Article ID: CBB000550896

The Politics of Ecology in South Africa on the Radical Left (2004)

unapi

The South African ecologist and political activist Edward Roux (1903--1966) used evolutionary biology to argue against racism. During the cold-war, he transformed his communist beliefs into advocacy for scientific rationalism, management, and protection of nature against advancing capitalism. These pleas for saving the environment served as a vehicle for questioning the more risky issue of evolution and racial order in society. The link between ecological and political order had long been an important theme among the country's ecologists and politicians alike. The statesman Jan Christian Smuts' holistic theory of evolution and racial order inspired the nation's ecologists to sanctify an ecologically informed racial policy. This idealist informed methodology stood in direct opposition to the materialist approach to ecology of Roux. These methodological debates reflected differing political support from within the Union Party and people on the radical left, respectively. Ecology was of concern to politicians because understandings of the order of nature had direct implications for the racial order of the South African society.

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Authors & Contributors
Ulrich Kattmann
Anderson, Mark
Cimino, Guido
Farber, Paul Lawrence
Foschi, Renato
Gordon, Leah N.
Journals
Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin Canadienne d'Histoire de la Medecine
History of Psychology
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
Journal of Sport History
New Books Network Podcast
Publishers
Armando
Cornell University Press
Johns Hopkins University Press
Lexington Books
Stanford University Press
Transcript Verlag
Concepts
Racism
Science and race
Zoology
Eugenics
Anthropology
African Americans
People
Boas, Franz
Haeckel, Ernst
Benedict, Ruth Fulton
Darwin, Charles Robert
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Irenäus
Kühn, Alfred
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
18th century
21st century
Places
United States
Chicago (Illinois, U.S.)
Germany
Italy
Africa
Republic of South Africa
Institutions
University of Chicago
Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic
Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946)
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