Science and the Colonies; Hidden networks of Botanical science, Ecology and Eugenics at the end of Empire

The twentieth century was a period which saw debates on ecology, cytology, genetics and eugenics in the West develop in new and interesting ways both positive and negative to understand the position of humans within the natural world and ultimately leading to an anti-racist science movement. This project explores the history of these debates in the context of Britain and India, the scientific networks that emerged and the contribution of neglected colonial scientists an important new field in the history of science, one which has gone unexplored in the context of these discussions. The debates explored here are particularly related to the movement known as the Modern Synthesis (1920-1960), which marked a period of heightened interdisciplinary knowledge exchange between the biological sciences, working now with a common Mendelian framework to solve, as they saw it, all of the mysteries of life. Through the new methodologies of cytology and genetics including genetic ecologies, concerns about population, extinction and the environment gained a more targeted approach. As, on a more sinister note, did concerns around racial purity and eugenics. In spite of J.S. Huxley's jubilant 1942 claim that the subjects of botany, genetics, ecology, and anthropology were irrevocably connected, these are subjects whose interdisciplinary engagements from the 1930s have still not been explored in a historical context. Neither have the connections between the remarkable individuals in these networks been analysed to understand the intellectual history of the movement towards an anti-racist science.

By recording the unrecognised contribution of Western trained colonial scientists including a remarkable Indian woman to these critical global debates of the mid-twentieth century we will enhance our understanding of the practices of science in this period by examining race, gender and science the role of indigenous knowledge and the cross fertilisation of ideas. The impact of these debates will be assessed both in Britain in the form of the humanist movement which continues to be relevant today and in post colonial India soon after independence in terms of the emergence of scientific humanism which continued to be one of India's foundational principles until recently. In this context we will also examine the new emerging debates in indigenous knowledge and analyse the reasons for the ultimate triumph of Western knowledge systems in post-colonial India. The practical applications of this project will allow our partner institution the John Innes Centre in Norwich, with whom we have co-constructed this proposal to understand their own history in terms of the contribution of non-British scientists to the history of genetics and the chequered role of expertise and authority in constructing this knowledge. This will feed into public understanding of science both in the U.K. and in India and improve peer learning among an interdisciplinary group of scholars. By taking this knowledge to new audiences including school children in Kolkata in the form of displays and a digital exhibition at the John Innes Centre and Sussex will further help disseminate this knowledge to a wider audience both in Britain and India. It is hoped that the findings of the research will uncover pathways to changing the culture of science to become more inclusive of its colonial past by recognising the contribution of colonial scientists to many of the field science, such as botany, zoology, geology, geography and palaeontology.