Mason Institute Webinar Series - The Ethics of Medical Philanthropy: Slavery, Colonialism, and the University of Edinburgh
Location:
Online Only
Date/time
Tue 7 November 2023
13:00-14:00
About the speaker
Dr Simon Buck, Research Fellow (University of Edinburgh’s Historical Links to African Enslavement and Colonialism, 2022-202), Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), University of Edinburgh.
About the event
As several higher education institutions in the UK reflect on their historical connections to slavery and colonialism, and their racial legacies today, increasing attention has been given to how slavery-associated and colonial wealth contributed to the development of modern British universities. ‘Audits’ of how funds derived from empire helped to establish academic chairs, student bursaries, and physical infrastructure are vital to understanding the history of higher education and slavery in Britain; and necessary first steps before taking further actions to learn from and make amends for such legacies. But where do we go from here? And what can greater knowledge about universities’ financial links to slavery and colonialism tell us about how professors, students, and alumni also contributed to the development of the racial thought which underpinned enslavement and colonial rule?
The presentation draws on research conducted as part of the University of Edinburgh’s Research and Engagement Working Group which is tasked with investigating the University’s legacies of slavery and colonialism. It examines the public ‘subscription’ campaign to build Old College in the 1790s, specifically fundraising drives among the medical profession in the Caribbean and India. It is argued that the colonial medical profession—many of whom Edinburgh alumni with strong professional and personal ties to their alma mater—responded enthusiastically to the campaign partly because the project was perceived as essential to the expansion of the Edinburgh Medical School, and so the maintenance of the ‘health’ of the British Empire. In their roles as physicians, surgeons, botanists, and scientists, medical ‘subscribers’ in the Caribbean engaged in the medicalisation of race and shared research findings (based often on the exploitation of enslaved African bodies and the expropriation of African knowledge) with professors back in Edinburgh. By exploring the backgrounds of the donors and their lifelong connections to the University, this paper not only shows how slavery-associated and colonial wealth financially benefited the University of Edinburgh, but asks why colonial figures engaged in medical philanthropy, and what their motivations reveal about the relationship between racial capitalism and transatlantic knowledge networks.
Biography
Dr Buck is a Research Fellow, based at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), University of Edinburgh. He is currently working on the University of Edinburgh’s Historical Links to African Enslavement and Colonialism, 2022-2024. Dr Buck is also a member of the University of Edinburgh’s Decolonised Transformations Project and his presentation derives from work undertaken as part of this project. This project was commissioned by the University’s Research and Engagement Working Group with the support of Principal Peter Mathieson to develop an academic report on the University’s historical links to the histories of slavery, colonialism and the production of racial science, and produce evidence-based recommendations to address structural racism at the University of Edinburgh today. This initiative is the product of coordinated efforts throughout the university to ensure that our faculty and students reflect the talent and brilliance of all communities, and benefit from the presence, approaches and methodologies of racially and ethnically diverse thinkers. The report aims to ensure that recommendations and related policies will also provide opportunities to reflect the diversity of individuals who have made positive global and local contributions.