Decolonising Science Reading List
In the last couple of weeks, a lot of people have been asking me about what I’ve been reading as reference points for my commentary on the relationship between colonialism and what we usually call “modern science.” Here I am providing a reading list, but first, some commentary to give it context.
There are two different angles at play in the discussion about colonialism and science. First is what constitutes scientific epistemology and what its origins are. As a physicist, I was taught that physics began with the Greeks and later Europeans inherited their ideas and expanded on them. In this narrative, people of African descent and others are now relative newcomers to science, and questions of inclusion and diversity in science are related back to “bringing science to underrepresented minority and people of color communities.” The problem with this narrative is that it isn’t true. For example, many of those “Greeks” were actually Egyptians and Mesopotamians under Greek rule. So, even though for the last 500 years or so science has largely been developed by Europeans, the roots of its methodology and epistemology are not European. Science, as scientists understand it, is not fundamentally European in origin. This complicates both racist narratives about people of color and innovation as well as discourse around whether science is fundamentally wedded to Euro-American operating principles of colonialism, imperialism and domination for the purpose of resource extraction.
This leads me to the second angle at play: Europeans have engaged what is called “internalist” science very seriously over the last 500 years and often in service and tandem with colonialism and white supremacy. For example, Huygens and Cassini facilitated and directed astronomical observation missions in order to help the French better determine the location of St. Domingue, the island that houses the modern nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Why? Because this would help make the delivery of slaves and export of the products of their labor more efficient. That is just one example, which stuck out to me because I am a descendant of the Caribbean part of the Atlantic Slave Trade, and I also have two degrees in astronomy (and two in physics).
There is a lot that has been hidden from mainstream narratives about the history of astronomy, including 20th century history. Where has the colonial legacy of astronomy taken us? From Europe to Haiti to now Hawai’i. Hawai’i is the flash point for this conversation now, even though the story goes beyond Hawai’i. If we are going to understand the context of what is happening in Hawai’i with the Thirty Meter Telescope, we must understand that Hawai’i is not the first or only place where astronomers used and benefited from colonialism. And in connection, we have to understand Hawai’ian history. Thus, my reading list also includes important materials about Hawai’i’s history.
tl;dr: science has roots outside of the Eurasian peninsula known as Europe, it likely has its limitations as one of multiple ontologies of the world, it has been used in really grotesque ways, and we must understand all of these threads to truly contextualize the discourse in Hawai’i around science, Hawaiian epistemologies and who gets to determine what constitutes “truth” and “fact” when it comes to Mauna a Wakea.
Finally, I believe science need not be inextricably tied to commodification and colonialism. The discourse around “diversity, equity and inclusion” in science, technology, engineering and mathematics must be viewed as a reclamation project for people of color. Euro-American imperialism and colonialism has had its (often unfortunate) moment with science, and it’s time for the rest of us to reclaim our heritage for the sake of ourselves and the next seven generations.
Note: this reading list is woefully low on materials about science in the pre-European contact Americas, Southeast Asia and parts of Australasia. I’m probably missing some stuff, but I think it signals a problem with research in the history of science too.
The Crest of the Peacock: The Non-European Roots of Mathematics by George Gheverghese Joseph
Science, Colonialism and Indigenous Peoples: The Cultural Politics of Law and Knowledge by Laurelyn Whitt
The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation by John M. Hobson
Multicultural settler colonialism and indigenous struggle in Hawai’i: The politics of astronomy on Mauna a Wakea a dissertation by Joseph Salazar (available on ProQuest)
Colonialism & Science: Saint Domingue in the Old Regime by James E. McClellan III
Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies by Sandra Harding
Hating Empire Properly: The Two Indies and the Limits of Enlightenment Anticolonialism by Sunil M. Agnani
Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature by Donna J. Haraway
Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physics by Sharon Traweek
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
A People’s History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks by Clifford D. Connor
Notes on Dialectics by C.L.R. James (available scanned here.)
Science and Technology in Korea: Traditional Instruments and Techniques by Sang-woon Jeon
The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map
Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Italy by Meredith K. Ray
The World and Africa: An inquiry into the part which Africa has played in world history by W.E. Burghardt Du Bois
The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome by Alondra Nelson
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington
Wikipedia entry on History of Scientific Method
Wikipedia entry on Physics in the medieval Islamic World
Tribal peoples have crucial role to play in global conservation Guardian Op-Ed
We Live In the Future. Come Join Us. by Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada
Protecting Mauna A Wakea: The Space Between Science and Spirituality by Keolu Fox
Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism by Noenoe K. Silva
A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land and Sovereignty, Noelani Goodyear-Ka’opua, Ikaika Hussey, and Erin Kahunawaika’ala Wright, editors
voices of fire: reweaving the literary lei of pele and hi’iaka by ku’ualohoa ho’omanawanui
Collection of documents about TMT situation specifically: aoletmt.com
