Article ID: CBB001320518

Learned vs. Commercial? The Commodification of Nature in Early Modern Natural History Specimen Exchanges in England, Germany, and the Netherlands (2013)

unapi

Using two sets of correspondences centered around specimen exchanges, this paper analyzes daily practices of naturalists to shed light on ambiguities and contradictions in early modern European naturalists' conception of commodified nature, which mere reading of literature on ideal conduct would not allow us to capture. Keenly aware of the difference between the code of reciprocity and gift giving in the learned world on one hand, and the code of monetary profit making in commercial transactions on the other, correspondents nonetheless recklessly crossed the boundary between the two, and kept the distinction between the different codes ambiguous: naturalists claimed natural specimens as gifts, while at the same time they profited from them monetarily. The concept of nature as objects of reciprocal gift exchanges reflected the hierarchy in the world of learning; this reciprocal conduct was alleged to be proper for scholars, in contrast with profit-motivated merchants. The conception of nature as objects of reciprocal gift exchanges also allowed European naturalists to collectively imagine colonial nature as a gift from non-European people and to claim individual rights to own and profit from it. Consequently the academic hierarchy and the colonization project reinforced each other in the daily practice of commodifying nature based on the halfhearted claim of nature as gift, and practical acceptance of profit-making out of the natural specimens themselves. Keywords:collection, correspondences, entrepreneurship, J. G. Volckamer, James Petiver, Levinus Vincent, seventeenth century and eighteenth century

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320518/

Similar Citations

Article Delbourgo, James; (2012)
Listing People (/isis/citation/CBB001252384/)

Article Camarasa, Josep M.; Ibáñez, Neus; (2007)
Joan Salvador and James Petiver: A Scientific Correspondence (1706--1714) in Time of War (/isis/citation/CBB000771966/)

Article Murphy, Kathleen S.; (2013)
Collecting Slave Traders: James Petiver, Natural History, and the British Slave Trade (/isis/citation/CBB001320636/)

Book Arthur MacGregor; (2019)
Company Curiosities: Nature, Culture and the East India Company, 1600–1874 (/isis/citation/CBB007862581/)

Article Richard Coulton; (2020)
‘What he hath gather'd together shall not be lost’: remembering James Petiver (/isis/citation/CBB303861168/)

Article Klemun, Marianne; (2012)
Introduction: “Moved” Natural Objects---“Spaces in Between” (/isis/citation/CBB001210367/)

Article Lucas, A. M.; Lucas, P. J.; (2014)
Natural History “Collectors”: Exploring the Ambiguities (/isis/citation/CBB001321122/)

Article Alice Marples; (2020)
James Petiver's ‘Joynt-Stock’: Middling Agency in Urban Collecting Networks (/isis/citation/CBB208759889/)

Book Fairman, Elisabeth R.; Art, Yale Center for British; (2014)
Of Green Leaf, Bird, and Flower: Artists' Books and the Natural World (/isis/citation/CBB001500458/)

Book Arlene Leis; Kacie L. Wills; (2020)
Women and the Art and Science of Collecting in Eighteenth-Century Europe (/isis/citation/CBB793486450/)

Thesis Abou-Nemeh, Samar Catherine; (2012)
Nicolas Hartsoeker's Systeme of Nature: Physics by Conjecture and Optics by Design in Early Modern Europe (/isis/citation/CBB001567372/)

Article Camarasa, Josep M.; Ibáñez, Neus; (2012)
Joan Salvador and James Petiver: The Last Years (1715--1718) of Their Scientific Correspondence (/isis/citation/CBB001251349/)

Book Susanne Köstering; (2018)
Ein Museum für Weltnatur: Die Geschichte des Naturhistorischen Museums in Hamburg (/isis/citation/CBB080940339/)

Authors & Contributors
Kinukawa, Tomomi
Ibáñez, Neus
Camarasa, Josep Maria
Marples, Alice
Kacie L. Wills
Arlene Leis
Concepts
Natural history
Collectors and collecting
Collections
Specimens
Correspondence and corresponding
Apothecaries
Time Periods
18th century
17th century
19th century
Early modern
20th century
20th century, early
Places
Netherlands
Germany
England
London (England)
Europe
Great Britain
Institutions
East India Company (English)
Royal Society of London
Chelsea Physic Garden
Académie des Sciences, Paris
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment