford University Library Services, Alexander Library, Oxford. Every effort has been made to secure necessary permissions to reproduce copyrighted material in this work, though in some cases it has proved impossible to trace copyright holders. If any omissions are brought to our notice we will be happy to include appropriate acknowledgments on reprinting in any subsequent edition.

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Introduction: The Ecology of Fencing

Sheridan¹

2008

Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute

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South Africa's Environmental History: Cases and Comparisons

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Environmental history and sustainable cultural dynamics

Environmental history and sustainable cultural dynamics

The Intimate Politics of Ornithology in Colonial Africa

Introduction: The Ecology of Fencing

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