Paper short abstract:

Socially, scientifically and technologically concentrated around centres of knowledge production, experts and technologies travel from centre to periphery; urban locations to the countryside; the North to the South; South to South; and South to North.

Paper long abstract:

Scientific expertise was central to imperial development, a topic that is paradigmatic to post-colonial critique and often analysed through the application of coercive colonial policies and technical failures. Not to debate this 'historical fact' but uncritically assuming this state of affairs might result in 'anti-developmental, anti-innovation thinking about science and technology that could obscure rather than illuminate scientific expertise, limiting an open curiosity about inter- and trans-disciplinary research'. Science is political and travels with experts on an uneven global terrain. While global in its extent and consequences however, scientific practices are emplaced, applied differently across regions and legitimised through distinctive cultural meanings and sociological circumstances. What render knowledge claims about the management of resources real and relevant are not only abstract systems but also locally situated, geographic and material preconditions embedded within cultural, ethical, economic, historical and political values. Accepting the mishaps of technical failures and coercive colonial interventions in the past, this paper draws inspiration from Beinart et al., (2009; 2011) and Ferguson (2010) to highlight the conceptual innovation of 'experts' to shifting values about how land and resources ought to be managed in South Africa. This theoretical point will be illustrated using fresh empirical findings from a World Heritage Site in the Eastern Cape Province.