Franz Knappik er professor i filosofi ved Universitetet i Bergen og arbeider med temaer innen kritisk teori, moderne filosofihistorie og samtidsfilosofi, med fokus blant annet på (post)kolonialisme, (anti)rasisme, og kollektivt minne. Han er blant initativtakerne bak Nordic Network for Critical Theory.
Abstract:
Decolonial accounts of the “coloniality of knowledge” have argued that European colonialism imposed a fundamentally Eurocentric epistemology, which systematically and with lasting impact denied epistemic standing to colonized peoples. This talk tests this framework through a microhistorical case study: Hegel’s opaque reference to a Black physician “Dr. Kingera” who allegedly introduced Europeans to quinine. As I will argue, the person behind this reference is Quassie, an emancipated enslaved man whose knowledge of the antimalarial plant quassia amara (which Linnaeus named after him) traveled from Suriname to Hegel’s lecture hall in Berlin. Reconstructing this testimonial chain allows to make visible complications of colonial epistemology that the coloniality of knowledge framework has insufficiently theorized. First, epistemic expropriation can involve a misattribution of knowledge of the colonized to the colonizers, but also genuine acknowledgement. Second, in structures of racial triangulation, where one colonized group is played off against another, knowledge ascriptions to colonized groups can play a function of reinforcing domination. Third, phenomena of epistemic expropration occurred also among colonized groups. I conclude by arguing that the case study also illustrates an aspect of colonial epistemology that the coloniality of knowledge framework does rightly emphasize, namely, that it very much is still with us.
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