Program on the Environment

The natural sciences are burdened with legacies of racism that persist today—these legacies can be especially prevalent in natural history collections (NHCs), collections of preserved biological specimens or cultural artifacts for research and educational use. As historical archives, NHCs may hold specimen data containing racist or pejorative language, particularly among location and taxonomic data. The purpose of this project is to develop a series of recommendations for handling racist language in NHCs informed by the needs and preferences of NHC stakeholders. To accomplish this, I carried out interviews with 5 NHC stakeholders among varying collections and reviewed relevant literature on decolonial collections and scientific practice. These recommendations guided my internship with the UW Herbarium, where I tracked and updated specimen data records containing racist language. Interviewees outlined 7 major guiding themes for how to best address pejorative language, and unanimously expressed desire to see such language addressed. This finding sharpy contrasts with related literature, in which biologists and archivists are not in agreement on whether or not racist language in collections and taxa should be addressed at all. The findings of this study reveal that ongoing discourse about anti-racist scientific and collections practice may not accurately represent the needs of NHC stakeholders. Furthermore, the themes outlined by participants highlight a need for interventions beyond accepted collections practice or those proposed in relevant literature.