Conferencia Maurizio Meloni

Amid growing international calls to decolonize scientific curricula and practices, I discuss in this presentation three areas of possible debate for a less colonial view of biology and the life-sciences. Firstly, I analyse the imperial infrastructures of biological and medical knowledge, from early botanical investigations to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, to the
twentieth century development of eugenics and human genomics. I ask in this section how compromised the epistemic history of biology and health sciences is, and how many alternative possibilities have been erased or silenced during this imperial history. Secondly, I trace a possible historical path toward a less Eurocentric and more inclusive view of bodies/environment practices before the rise of modern biology. Finally, I look at epigenetics as a possible site of decolonial biology, I suggest looking at the specific uptake of epigenetics by Southern and Indigenous epistemologies to deflate cognitive tensions between the Western biological canon and postcolonial settings in areas like human development, health, historical trauma, and epistemic justice.