Postcolonial and Decolonial Historiography of Science

Abstract

Studies addressing the so-called “diffusion” of modern European science utilized a Eurocentric viewpoint and considered non-European countries essentially as receivers and repeaters, conveying a notion of general scientific backwardness. But since at least the 1980s, studies have focused on scientific activities in different countries and former colonies with a fresh look aimed at understanding and including these regions in the broader map of science. This was accomplished by a critical review of the historiography of sciences produced in and about those countries, identifying their epistemological and methodological foundations and ideological motivations. This shift made it possible for historians of science to stop asking “wrong” questions, like “what did not happen, why not, and what went wrong” but rather “what did happen,” thus illustrating how science operated. The implications of this new attitude involved redefining what counts as science. Understanding science in colonial/postcolonial contexts consequently became a question of constructing a detailed ecology of science, studying and conceiving science in its specific relation to the (colonial) environment. No longer do scholars search for idealized reproductions of mainstream science; instead, the goal is to search for and understand the marks of the “production loci.” This has allowed a new historiography of sciences to emerge that includes countries and personalities that previously were marginalized or simply ignored. This new historiography also accounts for flows in the opposite direction, illuminating the colonial and metropolitan processes of knowledge exchange. This chapter recovers the history of this process over approximately the past 40 years.