In her poem, Perhaps the World Ends Here, Joy Harjo uses the “kitchen table” as a central metaphor of life and living. The world ends here or begins here because many a history of colonialism, and botany has been told through spices and the spice trade. If spices are central to the history of colonialism, what does that mean for projects on decolonizing botany? How do we understand the history of botany through the colonial, postcolonial, settler colonial and decolonial that centers spices as pivotal points of encounter? What emerges is no easy story, but a complex set of entanglements with a set of diverse actors. Using the case of India, Dr. Subramaniam contrast two cases, the Hortus Malabaricus in the 17th century and the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) in the 21st century – as book ends to examine the politics of race and caste in the legacies of colonial and postcolonial botany. Dr. Subramaniam explores the enduring and shifting means of transnational regimes of power, of colonial administration and postcolonial governance through a melange of spices and spicy embranglements.
Bio: Professor Subramaniam received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Madras, India, and her Ph.D. in Zoology and Genetics from Duke University. Originally trained as an evolutionary biologist and plant scientist, Subramaniam’s pioneering research in Feminist Science Studies has made her a leader in the field. Her work explores the philosophy, history, and culture of the natural sciences and medicine as they relate to gender, race, ethnicity, and caste. Her latest research rethinks the field and practice of botany in relation to histories of colonialism and xenophobia and explores the wide travels of scientific theories, ideas, and concepts as they relate to migration and invasive species.
Subramaniam’s newest book, Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism (University of Washington Press, 2019) won the 2020 Michelle Kendrick Memorial Book Prize from the Society for Literature, Science & the Arts.