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Department of History

Anna Bruins

Research

My doctoral research project, provisionally titled In Pursuit of Planting: Scientific Travel and the VOC's Quest for Botanical, Environmental and Agricultural Knowledge in the Indian Ocean World (1600-1800) is supervised by dr. Guido van MeersbergenLink opens in a new window and dr. Thomas SimpsonLink opens in a new window.

In this project, I investigate how scientific travel, particularly travel occurring within the VOC network, contributed to colonial bioprospecting activity in the Indian Ocean World. Particular attention will be given to what bioprospecting actually meant to travellers, epistemically and in practice. In doing so, the project will create a space for the discussion of individual ambitions and the contexts in which they came about; for the inclusion of a variety of actors and knowledges; and for the complications and consequences of long-distance travel in the Early Modern period.

With this research I aim contribute to connecting separate histories of travel literature, commerce, environments, and colonialism in order to provide a more integrated and global history of science. At the same time, I aim to expose the contingent nature of conceptually (and geographically) broad developments in Early Modern history by adding a personal dimension to our understanding of them – from a traveller standing on a deck, to the person observing the approaching ship, to the tiny seeds that were soon to be sown.

This doctoral research project is part of the GHCC's Wheeler History of Travel Writing ProgrammeLink opens in a new window.

Anna Bruins

anna.bruins@warwick.ac.uk

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Publications and presentations

Publications

Bruins, A.L. (2024). 'Wetenschappelijke verhandeling: De circulatie van plantkundige kennis over thee in het dynamische netwerk van de VOC.'Link opens in a new window Jaarboek De Achttiende Eeuw 56 (2024), 111-129.

Elfrink, T. L., van de Hoef, M. J., van Montfort, J., Bruins, A. L., & van Andel, T. (2024). 'Rice Cultivation and the Struggle for Subsistence in Early Colonial Suriname (1668-1702).'Link opens in a new window New West Indian Guide 98 (3-4), 306-329.

Presentations

'Authori-tea: the VOC and the vulnerabilities of natural knowledge production in East Asia.' 10th Gewina Woudschoten Conference, Ecology & Economy: History of Knowledge during the Unequal Anthropocene, 21-22 June 2024.

Awards and funding

Academic positions

  • Research intern, Noord-Hollands Archief science archives (2023)
    • Resulting report: Perspectief op archief
  • Student assistant, Utrecht University (2022-2023)

    • Collaborators: dr. David Baneke, dr. Friso Hoeneveld, Elian Schure, dr. Robert-Jan Wille

    • Resulting report: De bètafaculteit en het koloniale verleden: een verkenning

Academic background