Collection Ecologies

Please note the time change for this session!
 
Reevaluating Insects as Archives – Collection Ecologies as Multidisciplinary and Multipractice Conversation
Dominik Huenniger, German Port Museum, Hamburg
Karina Lucas Silva-Brandão, Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change
Christian Reiß, Regensburg University
Xiaoya Zhan, Nanyang Technological University

Abstract: 
Historically marginalized beings gain significance when networks of relations are redrawn through ecological sciences. These sciences are typically seen as working in or on “the field,” but natural history collections are used increasingly by scholars to readdress ecological questions. Natural history collections, understood as environments themselves, foreground both the materiality of specimens and the knowledges extracted from them in an ongoing discourse about the norms of scientific practices. Insects reevaluated as archives foreground possible sites of multidisciplinary research, with multifaceted potential for the history of science. With different disciplinary approaches to the study of small animals and the production of collections, history of science, archaeology, environmental history, and natural history are brought into conversation a forum on “Collection Ecologies” published in a Focus Section of Isis -  A Journal of the History of Science Society in March 2024. The participants of this exchange about collections as a web of relationships entailing regimes of value, epistemes of logistics, and bureaucratic and scientific practices explore how multidisciplinary knowledge of “natural” bodies can be formed around insect collections.  For the Collecion Ecologies CHSTM Working Group meeting they share their experience in collaborating on this forum.

 
"Captivity's Collections: Science, Natural History, and the British Transatlantic Slave Trade." 
 
Kathleen S. Murphy, Professor of History and Associate Dean for Student Success, California Polytechnic State University.
 
Abstract: 
Cashews from Africa's Gold Coast, butterflies from Sierra Leone, jalap root from Veracruz, shells from Jamaica—in the eighteenth century, these specimens from faraway corners of the Atlantic were tucked away onboard inhumane British slaving vessels. Kathleen S. Murphy argues that the era's explosion of new natural knowledge was deeply connected to the circulation of individuals, objects, and ideas through the networks of the British transatlantic slave trade. Plants, seeds, preserved animals and insects, and other specimens were gathered by British slave ship surgeons, mariners, and traders at slaving factories in West Africa, in ports where captive Africans disembarked, and near the British South Sea Company's trading factories in Spanish America. The specimens were displayed in British museums and herbaria, depicted in published natural histories, and discussed in the halls of scientific societies. Grounded in extensive archival research on both sides of the Atlantic, Captivity's Collections mines scientific treatises, slaving companies' records, naturalists' correspondence, and museum catalogs to recover in rich detail the scope of the slave trade's collecting operations. The book reveals the scientific and natural historical profit derived from these activities and the crucial role of specimens gathered along the routes of the slave trade on emerging ideas in natural history.

Building an Inclusive Botany: The “Radicle” Dream
Makenzie E. Mabry, Nuala Caomhanach,  R. Shawn Abrahams, Michelle L. Gaynor, Kasey Khanh Pham, Tanisha M. Williams, Kathleen S. Murphy, Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, Douglas E. Soltis, and Pamela S. Soltis
 
During the session the authors of the paper will discuss how this collaboration emerged, the goals for the paper, and share their experiences working across disciplinary fields as botanists and historians of botany. 
 
Abstract
It is important to recognize how our current understanding of plants has been shaped by diverse cultural contexts, as this underscores the importance of valuing and incorporating contributions from all knowledge systems in scientific pursuits. This approach emphasizes the ongoing bias, including within scientific practices, and the necessity of discussing problematic histories within spaces of learning. It is crucial to acknowledge and address biases, even within scientific endeavors. Doing so fosters a more inclusive and equitable scientific community. This article, while not comprehensive, serves as a starting point for conversation and an introduction to current work on these topics. In response to a global dialog about systemic racism, ongoing inequalities, appeals to decolonize science, and the many recent calls for diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion, we draw on the narratives of plants to revisit the history of botany. Our goal is to uncover how exclusionary practices have functioned in the past and persist today. We also explore the numerous opportunities and challenges that arise in the era of information as we strive to establish a more inclusive field of botany. This approach recognizes and honors the contributions of historically marginalized groups, such as Black and Indigenous communities. We hope that this article can serve as a catalyst for raising awareness, fostering contemplation, and driving action toward a more equitable and just scientific community.
 

