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SUMMARY:Pick your poison: insecticides and locust control in colonial Keny
 a - Sabine Clarke (University of York)
DTSTART:20200130T153000Z
DTEND:20200130T170000Z
UID:TALK130699@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Agnes Bolinska
DESCRIPTION:Literature on the use of insecticides in the tropics after 194
 5 is preoccupied with the WHO's Malaria Eradication Programme. This schola
 rship describes a form of technological hubris in which scientists rushed 
 to deploy the quick fix of DDT on the widest possible scale\, fuelled by b
 elief in the power of Western science and buoyed by Allied victory. This p
 aper focuses on trials to control locusts in Kenya after 1945 using synthe
 tic insecticides to tell a different story. It shows that approaches to th
 e use of new synthetic insecticides in Britain's African colonies were oft
 en informed by debate about the relative costs of different locust control
  measures. This reflected the weaker economic position of Britain in compa
 rison to the USA\, backers of the WHO programme\, but more importantly\, r
 egimes of locust control that used substances such as gammexane were evalu
 ated in Kenya against pre-existing methods. In other words\, the notion th
 at DDT and related chemicals were wonder weapons of such power that they m
 arked a radical departure from past measures\, and quickly rendered all pr
 evious insect control methods obsolete\, is not borne out by this study. T
 he use of the new insecticides was dependent upon calculations of advantag
 e versus cost in comparison to well-established existing methods. In addit
 ion\, previous experience with arsenic bait and pyrethrum shaped the testi
 ng and deployment of gammexane in significant ways\, including evaluation 
 of its toxicity. The perception of the new chemicals as part of a continuu
 m of poisons also informed the attitudes of Kenyan herdsmen. Their suspici
 on of gammexane was not merely the result of a distrust of Western science
  and the colonial government\, but arose directly from the experience of s
 eeing their cattle poisoned by arsenic bait during the interwar years.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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