Ep7: Decolonising natural history with Miranda Lowe
Miranda Lowe FLS FRSB, Principle Curator, Crustacea and Cnidaria, Natural History Museum
Miranda Lowe has been an amazing advocate for highlighting the hidden stories of the role of people of colour in the history of natural history. This podcast is a conversation about her journey becoming a museum curator, uncovering the story of Graman Kwasimukambe, whom the medicinal plant Quassia was named after, and reading between the lines in natural history texts. Miranda explores how much botanical and medicinal knowledge 'discovered' by European explorers was not acknowledged to have originally been gathered from/by indigenous and enslaved peoples.
Miranda's blog on Graman Kwasi
'Slavery and the Natural World' documents
Miranda's paper with Subhadra Das 'Nature read in black and white: decolonial approaches to interpreting natural history collections'
Museum Detox, the Network For Museum And Heritage Workers who identify as of colour.
Further listening: a podcast from the Wonder House between Sushma Jansari and Miranda on 'Nature read in black and white'