 
"Cameroon in Berlin. A collaborative assessment of collections and archives from the mammal collections in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin"
with Paul Taku Bisong, MSc in Evolution, Ecology and Systematics from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, with a dissertation entitled "The Batanga Expedition in German 'Kamerun' (1887): The Role of the first 'Kolonialzoologe' Bernhard Weissenborn." He is the author of an assessment on the type material from "Kamerun" in the mammal collection of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.
and Catarina Madruga, postdoc researcher working on provenance research methods specific to colonial natural history collections; the connections between epistemologies of nature and the history of environment, empire, and zoological collections; and the political meanings of scientific localities in zoological catalogues and online repositories. 
Abstract: 
Cameroon in Berlin is a case study for the development of decolonial methods to assess information on natural history collections, their associated collection management systems, archival materials and library resources. Instead of looking at a particular animal genus or species, or of taking a biographical approach, we used the colonial political unit of German “Kamerun” as the entry point to assess the collections in the mammal department, I - Collections, and the historical archive, II - Archives, of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MfN).
Cameroon in Berlin I. Collections is the report by Paul Taku Bisong detailing the work of the assessment of the specimens in the mammal collections of the MfN that were tagged in the digital databank as both with having information under the category “type status” and with reference of geographical collecting location as “Kamerun.” The available databank information was checked and enhanced with use of the manuscript accession catalogue, remaining inscriptions and labels, and other available publications and historical documentation. The result is a list of 91 specimens, with enhanced metadata, of different 31 described mammal species.
The 12 valid and available type-specimens were published in open access, with a discussion of the relevance of this work: https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.99.110878.
Cameroon in Berlin II. Archives, lists the thus-far identified archival materials relating to the historical collections of the Zoological Museum of Berlin, with reference to manuscript catalogues and inventories, of type-localities and of suppliers involved in the shipment of specimens from the territories of German "Kamerun." To complement this, we added a list of identified suppliers and of the localities of shipments that were identified as including type-specimens. In order to be able to discuss real “access” to these documents, we describe and de-codify as much as possible of the underlying contexts of extraction, display, and management of zoological collections. We hope other researchers will find this provisional assessment of the materials useful, especially those interested in the dislocation of people and nature from the geographical collecting to this particular configuration of Cameroon in Berlin.

 
“Field/Work in the Archive: Herbaria as Sites of Cultural Exchange”
with Martha Fleming
Museologist, historian of science and of collections, Associate Professor, Natural History Museum of Denmark
 
Abstract: Martha Fleming will discuss the aims, research methods, and preliminary findings of the project of the same title for which she is the Principal Investigator.  Field/Work investigates the global cultural historical value of elements of the dried plant collection of 'Herbarium C' -- the Danish national herbarium held at the Natural History Museum of Denmark.  Significant elements of the collection are colonial in nature, and the project thus aims to conjoin history of science, history of collections, collections-based research, and global and colonial histories.
Bio: Martha Fleming is a museologist, an historian of collections, and an historian of science with a particular focus on natural historical and correlative scientific collections and archives. Her current research investigates the creation and management of natural history collections as significant forms of knowledge producing practices embedded in globalised colonial contexts.  Fleming was instrumental in the creation of the Centre for Arts and Humanities Research at London’s Natural History Museum (2009-2011), a research centre that has since been held up as a model internationally for the productive integration of the methods and rigour of humanities and social science disciplines into life science research contexts.
 

 
Conveners’ introduction : “Introducing the Collection Ecologies Working Group”
with Catarina Madruga
Historian of zoological collections Centre for Humanities of Nature, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin
Nuala  P. Caomhanach
Historian of  science, evolutionary biologist and doctoral candidate, New York University & American Museum of Natural History
Déborah Dubald
Historian of science and health, lecturer at the University of Strasbourg
Dominik Hünniger
Historian of museums, natural history and the environment, curator for innovation research, German Port Museum Hamburg

Abstract: This session will introduce the aims and methods of the Collection Ecologies collective so far. Following a brief presentation by Dominik Hünniger, founder of the collective, any member of the working group will be invited to present an image, an object or a collection and how it resonates with the “Collection Ecologies”.
Note : please bring an object, image or a collection for a 2 minute presentation!