Anna Bruins
Research
My doctoral research project, provisionally titled In Pursuit of Planting: Scientific Travel and the VOC's Quest for Botanical, Environmental and Agricultural Knowledge in the Indian Ocean World (1600-1800) is supervised by dr. Guido van MeersbergenLink opens in a new window and dr. Thomas SimpsonLink opens in a new window.
In this project, I investigate how scientific travel, particularly travel occurring within the Dutch East India (VOC) network, contributed to colonial bioprospecting activity in the Indian Ocean World. Particular attention will be given to what bioprospecting actually meant to travellers, epistemically and in practice. In doing so, the project will create a space for the discussion of individual ambitions and the contexts in which they came about; for the inclusion of a variety of actors and knowledges; and for the complications and consequences of long-distance travel in the Early Modern period.
With this research I aim contribute to connecting separate histories of travel literature, commerce, environments, and colonialism in order to provide a more integrated and global history of science. At the same time, I aim to expose the contingent nature of conceptually (and geographically) broad developments in Early Modern history by adding a personal dimension to our understanding of them – from a traveller standing on a deck, to the person observing the approaching ship, to the tiny seeds that were soon to be sown.
This doctoral research project is part of the GHCC's Wheeler History of Travel Writing ProgrammeLink opens in a new window.
Publications and presentations
Publications
Bruins, A.L. (2024). 'Wetenschappelijke verhandeling: De circulatie van plantkundige kennis over thee in het dynamische netwerk van de VOC.'Link opens in a new window Jaarboek De Achttiende Eeuw 56 (2024), 111-129.
Elfrink, T. L., van de Hoef, M. J., van Montfort, J., Bruins, A. L., & van Andel, T. (2024). 'Rice Cultivation and the Struggle for Subsistence in Early Colonial Suriname (1668-1702).'Link opens in a new window New West Indian Guide 98 (3-4), 306-329.
Presentations
Gewina Conference, Ecology & Economy: History of Knowledge during the Unequal Anthropocene, Zeist, 21-22 June 2024.
Warwick Venice Centre Workshop, The Traveller’s Tale: Global Forms and Circulations, Venice, 29-30 November 2024.
Tenth PhD Conference in the History of Science, Medicine and the Humanities, Beyond Switching Plastic Straws, Eibergen, 8-10 April 2025.
Warwick History Department Postgraduate Conference, Coventry, 22-23 May 2025.
British Society for the History of Science Conference, Cambridge, 8-10 July 2025.
Awards and funding
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Wheeler History of Travel Writing PhD ScholarshipLink opens in a new window (2024-2028)
- VSB Foundation Scholarship (2017-2018)
- Holland Scholarship (2016)
- Finalist Dutch National Philosophy Olympiad and representative for the Netherlands at the International Philosophy Olympiad in Odense, Denmark (2013)
Academic positions
- Editor, Shells and PebblesLink opens in a new window (2025)
- Organising Committee member, Warwick History Department Postgraduate Conference (2025)
- Research intern, Noord-Hollands Archief science archives (2023)
- Resulting report: Perspectief op archief
- Student assistant, Utrecht University (2022-2023)
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Collaborators: dr. David Baneke, dr. Friso Hoeneveld, Elian Schure, dr. Robert-Jan Wille
- Resulting report: De bètafaculteit en het koloniale verleden: een verkenning
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