Geissler P Wenzel, Kelly Ann H
Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK (part-time).
Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Kings College, London, UK.
Soc Stud Sci. 2016 Dec;46(6):912-937. doi: 10.1177/0306312716650045. Epub 2016 Jul 7.
Located high in Tanzania's Usambara Mountains, Amani Hill Station has been a site of progressive scientific endeavours for over a century, pushing the boundaries of botanical, zoological and medical knowledge, and providing expertise for imperial expansion, colonial welfare, national progress and international development efforts. The station's heyday was from the 1950s to the 1970s, a period of global disease eradication campaigns and the 'Africanization' of science. Today, Amani lies in a state of suspended motion. Officially part of a national network of medical research stations, its buildings and vegetation are only minimally maintained, and although some staff report for duty, scientific work has ceased. Neither ruin nor time capsule, Amani has become a quiet site of remains and material traces. This article examines the methodological potentials of re-enactment - on-site performances of past research practices - to engage ethnographically with the distinct temporalities and affective registers of life at the station. The heuristic power of re-enactment resides in its anachronicity, the tensions it introduces between immediacy and theatricality, authenticity and artifice, fidelity and futility. We suggest that re-enacting early post-colonial science as events unfolding in the present disrupts straightforward narratives about the promises and shortfalls of scientific progress, raising provocative questions about the sentiments and stakes of research in 'the tropics'.
阿曼尼山地站位于坦桑尼亚乌桑巴拉山脉的高处，在一个多世纪以来一直是前沿科学探索的场所，拓展着植物学、动物学和医学知识的边界，并为帝国扩张、殖民福利、国家发展和国际发展努力提供专业知识。该站的全盛时期是20世纪50年代到70年代，这是全球疾病根除运动和科学“非洲化”的时期。如今，阿曼尼处于一种停滞状态。它正式隶属于国家医学研究站网络，但其建筑和植被仅得到最低限度的维护，尽管仍有一些工作人员报到上班，但科学工作已经停止。阿曼尼既不是废墟也不是时间胶囊，而是一个充满遗迹和物质痕迹的宁静之地。本文探讨了重演（即对过去研究实践进行现场表演）的方法潜力，以便从民族志角度参与到该站独特的时间性和情感记录之中。重演的启发力量在于其不合时宜性，在于它在即时性与戏剧性、真实性与人为性、忠实性与徒劳性之间引入的张力。我们认为，将后殖民早期科学重演为当下正在展开的事件，会扰乱关于科学进步的承诺与不足的直白叙述，引发关于在“热带地区”进行研究的情感与利害关系的挑衅性问题。
