INTERLEAVING · Decentering Plant Health: Women, Agriculture, and Viruses under Portugal’s Estado Novo Dictatorship

The history of virus research is often told from the perspective of elite biomedical laboratories in Northwestern Europe and North America. This project shifts attention instead to Portugal – a scientific periphery governed during the mid-twentieth century by the authoritarian Estado Novo regime (1933–1974) – and to agricultural science, a field frequently neglected by historians. It also foregrounds the crucial contributions of women to plant virus study and control, thereby addressing several key gaps in the historiography of the life sciences.The study focuses on three Portuguese women agricultural scientists – Mathilde Bensaúde (1890–1969), Maria Lourdes Oliveira (1904–1980), and Maria Lourdes Borges (1916–2014) – whose careers spanned much of the century. Trained in leading laboratories abroad, they brought international expertise to Portugal, advancing pathogen identification, laboratory experimentation, crop protection, and plant health certification systems. As awareness of viruses as critical crop pathogens grew, these scientists secured equipment, sought professional recognition, and built local expertise in plant health at a time when women in senior posts were rare, and research was inseparable from the regime’s political priorities.Drawing on archival research, material culture, and the study of scientific spaces, the project reconstructs how they adapted international techniques to local agricultural needs while navigating institutional barriers to women. This approach illuminates knowledge production outside traditional scientific centres, showing how context, agricultural priorities, and social norms shaped experimental work and authority in virus research. By tracing their careers and contributions, the project shows how these women’s innovations in plant virus research and crop protection continue to influence agricultural practices and policy, underscoring the relevance of historical analysis for current and future challenges in plant health.