Development as Experiment: Science and State Building in Late Colonial and Postcolonial Africa, 1930-1970

Abstract

This paper explores the continuous role that science has played in the establishment of a colonial and post-colonial regime in Africa. Examining development schemes that flourished between 1930 and 1970, the paper shows how African agrarian societies became objects of both state intervention and expert knowledge. In pursuing large scale social engineering and social experiments, these schemes constituted a particular--colonial?--way of managing the African environment and of crafting knowledge on African societies. In constructing development ideologies and practices in the late colonial and post independence periods, they also played an important part in the construction of the African state. Their approaches shaped the future of tropical medicine, agriculture, and development studies. Ironically, they also created the preconditions for later interest in the values of indigenous knowledge.