Charlotte Wood

My PhD investigates how natural history museums shaped nature conservation in East Africa, with an emphasis on material cultural regimes of specimen-making. I approach natural historical collections as archaeological assemblages and work backwards to reconstruct specimen supply chains across Britain and Eastern Africa in the nineteenth century. Through this network analysis I assess how natural history museums shaped shared technologies, material cultures and scientific practices of nature conservation. I am also interested in applying critical archaeological/anthropological perspectives to natural historical collections and empirically studying how ‘object making’ has shaped conceptualisations of natural heritage, including in relation to other heritage institutions like national parks and game reserves. My research offers new perspectives for critical/decolonial museum practice in natural history museums, sheds light on the diversity of agents involved in producing natural historical knowledge and foregrounds museums within wider scholarship on conservation politics in East Africa.