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Research

My doctoral research project, provisionally titled In Pursuit of Planting: Scientific Travel and the VOC's Bioprospective Quest in the Indian Ocean World (1600-1700) is supervised by dr. Guido van MeersbergenLink opens in a new window and dr. Thomas SimpsonLink opens in a new window. It is funded by the GHCC's Wheeler History of Travel Writing Programme.Link opens in a new window

In this project, I investigate how travellers under the Dutch East India Company (VOC) contributed to natural knowledge of the in the Indian Ocean World. Particular attention is given to the production of natural knowledge for commercial purposes: bioprospecting. Focusing on the proprietary travel journals and reports regarding places like the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, and the Banda Islands, I aim to contribute to our understanding of what bioprospecting activities looked like in these places, and how were they shaped by the experience of colonial travel.

A central argument in my work is that bioprospective travel did not just encompass the study and exploitation of plant life. Around the Indian Ocean, VOC servants ‘planted’ and cultivated a multitude of non-human animals too. Knowledge of and interaction with these animals, travellers and travellees of their own, played a pivotal role in the success (and failure) of VOC-controlled plantations. Furthermore, careful consideration of the language used to describe the distribution of settlers, enslaved people, and even religion, suggests that ‘the pursuit of planting’ was a much more extensive epistemic and practical endeavour than current literature reflects.

Critically interrogating how the categories of ‘human’, ‘animal’, and ‘plant’ were spoken about in terms of value, utility, and ownership, this project creates a space for the discussion of plantation knowledge systems and the individuals who were to sustain them through travel; for the inclusion of a variety of actors and knowledges; and for critical consideration of 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 writing, commerce, environments, and colonialism to provide a more integrated and global history of science. At the same time, this project demonstrates the merit of foregrounding the personal dimensions of conceptually and geographically broad developments in the seventeenth century – from a traveller standing on a deck, to the animal observing the approaching ship, to the tiny seeds that were soon to be sown.

anna.bruins@warwick.ac.uk

Publications

Bruins, A. L. (2024).  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). New West Indian Guide 98 (3-4), 306-329.

Baneke, D. M., Bruins, A. L., Hoeneveld, F., Schure, E. C. M., Wille, R.-J. (2023).

Presentations

Historicising the Non-Human Conference, Coventry, 8-9 June 2026.

Cabinet of Natural History research seminar, Cambridge, 18 May 2026.

GLOBALISE Conference, Colonial Pasts, New Approaches and Historiographical Futures, Amsterdam, 3-6 March 2026.

ENIUGH Summer School and Congress, Critical Global Histories, Växjö, 8-12 September 2025.

British Society for the History of Science Conference, Cambridge, 8-10 July 2025.

Warwick History Department Postgraduate Conference, Coventry, 22-23 May 2025, and 3-4 June 2026.

Tenth PhD Conference in the History of Science, Medicine and the Humanities, Beyond Switching Plastic Straws, Eibergen, 8-10 April 2025.

Warwick Venice Centre Workshop, The Traveller’s Tale: Global Forms and Circulations, Venice, 29-30 November 2024.

Gewina Conference, Ecology & Economy: History of Knowledge during the Unequal Anthropocene, Zeist, 21-22 June 2024.

Awards and funding

• 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

• Student Representative, Warwick History Department Research Committee (2025-)
• Graduate Teaching Assistant, Europe in the Making 1450-1800Link opens in a new window (2025-2026)
• Editor, (2025-)
• Event organiser:
  • Warwick History Department Postgraduate ConferenceLink opens in a new window (2025 & 2026 editions)
  • Travel Writing and its Limits Workshop (2026)
• Research intern, Noord-Hollands Archief science archives (2023)
  • Resulting report: Perspectief op archief (Perspective on the archives)
• Student assistant, Utrecht University (2022-2023)

  • Collaborators: dr. David Baneke, dr. Friso Hoeneveld, Elian Schure, dr. Robert-Jan Wille

  • Resulting report: De bètafaculteit en het koloniale verleden: een verkenning (The science faculty and the colonial past: an exploration)

Academic background