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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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000550896/

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Authors & Contributors
Ulrich Kattmann
Anderson, Mark
Bonmassar, Michele
Mendes, Gabriel N.
Adams, Andrea
Summers, Lachlan
Journals
Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin Canadienne d'Histoire de la Medecine
New Books Network Podcast
Journal of Sport History
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences
History of Psychology
Publishers
University of Chicago Press
Transcript Verlag
Stanford University Press
MIT Press
Johns Hopkins University Press
Cornell University Press
Concepts
Racism
Science and race
Zoology
Eugenics
Antisemitism
African Americans
People
Boas, Franz
Diamond, Jared Mason (1937-)
Wright, Richard
Bishop, Shelton Hale
Wertham, Fredric
Senglaub, Konrad
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
Places
United States
New York City (New York, U.S.)
Italy
Germany
Sweden
Austria
Institutions
Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946)
Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic
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