My PhD project, based on Michel Adanson’s scientific travels to Senegal (1748-1754), analyzes how scientific knowledge was shaped through correspondence – the written exchanges between a scientist in the field and his academic correspondent in the metropole.

From the 17th-18th century, scientists undertook trips to the French colonies and trading posts overseas. Their goal was to bring back new knowledge. In their endeavors, they had to rely on the support of the King (known as the “Protector of Science” Adanson, 1763). Another option was to be recruited by the French East India Company in order to travel and explore the trading areas. This was the case for Michel Adanson, naturalist and French academician. Nominated as correspondent of the Académie Royale des Sciences (Paris) in 1749 while he was in Senegal, Adanson periodically sent letters to his academic correspondents Réaumur and Bernard de Jussieu. These were not only reports of his daily activities, but also on his interactions in the contact zones.

Thus, my main interest in this research is to uncover the local systems of knowledge. While research on scientific travels has so far focused on the traveler and his collection, this study highlights his collaborators’ production of knowledge. Adanson’s correspondence allows these knowledge systems to be traced, since he mentions, at various points, his informants’ scientific contributions to his work and offers insights into their understanding.

Looking at correspondence in a transnational dimension, this investigative angle also contributes to the field of scientific epistolary studies. Until now, these studies have focused on the scholarly correspondence networks in the so-called “republic of science”. In addition to its elitist undertones, this approach confined the “public space of science” to the European geographical area. My project, contrary to this tradition, directs attention to the transnational dimension of scientific correspondence.

Ousmane Seydi is a PhD candidate at the University of Basel and member of the Basel Graduate School of History (BGSH). Before coming to Basel, I studied at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar (Senegal), from where I hold a Master’s degree in history.

My contribution to the summer school will be to discuss the use of Michel Espagne’s notion de transfert culturel in the context of transnational research. In relation to the focus of the summer school, this is the reading which inspires me the most.

The notion of transfert culturel has the particularity to add to the concept of “circulation of knowledge” giving it a more complete sense. Transfert culturel takes into account not only the circulation of knowledge, but also the direction of changes related to the passage of knowledge from one space to another. One other key point in this short but very dense introduction is the idea that knowledge is always constructed through a contact, a move. Espagne’s notion allows me to transcend the illusion of the eighteenth-century scientific exclusivism. In fact, this encompasses the notion of a confluence of knowledge, by, in my case, pinpointing external cultural ideas that penetrated the travel writings of scientists. Employing Espagne’s approach thus allows me to identify the voices of Adanson’s Senegalese informants in his scientific writings.

 

Bibliography:

Espagne, Michel, “La notion de transfert culturel”. Revue Sciences/Lettres 2013/1. http://rsl.revues.org/219.

Kapil, Raj, Relocating modern science: circulation and the construction of knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650-1900, Houndmills and New york, Palgrave Macmilan, 2007.

Macleod, R., (ed.), Nature and empire: Science and the colonial entreprise, Osiris, seconde série, volume 15, 2000.

Krige, J., Kai-Henrik B., Global power knowledge: science and technology in international affairs, Osiris, seconde série, volume 21, 2006.

Green, E. M., “Plant knowledge at the Cape: A study in African and European collaboration”, International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 36, N°2,   2003, pp. 367-392