Assembling the Tropics

Abstract

Reading between the LinesThe name of the game will be to leave the boundaries open and to close them only when the people we follow close them.Bruno Latour 1    . When the combined interests of commerce, abolition, and exploration catalyzed British support for the massive Niger Expedition of 1841, the ambitious Theodor Vogel managed to get himself appointed to the distinguished post of chief botanist. 2 It was a minor coup. The young Prussian had never actually been to the tropics. In fact, he had never been any closer to West Africa than western Germany, where the nearest thing to the tropical Niger was the distinctly temperate Rhine. 3 Nor had he much exposure to West African flora. His expertise was based on the study of a Brazilian collection conveniently ensconced in a herbarium in Berlin. But

Objects and Agency: Science and Technology Studies, Latin American Studies, and Global Histories of Knowledge in the Early Modern World

“…The early modern world was rife with overlapping-but by no means mutually exclusive-spatialities. And it was within that multiplicity of frameworks that colonial science and imperial policy alike were variously conceived (Cagle 2018).…”

Introduction to Latin American Studies and the Humanities: One Year Later

“…The answer seems to have been "not much longer." In the past fifteen years, critical studies of colonial Iberian science have expanded and enriched core definitions of experience and expertise (Barrera Osorio 2006, 2010; Gómez 2017), empiricism and empire (Furtado 2008;Padrón 2009;Bleichmar 2012), and subaltern technologies and epistemologies (Norton 2017;Warsh 2018;Cagle 2018), changing the ways in which we understand science, imperial power, and the nature of knowledge production in South Asia and the Americas. Hugh Cagle's paper for this dossier, "On Agency and Objects: Science and Technology Studies, Latin American Studies, and Global Histories of Knowledge in the Early Modern World," responds to this recent work by analyzing the productive tensions between colonial Latin American studies and the history of science, technology, and medicine.…”