White Supremacy, Scientific Racism, and Extractivism: A Framework For Anti-Racist Histories of Science in STEMM Education

Science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) disciplines have long grappled with racism and racial overrepresentation, prompting recent critical approaches to the possibilities of enacting systemic change that go beyond Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives focused on recruitment and retention. To this end, scholars have emphasized the importance of critical histories of science for bringing into sharp focus how the ongoing legacies of (settler) colonialism reproduce racialized hierarchies of knowledge and practice in STEMM. In line with these approaches, this paper offers the tripartite framework of scientific racism, white supremacy, and extractivism as a pedagogical tool for translating scholarship in critical histories of science and related fields to STEMM audiences in an effort to contribute to anti-racist education. First, we situate our intervention at the intersection of design-based research and conceptual methodology, outlining the pedagogical context in which we developed the framework and its objective to foreground a critical approach to history as relevant for the present. Second, we elaborate our framework by defining each of the three concepts and their interrelations. Third, we provide three case studies from different disciplines, namely on nineteenth-century race science, mid-twentieth-century chemistry, and late nineteenth and twentieth-century geosciences, that illustrate how we teach the framework and its applicability to different research areas. Ultimately, our framework emphasizes the foundational role of critical histories and interdisciplinary collaborations across STEMM and the humanities for furthering social justice and anti-racism in STEMM fields.

Duke Scholars

Author Evan Hepler-Smith History