Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the life and work of Mary Elizabeth Barber, a British-born settler scientist who lived in the Cape during the nineteenth century. It provides a lens into a range of subjects within the history of knowledge and science, gender and social history, postcolonial, critical heritage and archival studies. The book examines the international importance of the life and works of a marginalized scientist, the instrumentalisation of science to settlers' political concerns and reveals the pivotal but largely silenced contribution of indigenous African experts. Including a variety of material, visual and textual sources, this study explores how these artefacts are archived and displayed in museums and critically analyses their content and silences. The book traces Barber’s legacy across three continents in collections and archives, offering insights into the politics of memory and history-making. At the same time, it forges a nuanced argument, incorporating study of the North and South, the history of science and social history, and the past and the present.
Table of Contents1 IntroductionPart I: African Experts and Science in the Cape2 African Farmers and Medical Plant Experts3 African Naturalists, Collectors, and TaxidermistsPart II: From Providing Data to Forging New Practices and Theories4 Gender, Class and Competition5 Proving and Circulating the Theory of Natural Selection6 Barber’s Forging Scientific Practices and TheoriesPart III: Negotiating Belonging through Science7 Arguing with Artefacts, Biofacts and Organisms: Barber's Advocacy for 1820 Settlers’ Supremacy and Land Rights8 Barber’s World of Birds as a Space of Gender Equality9 Colonial Legacies in Post-Colonial Collections10 ‘The fragments that are left behind’.
