GLOBAL SCIENCE, NATIONAL HORIZONS: SOUTH AFRICA in DEEP TIME and SPACE

Abstract

In his inaugural lecture, Saul Dubow, Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History at Cambridge University, discusses the modern history of science in South Africa in terms of 'deep time' and space, drawing links between developments in astronomy, palaeontology, and Antarctic research. He argues that Jan Smuts's synthetic discussion of South African science in 1925, followed by J. H. Hofmeyr's discussion of the 'South Africanization' of science in 1929, has parallels in post-apartheid conceptions of scientific-led nation-building, for example in Thabo Mbeki's elaboration of the 'African Renaissance'. Yet, whereas the vision of science elaborated by Smuts was geared exclusively to white unity, Mbeki's Africanist vision of South African science was ostensibly more inclusive. The lecture concludes by considering South Africa as one of several middle order countries which have used national science and scientific patriotism to address experiences of colonialism and relations of inequality and to assert their influence in regional contexts.