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

二十世纪是一个时期，西方关于生态学、细胞学、遗传学和优生学的争论以新的和有趣的方式发展，无论是积极的还是消极的，以了解人类在自然界中的地位，并最终导致了一场反种族主义的科学运动。该项目在英国和印度的背景下探讨了这些辩论的历史、出现的科学网络以及被忽视的殖民科学家的贡献--科学史上一个重要的新领域，而在这些讨论的背景下，这个领域还没有被探索过。这里探讨的辩论尤其与被称为现代综合(1920-1960)的运动有关，该运动标志着生物科学之间跨学科知识交流的高度发展，现在与孟德尔式的共同框架合作，以解决他们认为的所有生命之谜。通过包括遗传生态学在内的细胞学和遗传学的新方法，对人口、灭绝和环境的关注获得了更有针对性的方法。更险恶的是，对种族纯洁性和优生学的担忧也是如此。尽管赫胥黎在1942年兴高采烈地声称植物学、遗传学、生态学和人类学的学科之间有着不可挽回的联系，但这些学科自20世纪30年代以来的跨学科活动仍然没有被放在历史的背景下进行探索。也没有分析这些网络中杰出个人之间的联系，以了解反种族主义科学运动的思想史。通过记录西方训练有素的殖民科学家(包括一位杰出的印度女性)在20世纪中期这些关键的全球辩论中未被认识到的贡献，我们将通过考察种族、性别和科学、土著知识的作用和思想的交叉受精，来增强我们对这一时期科学实践的理解。这些辩论的影响将在英国以人文主义运动的形式进行评估，今天仍有意义，在独立后不久的殖民时代的印度将通过科学人文主义的出现进行评估，科学人文主义直到最近仍是印度的基本原则之一。在这方面，我们还将审查土著知识方面新出现的辩论，并分析西方知识体系在殖民时代后的印度取得最终胜利的原因。该项目的实际应用将使我们的伙伴机构诺里奇的John Innes中心能够了解他们自己的历史，了解非英国科学家对遗传学历史的贡献，以及专业知识和权威在构建这种知识方面的交叉作用。这将促进英国和印度公众对科学的理解，并促进跨学科学者小组之间的同行学习。通过以展览和在John Innes中心和苏塞克斯举办的数字展览的形式向包括加尔各答小学生在内的新受众传播这一知识，将进一步帮助在英国和印度向更广泛的受众传播这一知识。人们希望，通过承认殖民科学家对许多领域科学的贡献，如植物学、动物学、地质学、地理学和古生物学，研究结果将揭示改变科学文化的途径，使其更加包容其殖民历史。

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.