Speaker: Professor Mark Nesbitt, Senior Research Leader, Interdisciplinary Research, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom

About speaker: Mark Nesbitt is curator of the Economic Botany Collection and Senior Research Leader for Interdisciplinary Research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He is a Visiting Professor in the Geography Department, Royal Holloway, University of London. His research interests centre on people-plant relations through time as represented in collections, with current projects on nineteenth century ethnobotanical collections by Richard Spruce in the Brazilian Amazon, and historic materia medica from South Asia. He also works with colleagues to develop arts and humanities research across Kew. He is the author of over 100 publications including Just the Tonic: a Natural History of Tonic Water (with Kim Walker, 2019).  In this talk he will ask whether collections made for colonial and commercial purposes in the Victorian era can be repurposed to address contemporary issues. Case studies from Kew and elsewhere will illustrate the opportunities and methodological challenges of collaborative research with source communities. Visit his website:  http://www.marknesbitt.org.uk/

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