Methodologies for the Pressed: Cartographies for Adisciplinary Sciences

Historians of science have amply demonstrated that the natural sciences were shaped by the history of colonialism. In this short essay, I explore the field of botany. Drawing on the ‘pressed’ plant of the herbarium sheet, I explore the possibilities of decolonising botany. I am inspired by Chela Sandoval’s Methodology of the Oppressed to develop and lay out counter-colonial methodologies. I argue that we need to move to a different imagination of the sciences—interdisciplinary and adisciplinary sciences—if we are serious about reckoning with colonial histories in science.