Description
Book SynopsisThe field of science and technology studies has long critiqued the idea that there is such a thing as a universal and singular "Science" that exists independently of human society, interpretation, and action. However, the multiple significant ways in which colonial legacies impact and shape this project have often remained out of sight at the edges of the discipline.
In this important book, Amit Prasad seeks to rectify this erasure, demonstrating that problematic idealized imaginaries of science, scientists, and the scientific realm can be traced back to the birth of "modern science" during European colonialism. Such visions of science and technology have undergirded the imagination of the West (and thus of its others), constructing hierarchies of technological innovation and scientific value, but also unexpectedly leaving society vulnerable to contemporary threats of misinformation and conspiracy theories, as has been strikingly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Far from being an indictment of STS, this rigorous book seeks to highlight such concerns to make STS engage more carefully with issues of colonialism and thus to enable readers to understand the rapidly changing global topography of science and technology today and into the future.
Trade Review“Prasad is a nimble and quick thinker. In this ambitious project, he weaves an engaging and highly readable discussion of what science is, why it is questioned, how we tell its history, and how we do this within a colonial frame.”
Gabriela Soto Laveaga, Harvard University
“Amit Prasad has long been a major contributor to the vibrant field of postcolonial science studies. Those interested in the persistence of colonialism and the shadows it casts into the present will find much here to discuss and debate.”
Suman Seth, Cornell University
Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION – Genealogies of Colonialism in Postcolonial Times
CHAPTER 1 – COVID-19, Science versus Anti-Science, and the Colonial Present
CHAPTER 2 – Historicism without History: The Scientific Revolution, Reimagining the European Past, and Postcolonial Futures
CHAPTER 3 – Colonialism, & Euro/West-centrism: Postcolonial Desires, Colonial Entrapments
CONCLUSION – Modern Science & European Colonialism: A Conversation with J. P. S. Uberoi and Bruno Latour
