Enlightenment in an Imperial Context: Local Science in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Hispanic World

Abstract

This paper aims to assess the figuration of local and metropolitan scientific practices and theories in the eighteenth-century Hispanic Empire by focusing on two colonies: New Spain (Mexico) and New Granada (Colombia). In New Spain, Creole and metropolitan scientists negotiated the assimilation of old local wisdom with new European knowledge in their botanical studies of native plants. Through the openness of both groups of scientists to new ideas, the naturalization of standardized procedures, and the verbalization of old problems in new terminology, the globalization process of scientific practices was successfully integrated there at the local level. In New Granada, less favorably, the Royal Botanical Expedition (1783-1816) provoked disagreement between representatives of the viceroy and of the colony's Creole intelligentsia not only about plant classification systems, but about the proper relationship between scientific and political interests. OVER THE LAST TWO DECADES, MUCH RESEARCH HAS BEEN dedicated to the study of the scientific and technological exchanges between different cultures and civilizations.' Within the framework of this literature, several models have been proposed.2 In one of the earliest attempts to describe the expansion of Western science, George Basalla suggested that, in order for countries to reach a third phase of "independent science," they must pass through a phase of "colonial

Shared ways of thinking in Brazil about the science–practice interface in ecology and conservation

“…However, ways of thinking about the science–practice interface will vary across regions and countries, given the variety of values, cultures, and social‐political contexts. Differences in practices between scientists from former European colonies in Latin America and scientists from European metropolises (Lafuente ), for instance, may partly explain why observed divergences on the science‐practice interface in Brazil were subtler than those reported in the ecological and conservation literature dominated by developed countries (Di Marco et al. ).…”

The Routledge Companion to the Hispanic Enlightenment

“…Today we can see a greater interest in emphasizing how personal and family trajectories, books and periodicals, and material culture circulated from one side of the Atlantic and the Hispanic Pacific to the other, and in understanding to what extent the possession of the American territories and their transformation under Bourbon politics, from the condition of viceroyalties making up a single monarchy to that of colonies, also profoundly influenced the history of the Peninsula. In this sense, one example is provided by the studies on science, which have emphasized the undeniable but often forgotten importance that the Spanish colonizing enterprise had on the development of modern science, the way it was linked to politics and military strategy (for example, through the great scientific expeditions), and disseminating imperial ideologies (Lafuente 2012), but also how the science conducted in the colonies depended heavily on the local knowledge, objects, practices, and agents (criollos and indigenous peoples) that reelaborated, instead of passively consuming, the knowledge produced from the metropolis (Pimentel 2000Lafuente 2000. And at the same time, the criollos (among them, notably, the Jesuits) developed views about history that questioned the primacy of the European metropolitan gaze (Cañizares 2001).…”

“…See Paquette's contribution to this volume.3 Javier Fernández Sebastián is the author of the first of these articles. The second is the work of the Hispanist Lydia Vasques.4 In the 4 volumes of the Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment(Kors 2002), there is one entry on Spain, and another on Latin America, as well as several biographies on well-known peninsular or American Enlightenment personages.5 It is also significant that the only well-known Hispanics in the index of names in The Enlightenment World-Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, Josefa Amar, and Inés Joyes-are authors who participated in debate on gender.6 The dossier of the journal Osiris entitled "Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise" (2000) includes articles by several Spanish historians; see in particular those by JuanPimentel (2000) and AntonioLafuente (2000).…”

Constructing a Narrative: The History of Science and Technology in Latin America

“…They all, however, had as part of their stated or of their 'secret' instructions the mandate to carry out socio-political observations. 31 Most expeditions were initiated and funded by Spain, but several took place under foreign sponsorship. Perhaps best known among them is the Franco-Spanish Expedition to Quito (1735-44), a geodesic expedition sponsored by the Royal French Academy and headed by Charles-Marie de La Condamine.…”