Internationalising Colonial Knowledge. Edgar Barton Worthington and the Scientific Council for Africa, 1949–1956

Abstract

By focusing on the trajectory of the British biologist Edgar Barton Worthington (1905–2001), this article examines the history of the Scientific Council for Africa South of Sahara (SCA), an intercolonial organisation created in 1950 that aimed at fostering scientific collaboration between European colonial administrations, both in the metropoles and on the African continent. Drawing on the private papers of Worthington, who actively worked for SCA up until 1956, it shows how colonial officials and scholars attempted to establish a common research programme in many fields of natural and social sciences, in connection with the post-war developmentalist agenda. The article also highlights the struggle that arose around the control over knowledge about African societies and natural resources, as well as how scientific ‘colonial circuits’ were readapted to face a new global context shaped by decolonising pressures and geopolitical realignments.

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