The political use of science in the diplomacy of the Scramble for Africa, 1875-1891

Description

The purpose of this communication is to discuss the influence of Portuguese governmental and private scientific institutions in the promotion of scientific studies relevant for the negotiations over the partition of Africa in the late nineteenth century. In the 1870s, economic and political interests coalesced to make the colonization of Africa an appealing undertaking, technoscientific advances being crucial in this context. Portugal had enormous colonial ambitions in Africa, despite being a small European kingdom of limited financial resources. Portuguese colonial claims were at first presented in terms of its historical priority in various regions, but as competition mounted in the 1880s new strategies had to be developed. In 1883, a Cartography Commission was founded in the Ministry of the Navy and Overseas Territories, with the aim of coordinating the production of maps useful to plan colonial expansion in Africa and negotiate future borders with neighboring colonial rivals. Founded eight years before, the private Lisbon Geographical Society also tried to influence such colonialist plans according to the interests of its members, who did not necessarily align with the Portuguese executive. In this communication, I will discuss how this interplay of forces led to the organization of different types of Portuguese expeditions to Africa, and the extent to which the scientific knowledge gathered from them was used in the colonial negotiations conducted in the international arena to gain advantage over rival colonial powers.

Period	22 Sept 2022
Event title	The Tenth Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS): Science Policy and the Politics of Science
Event type	Conference
Location	Bruxelas, BelgiumShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International