Knowledge is Survival: A New History of American Exploration

Board Of Regents, Nshe, Obo University Of Nevada, Reno, Reno NV

Investigators

Abstract

This project rethinks the performers, goals, and geopolitical consequences of American exploration. It investigates how and why diverse women and men pursued, interpreted, and reported knowledge amid exploratory travel and how they applied what they learned to help their communities endure a world shaped by colonial violence. The history of exploration is already a topic of immense interest among the American public; indeed, for many Americans, the exploration and peopling of the continent remains the central story of national science and society. The field thus offers a unique opportunity in the history of science, a chance to introduce the public to a far richer cast of knowledge producers through fascinating stories that eschew the triumphant Eurocentrism embedded in popular conceptions of science and exploration. By demonstrating that one of America’s most iconic scientific pursuits was thoroughly diverse from the beginning, this project can help more Americans envision themselves as researchers and, potentially, advance representation in the sciences today. The overarching goal of this project is to address the following research question: What does American exploration look like when we include all of the peoples who engaged in it? Based on interdisciplinary research, Knowledge is Survival argues that diverse individuals explored North America as an intellectual strategy for resisting domination and destruction. Despite centuries—and, for Indigenous people, millennia—of investigating the continent, non-white explorers have been almost entirely absent from histories of exploration. This neglect has not merely led to an incomplete story but has distorted some of the field’s core premises. Scholars have long emphasized connections between knowledge and power, particularly how ambitions to control lands and peoples engendered exploration and how the knowledge developed through exploration encouraged conquest. However, these connections were only half the story of knowledge, power, and exploration. Far from seeking to rule over others, many American explorers pursued discoveries that promised to help their own people overcome subjection or survive elimination. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.