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1 year ago in Colonial Studies By Manoj

How did the twin pursuits of curiosities (for wonder) and commodities (for profit) collectively shape the practices and institutions of early modern natural history in Europe and its overseas engagements?

I'm developing a model for how European natural knowledge expanded. It seems the desire for curiosities created networks of correspondence and exchange among scholars and collectors, while the quest for commodities established colonial infrastructures like botanical gardens and plantations. How did these two logics—one epistemic, one economic—interact to transform how nature was observed, collected, classified, and represented? Did they create distinct types of knowledge or hybrid forms?

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By Seema Answered 1 year ago

They shaped a co-dependent system. The curiosity network (scholars, apothecaries, virtuosi) developed the taxonomic and descriptive practices needed to make sense of new specimens. The commodity network (trading companies, colonial administrators, planters) provided the global reach, shipping infrastructure, and capital. These converged in institutions like colonial botanical gardens (e.g., Jamaica's Bath Garden), which were simultaneously sites of acclimatization for cash crops and collections of local curiosities for European savants. This interaction produced hybrid knowledge: a plant could be simultaneously a "marvel" in a catalog, a "specimen" in a classification system, and a "resource" in an economic report. The commodity impulse often dictated what was collected, while the curiosity paradigm influenced how it was studied and presented. One cannot be understood without the other.

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