070283 VO History of Science (2024S)

Many scientific disciplines - from law to medicine, from philology to pharmacy - have contributed to colonialism. Some specialist areas such as economic anthropology or comparative law only emerged when the colonial bureaucracies were confronted with foreign economic and legal institutions and sought to govern them. Only in the last few decades has the repressed and partly lost knowledge of the Global South been examined in more detail (knowledge of non-Western societies: Selin / epistemicide: Boaventura de Sousa Santos). Using the example of the German colonies in the Pacific, luminaries like Robert Koch or Richard Thurnwald and less well-known figures the lecture presents an introductory survey of colonialism from the perspective of the history of science. .
The colonial angle also poses challenges for the history of science on a methodological level. We will, for instance, examine the constitutive proximity of the early history of science with eurocentric perspectives: universalism, rationality, scientific and technical progress were anchored in the discipline and propagated by it. We ask about the possible sources for a history of the Micronesian island of Palau. However, modern scientific-historical attempts at solutions to the one-sidedness mentioned are also presented: reports have long been given from the perspective of the affected global scientific communities, the role of local informants and go-betweens is highlighted, and the history of interconnections and decolonial epistemologies are developed.
The colonial angle also poses challenges for the history of science on a methodological level. We will, for instance, examine the proximity of the early history of science with eurocentric perspectives: universalism, rationality, scientific and technical progress were anchored in the discipline and propagated by it. We ask about the possible sources for a history of the Micronesian island of Palau. The early approaches of global history of science have diversified into entangled approaches or epistemic decolonization. The role of local informants and go-betweens is highlighted.
The lecture offers orientation in the field of history of science. The focus on colonialism and the scientific history of data practices presents the field's work in more detail. This makes it possible to take a closer look at the connections between ethnology, economic and statistical history. science history modules in the Master History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) and the Master Epistemologies of Science and Technology (EST). A course of guided reading for the lecture is offered.