“Realm of Knowledge and Silence.”
May 28, 2018 8:17 AM Subscribe
Rachel Nuwer visits the nearly-abandoned Amani Hills Research Station in Tanzania. "Indeed, all was utterly quiet, but for its order and solemnity, the overwhelming feeling in this library was eeriness. Approaching a shelf labelled “Current Periodicals,” I removed a heavy, hardbound volume at random. Its once-blue spine was faded to a sickly green-grey, and worm bores riddled the brittle cover. The tangled, hollowed remains of a long-dead spider fell to my feet as I opened it to its cover page: Current Chemical Papers 1956."
3I can show you similar ruins at my research center right outside of Washington, DC. There is a very real risk that American science, at least in some disciplines, will meet the same fate.
posted by wintermind at 12:14 PM on May 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by wintermind at 12:14 PM on May 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
There's a lot of fascinating history and anthropology of science coming out on Africa right now, and the scholars interviewed here are a big part of that. Thanks for linking, ChuraChura, this is great stuff.
This story reminds me of my own time at a remote research station in Africa--one with a much more recent colonial history and golden era, but one facing a similar existential crisis.
There's absolutely a lesson here for the US and Europe in that they need to maintain funding for basic science. But the story is also a salutory reminder that Africa isn't just a black hole as far as knowledge production goes; that technology and science aren't just things that can be transported there, but that there are plenty of African scientists and technologists hard at work. Or raring to get to work, as the sad tale of the caretaker staff members left behind tells.
The happy side of my own parallel story is that there's still a great deal of research done through my old research station, it's just that more can be done remotely, both from more populated parts of the host country and from overseas. (The less happy side of the more happy side is that the knowledge production can start to look extractive if foreign researchers aren't investing in training and supporting local partners.)
posted by col_pogo at 12:43 PM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
This story reminds me of my own time at a remote research station in Africa--one with a much more recent colonial history and golden era, but one facing a similar existential crisis.
There's absolutely a lesson here for the US and Europe in that they need to maintain funding for basic science. But the story is also a salutory reminder that Africa isn't just a black hole as far as knowledge production goes; that technology and science aren't just things that can be transported there, but that there are plenty of African scientists and technologists hard at work. Or raring to get to work, as the sad tale of the caretaker staff members left behind tells.
The happy side of my own parallel story is that there's still a great deal of research done through my old research station, it's just that more can be done remotely, both from more populated parts of the host country and from overseas. (The less happy side of the more happy side is that the knowledge production can start to look extractive if foreign researchers aren't investing in training and supporting local partners.)
posted by col_pogo at 12:43 PM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]
What a well-written, elegiac piece. Thanks for sharing it. I especially liked the way it linked this story to broader trends in research and higher education. It seems ridiculous to countenance something like that happening here in Australia, but the reality is it already has happened in many examples. I've had friends whose research centres have shut, lab biologists who have seen whole labs shut down.
Why? The perception that there's no money to be made from their areas, or anyone interested in putting money in.
posted by smoke at 4:27 PM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Why? The perception that there's no money to be made from their areas, or anyone interested in putting money in.
posted by smoke at 4:27 PM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
What a tragedy! The post war model of shoving money into research for its own sake, and watching copious economic benefits spin off was so successful on every continent that it became invisible.
Now ideologues around the world are killing off all of the golden egg-layers to reduce oligarch’s tax “burdens” [sic].
posted by monotreme at 10:38 PM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Now ideologues around the world are killing off all of the golden egg-layers to reduce oligarch’s tax “burdens” [sic].
posted by monotreme at 10:38 PM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
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I want that sign for our library.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:36 AM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]