Taxonomic imperialism in the battles forAcacia: Identity and science in South Africa and Australia

Abstract

This review analyses the retypification of Acacia Mill. by the International Botanical Congress in 2005, from an African type to an Australian one. It explores the cultural, historical and trans-national context of what proved much more than a routine scientific decision. It contributes to a growing critique of historian Alfred Crosby's thesis Ecological Imperialism, and provides a historical review of the ecological literature leading to the discipline of invasion biology in South Africa, Australia and elsewhere, particularly the work of Charles Elton. The aim of the article is to narrow the gap between the historically ecological and the ecologically historical literature through a closely worked case study that reveals the role of national identity in even the most arcane and international science. The history of the ‘wattle wars’ (or the ‘battle for Acacia’) in Australia, South Africa and the rest of the world reveals a need for a new literacy in both culture and nature and increasingly sophisticated conversations between C.P. Snow's ‘Two Cultures’.

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