Paper short abstract:

I will use a PowerPoint as part of my presentation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper employs biography and recent network approaches to imperial history to write a global history of development through the micro-narrative lens of the life and career of the internationally renowned tropical agronomist, Arthur Hugh Bunting. It uses Bunting’s life history and career trajectory as a window into the wider history of international scientific cooperation, development, and transnational networks in the late colonial and early postcolonial era. By retracing the careering of Arthur Hugh Bunting - who served as the Chief Scientific Officer on the East African Groundnut Scheme before being appointed Chair of Agricultural Botany (and later of Agricultural Development Overseas) at the University of Reading - it reconstructs the multiple, overlapping, and interlocking networks (family, religious, professional, scientific) that helped form the many worlds through which he traveled and at times sojourned. Bunting's career offers unique insight into how knowledge and practices of development were generated and circulated. Bunting was associated with extensive circuits of expertise that frequently crossed colonial boundaries and sites, as well as international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank. The development schemes he was involved in can be seen as “nodes” where various networks overlapped and intersected. We can see how Bunting's previous experiences were brought to bear and applied to these sites, but also how his engagement with local knowledge and practices influenced his perspective in important ways. Bunting carried these experiences, in turn, to other schemes, to international meetings, and to headquarters of various agencies and organizations.