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Silenced Knowdleges and Memories in the Tropics (03)

Fieldwork Under Occupation

Science, Territory, and Power in the Tropics

The Colonial Infrastructure of Science

The image of the lone naturalist exploring uncharted tropical landscapes has long captivated the scientific imagination.

However, this narrative collapses under closer scrutiny. Fieldwork in colonized regions was never an isolated, apolitical act. From the 18th through the early 20th century, scientific expeditions into tropical environments were frequently embedded within broader colonial infrastructures. Naturalists often relied on the logistical and military support of imperial networks, traveling with the assistance of soldiers, missionaries, colonial administrators, or commercial agents. Far from being neutral observers, these scientists operated within —and often benefited from— the asymmetrical power structures of empire.

The presence of scientific tools such as barometers, microscopes, and taxonomic manuals did not replace or neutralize the presence of firearms, national flags, and territorial ambitions. In many cases, fieldwork was part of a dual mission: to gather empirical data and to reinforce territorial claims. Scientific exploration mapped not only rivers and species but also imperial borders and economic opportunities. Researchers contributed to colonial governance by producing knowledge that could be used to manage, classify, and extract value from both people and environments.

This entanglement of science and empire is not incidental. It shaped the methodologies of field research, the priorities of data collection, and the forms of knowledge that entered institutional archives. Fieldwork in the tropics was structured by occupation — not only of territory but of epistemic space.

Collecting Landscapes: From Data to Domination

Specimen collection was one of the most visible forms of scientific engagement with tropical environments.

However, the act of collecting plants, animals, minerals, and soils was rarely a neutral or purely academic endeavor. These specimens were extracted from landscapes whose meanings, uses, and relationships were already embedded in local knowledge systems. When collected under colonial conditions, they were often removed from their original epistemological contexts and reclassified according to foreign taxonomies. Local names, uses, and cultural associations were typically excluded from scientific labeling or dismissed as anecdotal.

The act of renaming —assigning Latin binomials, designating ecological zones, or numbering items for catalogues— was not only a gesture of scientific classification. It was an act of power, one that erased the naming practices and knowledge systems that preexisted colonial contact. The transformation of a medicinal plant into a pharmaceutical compound, or a forest into a series of specimens housed in a European herbarium, often meant the displacement of entire ontologies. Knowledge was taken, reframed, and claimed.

Even the instruments of science themselves contributed to the process of domination. Compasses and sextants facilitated colonial cartography. Surveying equipment supported the drawing of political boundaries. Diagrams and typologies produced by anthropologists were used to justify racial hierarchies and civilizational narratives. In this context, scientific fieldwork functioned as a mode of epistemic extraction — a process that paralleled, and often justified, the economic and political extraction already underway.

Silenced Contributors and Erased Epistemologies

A closer look at archival materials —expedition diaries, herbarium labels, field reports— reveals a pattern of exclusion. While the names of European scientists, funders, and institutions are meticulously preserved, the contributions of local collaborators are often anonymized or omitted entirely. Guides, porters, translators, and Indigenous experts who provided crucial knowledge, navigational skills, and identification of species appear, if at all, as generic "natives" or "informants." Their intellectual labor, embedded in oral practices, embodied techniques, and environmental interpretation, is rendered invisible.

This erasure was not accidental. It was embedded in the scientific and archival logic of the time, which privileged written authority, formal accreditation, and institutional affiliation. Local knowledge was rarely considered valid unless mediated through Western frameworks. As a result, the historical record systematically excludes or marginalizes the very people who made tropical field science possible.

Due to this structural silencing, the archive became a space not only of memory but of forgetting. The shape of the record reflected broader dynamics of power, authorship, and legitimacy.

The Legacy in Contemporary Institutions

Today, many of the collections produced through colonial fieldwork remain in scientific institutions across the Global North. These include not only physical specimens, but also detailed descriptions, illustrations, and environmental data that continue to inform contemporary research. However, the epistemic conditions under which these materials were produced remain largely unexamined. Herbarium sheets, catalogues, and field notes still rarely include metadata about the social and political context of collection. The names of Indigenous contributors, where known, are often excluded from databases or indexed under outdated racial categories.

Efforts to decolonize libraries, archives, and museums must therefore move beyond symbolic gestures or surface-level acknowledgments. Structural questions must be addressed: How do we reintroduce excluded voices into cataloguing systems? How do we flag and contextualize colonial provenance? How can metadata frameworks accommodate multiple ontologies and knowledge systems, especially those that do not conform to Western bibliographic norms?

Moreover, access remains a critical issue. Collections originating in the Global South are often inaccessible to the communities from which they were taken, either due to physical distance, digital barriers, or language limitations. Decolonizing fieldwork means not only recovering lost names, but also transforming access, attribution, and authority.

Toward Ethical and Collaborative Fieldwork

Moving forward, the challenge is to imagine fieldwork that is not based on extraction, but on collaboration. This requires more than protocols and consent forms — it demands a fundamental shift in how knowledge production is conceptualized.

Ethical fieldwork must begin with reciprocal relationships, transparent goals, and shared authorship. It must recognize that the environments being studied are not passive backgrounds but living archives, and that the people who inhabit them are not subjects but co-researchers.

Such a shift also redefines the role of scientific institutions. Rather than acting as repositories of colonial knowledge, they must become spaces of epistemic repair — sites where historical injustices are acknowledged, and alternative narratives are made visible. This includes embracing plural epistemologies, recognizing oral and embodied knowledge, and confronting the archival structures that continue to silence non-Western contributions.

By understanding tropical fieldwork as a historically situated practice shaped by power, we are better equipped to dismantle the assumptions that still underpin our scientific records. Only then can we move toward a model of science that listens, learns, and coexists — rather than conquers.

About this post

Text: Edgardo Civallero.
Publication date: 01.04.2025.
Picture: Ceiba tree in the Metropolitan Natural Park, Panama City, Panama. @ Edgardo Civallero 2025.