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
Anderson, Mark
Jackson, John P., Jr.
Weidman, Nadine M.
Washington, Sylvia Hood
Sze, Julie
Rupnow, Dirk
Journals
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin Canadienne d'Histoire de la Medecine
Perspectives on Science
História, Ciências, Saúde---Manguinhos
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences
History of Psychology
Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau
Publishers
University of Chicago Press
ABC-CLIO
Lexington Books
MIT Press
Johns Hopkins University Press
Armando
Concepts
Science and race
Racism
Eugenics
Antisemitism
African Americans
Science and politics
People
Darwin, Charles Robert
Boas, Franz
Lundberg, Erik
Foucault, Michel
Birkmayer, Walther
Haeckel, Ernst
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
Places
United States
New York City (New York, U.S.)
Germany
Italy
Chicago (Illinois, U.S.)
Soviet Union
Institutions
Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946)
Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic
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