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Empires of Opportunity: German naturalists in British India and the frictions of transnational science
Modern Asian Studies ( IF 1.075 ) Pub Date : 2020-11-04 , DOI: 10.1017/s0026749x19000428 MORITZ VON BRESCIUS
Modern Asian Studies ( IF 1.075 ) Pub Date : 2020-11-04 , DOI: 10.1017/s0026749x19000428 MORITZ VON BRESCIUS
This article examines the little-known but exceptionally well-documented German Schlagintweit brothers’ expedition to India and Central Asia in 1854–58, under the auspices of the British East India Company and the king of Prussia. The brothers’ careers present an instructive study of the opportunities and conflicts inherent within transnational science and the imperial labour market in colonial India in the course of the nineteenth century. Until now, historians have largely emphasized the ways in which European East India companies provided scientific practitioners with professional mobility from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. In these accounts, German scientific practitioners are represented as especially mobile, moving more or less freely within foreign empires, because at the time no ‘German’ empire existed that might compete for allegiances and make them appear suspect. My article, in contrast, offers a revisionist account of this globalizing picture in two senses. First, a close look at the local everyday practices of the Schlagintweit brothers’ expedition highlights the considerable tensions and frictions that accompanied imperial recruitment to South Asia—even for German scientific practitioners. What emerges instead is a rich picture of the contradictory interpretations of supposedly cooperative projects among contemporaries, and the instrumentalization of scientific activities for political ends in the Indian subcontinent, for both established and aspiring colonial powers. Second, the ways in which the Schlagintweits’ scientific expedition was represented and remembered in subsequent decades shows how the politics around transnational science projects only intensified with German unification.
中文翻译:
机会帝国:英属印度的德国博物学家和跨国科学的摩擦
本文考察了鲜为人知但记录非常充分的德国施拉金特威特兄弟在 1854-58 年在英国东印度公司和普鲁士国王的赞助下对印度和中亚的远征。兄弟俩的职业生涯对 19 世纪印度殖民时期跨国科学和帝国劳动力市场内在的机遇和冲突进行了富有启发性的研究。到目前为止,历史学家在很大程度上强调了从 17 世纪到 19 世纪中叶欧洲东印度公司为科学从业者提供专业流动性的方式。在这些叙述中,德国科学工作者被描述为特别流动,在外国帝国内或多或少地自由流动,因为当时不存在可能争夺效忠并使他们显得可疑的“德意志”帝国。相比之下,我的文章从两个方面对这一全球化图景进行了修正主义的描述。首先,仔细观察施拉金特威特兄弟探险队在当地的日常实践,可以发现伴随帝国招募到南亚的过程中存在的相当大的紧张和摩擦——即使对于德国科学从业者来说也是如此。取而代之的是一幅丰富的画面,即对同时代人之间所谓的合作项目的矛盾解释,以及为既定的和有抱负的殖民大国在印度次大陆的政治目的而将科学活动工具化。第二,
更新日期:2020-11-04
中文翻译:
机会帝国:英属印度的德国博物学家和跨国科学的摩擦
本文考察了鲜为人知但记录非常充分的德国施拉金特威特兄弟在 1854-58 年在英国东印度公司和普鲁士国王的赞助下对印度和中亚的远征。兄弟俩的职业生涯对 19 世纪印度殖民时期跨国科学和帝国劳动力市场内在的机遇和冲突进行了富有启发性的研究。到目前为止,历史学家在很大程度上强调了从 17 世纪到 19 世纪中叶欧洲东印度公司为科学从业者提供专业流动性的方式。在这些叙述中,德国科学工作者被描述为特别流动,在外国帝国内或多或少地自由流动,因为当时不存在可能争夺效忠并使他们显得可疑的“德意志”帝国。相比之下,我的文章从两个方面对这一全球化图景进行了修正主义的描述。首先,仔细观察施拉金特威特兄弟探险队在当地的日常实践,可以发现伴随帝国招募到南亚的过程中存在的相当大的紧张和摩擦——即使对于德国科学从业者来说也是如此。取而代之的是一幅丰富的画面,即对同时代人之间所谓的合作项目的矛盾解释,以及为既定的和有抱负的殖民大国在印度次大陆的政治目的而将科学活动工具化。第二,