Cambridge sets out to decolonise the dodo
University advertises for a PHD student to investigate its collection and root out imperial connections
THE University of Cambridge may “decolonise the dodo” in a new taxpayer-backed scheme.
The university is seeking a PHD student to investigate its collection of plants and animals to root out imperial connections in its Museum of Zoology.
The successful candidate will be tasked with setting out how specimens from tigers to dodos might be linked to “the European colonial story”.
Prompts for the project suggest this work could focus on racial ideas, “violent” colonial activity and “resource exploitation”.
In an advert for the role, the university has stated that the project will help to present the history of botany and zoology as more diverse than famed European scientists, in order to make people “feel represented by museums”.
The project forms part of Cambridge’s efforts to address its own “legacies of enslavement and empire” and is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which distributes taxpayer funding for research.
The advertisement states that the collections have “some of the world’s most celebrated animals and plants, from tigers to dodos and rhododendrons and tea”, adding: “Such specimens in our collections represent how colonial histories and environmental histories became tied to the same processes.”
It continues: “The outcomes of this project will be significant. They have the potential to help shape how the natural history museum sector grapples with understanding its colonial legacy.”
It added that the project will aim to show that: “A far greater diversity of people were involved in the history of science – and society – than has traditionally been acknowledged. In this way it is hoped that more people will feel represented by museums.
“Cambridge’s natural history collections have always supported pioneering scientific research, but their potential for researching imperial cultural history is only just beginning to be realised.”
The advert for the role with a £19,000 stipend also states that prominent objects in the museum collection reflect a “bias in the archive - centring, as they do, on prominent white naturalists”.
The suggested areas of focus for the project include the uncredited work of indigenous figures who helped European botanists and zoologists amass their collections.
The project could, it is suggested, look at “the links between practices of natural history and troubling or violent colonial history” and “the entwined human and environmental costs of the colonial project”.
A further prompt suggests a PHD researcher could investigate how “the definition of species, animals and kinds relate to ideas of race, gender and other variables of identity”. Various examples of the colonial links present in the collection are given, including a vast collection of specimens relating to the dodo, which became extinct in the 17th century. Another is a tiger shot by the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, on a diplomatic tour of India in 1875.
A collection amassed by Alfred Russel Wallace in the Malay Archipelago has also been suggested, as the naturalist enlisted the help of local Malays.
Beatles, molluscs, primates, parakeets, and dodos have also been suggested as prompts for the study of colonial connections in the zoology collection. Some specimens were collected with the help of indentured labourers.
The researcher will also have access to the university herbarium, to examine the colonial connection of specimens such as tea and rhododendrons.
The successful applicant will work with PHD supervisors to uncover these histories, with a particular focus on south Asia and islands including Mauritius, Réunion and Rodrigues.
Lee Anderson, the MP who recently defected from the Conservatives to Reform UK, said: “Maybe these universities should concentrate on solving present day problems rather than wasting resources to decolonise the dodo.”
The university has been contacted for comment.