Book review

Empire, Gender, and Bio-Geography: Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe and Colonial Burma by Nuala C Johnson (2023). Routledge, London

Abstract

Empire, Gender, and Bio-Geography: Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe and Colonial Burma by Nuala C Johnson traces the botanical contributions of colonial wife and amateur botanist Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe, who lived with her husband in Burma around the turn of the twentieth century. The book aims to explore the intersection of empire and gender in the development of colonial geographical knowledge by exploring how Wheeler-Cuffe negotiated her position as a white colonising woman in Burma to practice botany. Although denied official recognition in the male-controlled field of British colony, she was able to leverage her privileged position as a white settler in the colony to infiltrate male spaces, and used her power over colonised people to extract Indigenous knowledge and labour from them. Despite fleeting references to the book’s core themes, it reads largely like a biography of Wheeler-Cuffe’s life. Johnson does not adopt a robust critical position towards her analysis of these colonial relationships, even veering into a romanticised telling of Wheeler-Cuffe’s life. Despite brief acknowledgements, the colonial power dynamic is largely obscured. Instead, this book can serve as a useful resource for those interested in the finer details of the lives of colonial administrators who participated in the production of colonial science.