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Killing to Keep - Violent Field Practices and Natural History in the Age of Empire

Head of Research Unit

Prof. Dr. Marie Muschalek, Prof. Dr.

Projects & Collaborations

4 found

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Global Dimensions of Ornithology in Nineteenth-Century Northern South America: Knowledge Production, Imperial Networks, and Power

PhD Project | 2 Project Members

This subproject focuses on nineteenth-century northern South America, especially Colombia, and the flourishing practices of collecting, preserving, and circulating of bird specimens for European institutions. It focuses specifically on the bird collection known as “Bogota skins” and what I term the “Bucaramanga skins”, using them as a lens to explore socio-political, scientific, and environmental relationships between Colombia and Europe. The case study posits that post-independence ornithology in Colombia operated within transnational, polycentric networks that integrated local knowledge and practices with European scientific traditions. These networks reinforced imperial hierarchies while relying on local expertise, resources, labor, producing a system of knowledge shaped by power asymmetries and mutual dependencies.

Methodologically, this subproject addresses three key lines of inquiry. First, it examines the roles of actors such as indigenous hunters, traders, and intermediaries in transforming Colombian avifauna into global natural object. Second, it analyzes the material practices of collection and transportation, focusing their adaptation to local environmental conditions and their role in shaping the representations of biodiversity. Third, it explores the commodification of avifauna as scientific artifacts, luxury commodities, and symbolic objects, highlighting the human and non-human forms of violence in these processes.

he Violence of Decay. The (after-)life of maritime fauna collected in the 19th century South Pacific

PhD Project | 2 Project Members

The Violence of Decay. The (after-)life of maritime fauna collected in the 19th century South Pacific
This dissertation project focusses on fish and mollusks from the Southwest Pacific that were located, captured and killed in the 19th century to be sent to museums in Europe during a time of intensive colonial extraction and accumulation. As part of the SNF-Project Killing to Keep, this studyconsiders the maritime animals that can be found in European collections today not only as natural history objects, but also as actors within colonial trade and scientific networks. Their particularly mobile behavior, their impermanence once they deceased and the threat of the Climate Crisis today make these animals elusive actors. How did decay influence the practices of killing and preserving maritime animals and how does it affect practices today?
Everyday practices of collecting and preserving maritime fauna in the 19th century involved multiple perspectives and knowledges. Collecting wet specimens took place in the geographically wide historical context that included indigenous strategic use of wayfinding competences and other nature knowledges in their encounter with imperial intruders. European trading firms, that specialized in natural history collecting usually combined with the hunt for ethnographica, were motivated by economic and scientific interest to accumulate specimens of species that were yet to be described by Western science. The boundaries between their different trading goods that ranged from consumer goods and ethnographic objects to dead animals and human remains cannot be clearly drawn. This insight poses a challenge and an even greater opportunity for an interdisciplinary approach to writing a history of colonial science and violence.
The historical and contemporary practices surrounding the contact between humans and marine animals can reveal overlooked connections and entanglements between scientific disciplines, natural history collections, and contemporary environmental challenges. Overall, this project will highlight the obligations that arise from being part of a world interconnected in the past and the present, creating a dialogue between collections, practices, archival sources and contemporary perspectives.

Perished but Preserved: Zoological Material of Extinction

Research Project | 2 Project Members

This sub-project investigates extinct species, related to the geographical frameworks of the overall SNF project, as a way to explore historical and contemporary attitudes toward animal preservation. The focus will be on emblematic species such as the quagga, the thylacine, but also some mammals of South Africa and various birds and reptiles from the Pacific and South America. The study analyses both the historical causes of their extinction – primarily linked to colonial violence, native ecosystem disruption, scientific practices during the 19th century – and their contemporary symbolic and educational value – how these animals are testimonies to interspecies history and have become emblems of ecological awareness today.

Methodologically, the project integrates material culture studies with human-animal studies. It adopts a transregional approach to compare the preparation and preservation techniques of specimens held in different major natural history museums. In parallel, it engages with archival sources to highlight the motivations and mechanisms behind the large-scale killing. In doing so, the sub-project examines extinction as both a material and conceptual legacy of violence.

Killing to Keep: Violent Field Practices and Imperial Natural History in the Long Nineteenth-Century

Research Project | 1 Project Members

As the consequences of the Anthropocene become one of the most pressing political issues of our time, humans are beginning to grapple with their destructive relationship to nonhuman life. What does it mean, for example, to kill animals in order to study them? A historical exploration of violent humanistic knowledge practices in the age of Empire.