Cottonopolis: lessons for environmental science through the hidden histories of Manchester

在曼彻斯特--以及它的工业、私营企业、大学和文化机构，如博物馆、图书馆、美术馆和天文台--是英国扩张殖民抱负的关键枢纽。这个项目质疑曼彻斯特作为第一个工业化城市的角色，以及通过环境科学扩大全球棉花市场的主导地位，环境科学最终提供了支持殖民扩张、边疆农业和殖民城市化的文化和科学权威。在这个项目中，‘棉花’是一个起点，它扰乱了曼彻斯特作为一个科学和创新之城的历史庆祝活动，挑战我们重新思考第一个工业城市的历史，作为一部具有环境科学殖民遗产的全球社会环境历史。推动曼彻斯特经济增长的棉花从未在英国种植过。相反，正是大英帝国在北美、亚洲、澳大利亚和非洲的扩张，才允许棉花在殖民土地上生长。棉花不可逆转地改变了英国殖民地的风景、水景和劳动生活。环境科学，如肉毒学、土壤学、水文学、昆虫学等，处于重建殖民环境的前沿。通过棉花的历史，我们将揭示工业曼彻斯特的社会环境遗产，以及这一遗产创造的环境知识和影响。此外，该项目将借鉴棉花的生态遗产，询问环境科学如何承认其殖民历史，揭示这些隐藏的历史，并为知识和平等创造新的框架。该项目旨在让这些隐藏的棉花遗产活起来，以期重塑英国及其他地区环境科学的未来。

Within its much celebrated 'innovative past' Manchester - and its industries, private businesses, universities, and cultural institutions such as museums, libraries, art galleries, and observatories - were key hubs in the expansion of UK's colonial aspirations. This project interrogates Manchester's role as the first industrialising city, and the dominance of the expansion of global cotton markets through environmental science, which ultimately provided the cultural and scientific authority that underpinned colonial expansion, frontier agriculture, and colonial urbanization. In this project 'cotton' is a starting point from which to unsettle the celebration of Manchester's history as a city of science and innovation, challenging us to rethink the history of the first industrial city as a global socio-environmental history with a colonial legacy for the environmental sciences. Cotton, which fueled Manchester's growth, never grew in Britain. Rather, it was the expansion of the British Empire, across North America, Asia, Australia, and Africa that allowed for cotton to grow on colonised lands. Cotton irreversibly modified landscapes, waterscapes, and labouring lives in Britain's colonies. The environmental sciences, such as botony, soil science, hydrology, entomology among others, were at the forefront of re-creating colonial environments. Through the histories of cotton, we will reveal the socio-environmental legacies of industrial Manchester and the environmental knowledge and impacts this legacy created. Alongside, drawing from the ecological legacies of cotton, the project will ask how environmental science can acknowledge its colonial pasts, give visibility to these hidden histories, and create new frameworks for knowledge and of equality. Together, the project seeks to bring alive these hidden legacies of cotton, with a view to re-casting the future of environmental sciences in Britain and beyond.