Filter by author: Martha Marandino

The article explores the ““Cure, Malaria, Frederic Welwitsch and the Healer”” theme of the exhibition “Plants and Peoples” from the Museum of Natural History and Science, Portugal. The study focuses on the research carried out by German naturalist F. Welwitsch on local plants in Angola as well as on history of lived colonial experience A. M. Mafumo, a healer from Mozambique, arrested for practicing “traditional medicine”. Using the analytical framework of the Epistemologies of the South we analyze the relationships between traditional and scientific knowledge using documentation, as well as interviews with curators and visitors. The article questions the exhibit' dialogue between these knowledges as an expression of an ecology of knowledges.

In this paper, we identify some milestones in the construction process for mobile science museums and centres in Brazil. As background for presenting the Brazilian context, we initially address the records found on the earliest travelling museum exhibitions and mobile museums in Europe and North America. We then introduce the role of UNESCO in the promotion and implementation of travelling science exhibitions and museums in several countries. Finally, we document important events in the history of mobile science museum and centres in Brazil and outline three general and inter-related challenges currently faced by them.