(De)Colonized Biodiversity: an exploratory study about natural science museums exhibitions

• Grant number: 22/07317-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Effective date (Start): November 06, 2022
• Effective date (End): January 30, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Educational Teaching and Learning
• Principal Investigator: Martha Marandino
• Grantee: Martha Marandino
• Host Investigator: Maria Paula Guttierrez Meneses
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Educação (FE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Universidade de Coimbra (UC), Portugal

Abstract

The trajectory of science museums has been based on overlaps and tensions, related to the various forms of knowledge and the power relations between territories, actors and institutions involved. With regard to biodiversity, its presence in museums has already been noted in the Cabinets of Curiosities since the 16th century and in other social spaces since the development of the habit of raising them alive in captivity. Gradually, the emphasis on curiosity and the exotic that supported the existence of museums is replaced by scientific concerns and these places become spaces for scientific work. Education concerns are also intensified and their museographies are modified in the direction of public understanding. Currently, science museums are encouraged to think about new ways of producing and disseminating the natural sciences, since the absence or little presence of knowledge from traditional cultural groups and indigenous peoples has been claimed. It is therefore worth questioning whether the kidnapping of knowledge and the denial of the epistemological plurality of knowledge about the natural world is present today in the exhibitions of science museums. Thus, this project aims to study whether and how some of the exhibits from different models of natural science museums have established a dialogue between different knowledge and ways of understanding and relating to biodiversity. (AU)