Oral Histories of Field Science in the Late Portuguese Colonial Empire

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper addresses theoretical and practical questions posed by an oral history project with researchers who did fieldwork in the Portuguese colonies as part of scientific expeditions for the Overseas Research Board (1951–1974) in the post-war period. I discuss what historians of science and late imperialism can draw from oral history as a methodology, as it is not a form of research used with any regularity in the history of science generally. I argue that oral history can be used as an alternative to ethnographic work, allowing researchers to pay close attention to scientific practices, processes of local knowledge production, and the racial division of labor that occurred – in my case specifically – in the colonial setting. Apart from that, the interviews illuminate the Portuguese field scientists’ shared identity in the colonies and their multi-layered interactions and political, social, and cultural negotiations; these broaden our knowledge and understanding of Portuguese field science in the colonial context, presenting a more complex view that does not reinforce either celebratory views of Portuguese colonial science or simplistic views of science in the service of Empire.