Claiming Indigenous Plant Knowledge: From Botanical Exchanges to Resource Extraction in the Indian Ocean World

Claiming Indigenous Plant Knowledge: From Botanical Exchanges to Resource Extraction in the Indian Ocean World examines the collection and documentation of the natural world’s development over the course of the nineteenth century into a vast network of scientists who attempted to categorize and understand nature, particularly in the botanically rich Indian Ocean. But the process of collecting plants and exchanging knowledge about the natural world went far beyond the labor of botanists and naturalists. Naturalists depended on many groups for regional knowledge and local information about the uses, names, and value of plants. Publications and archival materials included local and indigenous knowledge of nature, but as exploration led to colonial expansion and botany became a professional science, local and indigenous knowledge moved to the periphery of botanical writing. Local knowledge never stopped being important, but the act of discovery and the claiming (perhaps even colonization) of botanical knowledge became the limited sphere of professional botanists. Indigenous peoples involved in the early days of collecting never stopped their activities, but professionals failed to acknowledge their labor and expertise. By the end of the century, colonial administrations used botanic information collected by professionals to convert colonies into natural resource extraction zones. This shift disrupted indigenous lifeways in the Indian Ocean World and led to environmental issues facing the region today.

Carey McCormack is assistant professor of global history at George Mason University, Korea.