Event

Statistics for a Decolonizing World:

This talk explores the role of statistical practices in decolonizing the world. It follows the work of Pandurang Sukhatme at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN); Henry A. Wallace at Iowa State University and the USDA; and Amílcar Cabral as surveyor for the Portuguese colonial government and guerrilla leader in Guinea Bissau. Their engagement with statistics, namely with sampling and randomization, enables the historical weaving of projects of world governance at the UN, Indian independence, and West African liberation movements. In this connected history of decolonization, statistical methods became central not only to denounce the injustices of the colonial order, but also to unveil forms of agency from below for worldmaking after empire.

Tiago Saraiva is an associate professor of History at Drexel University, co-editor of the journal History and Technology, and a member of the new Cambridge History of Technology editorial team. His book Fascist Pigs: Technoscientific Organisms and the History of Fascism (MIT Press, 2016) was awarded the Pfizer Prize for the best scholarly book in 2017, the History of Science Society's highest honor for a work of scholarship.

As a historian of science and technology, Dr. Saraiva examines the connections between science, technology, crops, and politics on a global scale. For instance, after revisiting the history of European fascism through stories of technoscientific organisms such as wheat, pigs, and sheep, he is now studying the significance of cloning Californian oranges for the history of racial capitalism in the United States, South Africa, Algeria, Palestine, and Brazil.