Londa Schiebinger

Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World

Plants and Empire

Wow.. I expected fun things from the blurb but i didn't expect this book to be actually revolutionary for me. This book talks about indigenous knowledge, science and scientists during imperialism in a cultural and political context, and finally the spread of culturally-induced ignorance, or agnotology.

The book started powerfully with how caribbean people resisted enslavement by consuming peacock flower, an abortifacient or plant with active compounds used to abort a pregnancy. Enslavement is bloody and inhuman in all parts as what this book gives a glimpse of. Abortion was the slave mothers' way to protect their children in seemingly their only agency. Plantation and whatnot thrived by encouraging slaves to reproduce and give them more workers, so this also was a jab to their colonist employers. 

What this book undertakes as an example of agnotology is how although the peacock flower was brought to the empire, the knowledge that it is an abortifacient was not carried over. A combination of affairs and perhaps mishappenings brought this about. First of all, the imperial scientists only accepted knowledge conforming to their idea of health science at the time, a.k.a humorism. They also didn't believe that the sAVaGeS were capable of any science at all. Anything emulating the pursue of science on their part was regarded not of intellect, but something 'natural' and 'instinctive' akin to how monkey can peel a banana and the likes 😡 😡 😡😡. Abortifacients were a thing in the west too. But abortion practice was condemned at some period. Aborting mother and midwives were punished, and known abortifacients was censured. Abortion was performed still, but in dark alleys and secrecy among the women. Now although there were female scientists and bioprospectors then, the field was dominated by males who didn't know much about abortion, so abortifacient functions might just go over their heads. 

What's also interesting was at that point, pregnancy was not yet biologically understood. There was not yet a connection between menstruation halting and the start of pregnancy. Some currently known abortifacients were used to cure irregular menstruation (when what happened was the period restarted because they rid of the baby :[] ). It's not even easy for abortifacients to BE abortifacients. Not to mention that clinical trials initially started with male subjects only. And peacock flower's other parts (leaves/root/stems(?)) were actually harnessed for other efficacy while the flower was once valued only because it's pretty. So yeah, transferring knowledge has like 1001 issues it's a miracle we're at this point in science now. 

I forgot how species naming was linked to the agnotology of peacock flower precisely, but this book also talked about it and it's quite baffling. I'm rereading my textbook and the historical parts hit all too different now. Like, binomial nomenclature was taught all sacred and as a student, I could only take it at face value and be all strict about it too. But learning how they actually name things; stripping away the local names, acting like they invent things when everyone on the land already knew and used the plant since forever, labeling creatures irrelevantly such that people can mistake their origin, this naming business STInks. Even back then, not everyone agreed with Linnaeus, who apparently never even went outside Europe all the while enforcing the idea that botany originated and centers around the west while the tropics didn't have many things going on. This book named Adanson as a persistent critic of this practice. He used the indigenous terms to name species (tho not all-encompassing either). Sounds good and all, but without the connection and riches Linnaeus has, he just fade away to oblivion (never heard of him before this book). And once things are fixed into history, there's no going back. 

Really though, how has the science history i studied thus far been missing all these important cultural contexts?? Seru banget ini pokoknya, plis baca!

Plants and Empire Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World

Reviews