The Mello Leitão Museum and the institutionalization of biology in Brazil

scientific practices, environmental activism, and the consolidation of a new field of knowledge

Abstract

This paper consists of a historical analysis of the process of institutionalization of biological sciences in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, taking as its starting point the establishment of the Biological Museum Prof. Mello Leitão by naturalist Augusto Ruschi, in 1949. Taking into account insights of the social studies of science, we interpret observations and experiments carried out on areas of forest conservation and domesticated reproduction of humming-birds as scientific practices embedded in specific social and political contexts. We argue that such practices contributed to the process of specialization of biology as a discrete domain of the natural sciences.