Interactive Knowledge-Making: How and Why Nineteenth-Century Austrian Scientific Travelers in Asia and Africa Overcame Cultural Differences

Abstract

This chapter focuses on two Austrian explorers who traveled in the first half of the nineteenth century, when imperial colonialism had not yet fully developed: the botanist Baron Carl Hugel (1796–1870) and the mineralogist Joseph Russegger (1802–1863). As scientific travelers in non-European areas, they had to cope with the kind of differences they found themselves unable to adequately describe or assess. They had to do so in terms which did not previously exist. Both travelers visited destinations off the beaten track, in Asia and Africa respectively, where they became involved, perhaps unwillingly, in colonial activities. The botanist Hugel paved the way for British indirect rule in Kashmir; the mineralogist Russegger was the first European to lead an expedition into the interior of Africa, which served as a basis for Muhammad Ali’s and, later, British indirect rule of northern Sudan. Carl Hugel was a veteran of the military corps traveling without orders and driven by personal ambition; Joseph Russegger held public office and traveled by order of the state. Both were members of social elites: Hugel a scientific amateur of aristocratic background; Russegger a burgher and trained scientist. However, both pursued specific scientific endeavors. They left voluminous reports of their travels and their scientific findings, published in the pre-revolutionary 1840s. Accordingly, their travelogues will be the main sources for this study, with the practices of the making and unmaking of differences as a key issue. From today’s perspective, our travelers’ approach oscillated between a scientific view, early imperial colonialist attitudes, open-mindedness and curiosity.