Writing history into the economy of nature: Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and Lars Montin (1723–1783) on the Reindeer Warble Fly ( Hypoderma tarandi L.)
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In the summer of 1732, a young medical student named Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) journeyed through Sápmi. Just under two decades later, Lars Montin (1723–1778), a student of the now famous Uppsala professor Linnaeus, followed his teacher’s footsteps. We will focus on the accounts that both naturalists gave of the parasitic reindeer warble fly Hypoderma tarandi. While Linnaeus integrated the life history of this fly with his image of Sámi pastoralism as representing a ‘silver age’ of humanity in tune with the balance of nature, Montin mused about ways in which the fly’s damaging effects on reindeer could be weaponized to force the Sámi into ‘productive’ labour. As a consequence, Linnaeus’s timeless conception of an economy of nature was infused by Montin with notions of historical development and an open future. We will suggest that the differing attitudes of Linneaus and Montin can be explained by changes in the political context – most notably an emerging effort to enforce national borders and fiscal regimes in Northern Scandinavia in the 1740s and 1750s. But the different attitudes they developed towards the reindeer warble fly also point to deeper connections between natural history practices and the writing of human histories.
Source: Annals of Science
Institutions: Uppsala University, University of Cambridge
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4411139708