I am currently the researcher on the first sciences / humanities collaborative research project at Imperial College, funded by an AHRC Science in Culture Exploratory Award. The investigators for this project are Dr J. Andrew Mendelsohn at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, and Prof. E.J. Milner-Gulland at Imperial College. By studying science / humanities relations empirically through a review of existing interdisciplinary efforts focussed on environmental problems, and comparing scientific and humanistic studies of the same problems, we aim to develop the reciprocal relationship between the sciences and humanities and provide groundwork for collaborative research pathways.
Research Interests
While it is now widely recognised that multidisciplinary approaches are required to tackle environmental problems affecting our planet’s multitude of integrated environmental and cultural systems, in practice this has been hard to achieve. My proposition is that history of science can offer a holistic framework for doing so, enabling the exploration of environmental change in ecological and cultural context. I am interested in applying historical analysis to social-ecological problems, in particular conservation science and practice. On a theoretical level my aim is to enable genuinely interdisciplinary dialogue on some major conflicts and controversies bedevilling species conservation. I have a particular interest in crocodilian conservation as my father A.C. (Tony) Pooley was a pioneering croc researcher and conservationist and founder member of the IUCN Crocodile Specialist Group. I also have ongoing research interests in the environmental history and ecology of wildfire, and of biological invasions.
Publications
Book chapters
2011, ‘Fire and Loathing in the Fynbos’, book chapter in I.D. Rotherham, R.A. Lambert (ed.s), Invasive and Introduced Plants and Animals: Human Perceptions, Attitudes and Approaches to Management (Earthscan).
2011, ‘Histories of fire in South Africa’s Cape Floral Region’, in S. Mosley, G. Massard-Guilbaud (ed.s), Common Ground, Integrating the Social and Environmental in History (Cambridge Scholars Publishing).
Peer-reviewed journal articles
2012, ‘Recovering the lost history of fire in South Africa’s fynbos, c.1910-90’, Environmental History, Vol.17 (January), pp.55-83.
2011, Book review of Stephen Pyne’s America’s Fires: A Historical Context for Policy and Practice, Environment and History in Environment and History, Vol.17, No.3, pp.483–485.
2010, ‘Pressed Flowers: Notions of indigenous and alien vegetation in South Africa’s Western Cape, c.1902–1945’, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol.36, No.3, pp.599–618.
2009, ‘Jan van Riebeeck as pioneering explorer and conservator of natural resources at the Cape of Good Hope (1652–62)’, in Environment and History, Vol.15, No.1, pp.3–33.
2009, Book review of Saul Dubow’s A Commonwealth of Knowledge: Science, Sensibility and White South Africa 1820–2000, in British Journal for the History of Science, Vol.42, No.1, pp.152–154.
