The War of the Locust: science, politics, culture and collaboration in the Anti-Locust Research Centre, 1940-45

Outbreaks of the desert locust - Schistocerca gregaria - have plagued agricultural societies since the beginnings of recorded history. How states have perceived and dealt with this threat has not only affected the livelihoods of generations of farmers and pastoralists; it has played an important part in the making and unmaking of states' legitimacy. This project brings together an historian, a forensic entomologist, an artist and an ecologist to examine the record of one of the most prominent international efforts ever made to counter this threat - the British Empire's Anti-Locust Research Centre (ALRC). Over the course of the twentieth-century, the ALRC drew on the expertise of entomologists, explorers, meteorologists, cartographers, filmmakers, colonial administrators, diplomats and military personnel in an unprecedented attempt to monitor, control and eradicate the desert locust across great swathes of the earth. At the height of its activities, during the Second World War in the Middle East, the ALRC came to the attention of some of the foremost scientists and statesmen of the day. Its successes were built on the collaboration of widely varying forms of expertise; its campaigns laid the foundations for systems of international control that still endure. But its record was not without frustrations, with compromises and tensions born of discrepancies between the differing disciplinary views of its participants, and of varying interpretations of their objective and the wider world.

This project brings together history, ecology, entomology and art to examine the work of the Anti-Locust Research Centre, and the unique and hitherto unexplored archive it left behind. The ALRC was inherently an interdisciplinary undertaking; it requires an interdisciplinary approach to examine its record. Each Co-Investigator brings their own disciplinary expertise to bear upon key ALRC activities, from its navigation of imperial bureaucracies and wartime geopolitics to its specimen sampling and forecasting techniques, its use of visual media, and the multiple forms of environmental knowledge it promoted and inscribed. But throughout, the project also explores the process and nature of interdisciplinary work itself, examining how very different individuals and disciplines spoke to one another under the umbrella of the ALRC, and how we as Co-Investigators come to collaborate as we reconstruct its activities.

This project is of interest to a wide number of communities both inside and outside of academia, including historians of the British Empire and the modern Middle East; entomologists and students of climate change, food security and bioterrorism possibilities; scholars and practitioners concerned with the dialogues and frictions between science and policy; and wider audiences interested in how 'migrants', 'pests' and systems of control are represented. Our exhibition and artist's book, which will explore the poetics and metaphors within the archive, also bring the possibility of our findings engaging with unanticipated audiences: those who encounter the gallery/exhibition space by chance and whose curiosity becomes piqued.

This project engages with a variety of users across academia, museums, non-governmental organisations and the wider public. Our key objective is to bring a multiplicity of perspectives to bear on the Anti-Locust Research Centre, the work of which has considerable contemporary relevance. The desert locust remains a potential threat to communities from Mauritania to Bangladesh; at the time of writing the Malagasy migratory locust is threatening the livelihoods of 13 million people in Madagascar, with UN FAO spending $36.4 million in 2013-16 to protect the island's crops and pasture. Our project has three complementary strategies for delivering impact.

Firstly, our four, specifically tailored seminar events have considerable potential for public engagement. Each involves a group presentation on our findings, methodologies, and experience of collaboration. At the NHM, the Public Engagement Group and Programme Manager Stephen Roberts have agreed to liaise with us to explore the most effective means of engaging Museum public audiences. At Glasgow School of Art our presentation during term time to students and staff will feature a strong multi-media and visual element; it is likely that a small exhibition will also accompany this seminar. These two events are designed to elicit a range of responses from wider audiences, whose reactions and responses will then feature in our 'Archive Box' activity (see below). At The British Ecological Society (BES) Annual Meeting our interactive workshop will examine methods, conflicts and synergies when the arts and sciences collaborate. The final event at the University of Warwick will disseminate our findings to important academic communities, but is also designed as a forum in which to begin discussions with invited practitioners and potential partners (such as UN FAO) regarding subsequent research project applications with a significant non-academic impact.

Secondly, our work will be of benefit to the Natural History Museum itself, as we highlight new findings that will assist Library staff with future collection development. The ALRC collection is still only catalogued to a basic (box) level: our investigation of its documents, photographs, maps and specimens will offer a much deeper undertaking of its workings and of the content of the collection. Collectively, our multi-disciplinary approach to the ALRC collection will support innovative outputs and ways of working which NHM may ultimately bring to bear on other collections in their possession.

Finally, all Investigators will contribute to a private online research journal throughout the project's duration, documenting our questions, findings, sketches, approaches and experiences as a collaborative space. Selected content will then be edited for a separate, public-facing blog, with a focus on using specific archive artefacts as a window onto particular narratives, events, data and findings (selected posts may also be suitable for the AHRC Science in Culture blog). At the project's end we will make the newest submission to the ALRC archive by depositing an Archive Box full of our research documents, artistic outcomes, and USB disk copies of our online research journal and blog posts. It will also contain responses to our work arising from the public events at GSA and NHM. This research time capsule will serve as an 'archive within the archive', detailing our methods and findings as well documenting the experiential, personal and mundane aspects of this interdisciplinary project, and wider reactions to it. By depositing this Archive Box, we will construct a direct connection and prop for our other engagement activities.