Making Mount Kilimanjaro German: Nation building and heroic masculinity in the colonial geographies of Hans Meyer

摘要

In 1885, as Germany claimed dominion over what was to become German East Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro became the highest German mountain; in 1889, the German geographer Hans Meyer was the first European to reach its summit. The "conquest" of Kilimanjaro was more than just one man's heroic adventure; it was an event that brought together Geography, the building of the German nation and European imperialism. This paper seeks to explore Hans Meyer's production of geographical knowledge about Kilimanjaro and the way in which the geographical gaze of one man gave rise to an object at which others could gaze and about which they could read. Building on scholarship on exploration, field work in Colonial Geography, and the production of the geographical self, the paper follows Meyer to the field in colonial German East Africa, and back to academia, publishing houses and public talks in Germany. In so doing, the paper encounters not only the production of knowledge about Physical Geography, the messiness of fieldwork and a wide range of technologies of observation and recording, but also the production of the white, male and German geographer as a trustworthy witness.