Civic Matter - 20 November 2013 - Roundtable on Scientific Infrastructure in Africa

The Elusive Lab: Roundtable on Scientific Infrastructure in Africa Professor David Dunne (Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge)Dr Wenzel Geissler (Division Social Anthropology, University of Oslo and University of Cambridge)Dr Ferdinand Okwaro (African Studies, University of Cambridge)Dr Branwyn Poleykett (Division Social Anthropology, University of CambridgeDr Noemi Tousignant (Division Social Anthropology, University of CambridgeProfessor James Wood (Department of Veterinary Medicine) Session Abstract From self-representations of early Imperial scientists to critical analyses by historians of colonial science a century later, Africa has been described as a laboratory, notably of medical and biological sciences, and by extension of social and political forms. In practice, this trope points to the fact that Africa itself was then the site of experimentation, a vast field of data collection connected to sites of analysis largely located outside the conti