Global Knowledge on the Move: Itineraries, Amerindian Narratives, and Deep Histories of Science

Abstract

Since Bruno Latour's discussion of a Sakhalin island map used by La Pérouse as part of a global network of "immutable mobiles," the commensurability of European and non-European knowledge has become an important issue for historians of science. But recent studies have challenged these dichotomous categories as reductive and inadequate for understanding the fluid nature of identities, their relational origins, and their historically constituted character. Itineraries of knowledge transfer, traced in the wake of objects and individuals, offer a powerful heuristic alternative, bypassing artificial epistemological divides and avoiding the limited scale of national or monolingual frames. Approaches that place undue emphasis either on the omnipotence of the imperial center or the centrality of the colonial periphery see only half the picture. Instead, practices of knowledge collection, codification, elaboration, and dissemination--in European, indigenous, and mixed or hybrid contexts--can be better understood by following their moveable parts, with a keen sensitivity toward non-normative epistemologies and more profound temporal frameworks.

Ethno-biology during the Cold War: Biocca's Expedition to Amazonia

“…Neil Safier recently stressed the importance of Amazonia in the production of Western patterns of understanding of indigenous cultures even in the 20th century. He references the seminal works of Claude Lévi‐Strauss, and his disciples Philippe Descola and Anne‐Christine Taylor (Safier, , p. 141). Less attention has been devoted, however, to the historical study of the making of these patterns of understanding.…”

Between the Local and the Global: History of Science in the European Periphery Meets Post-Colonial Studies

“…For many years the opposition between powerful centres and subjugated peripheries and the instrumental role of science in the institutionalization of this opposition formed the core of post‐colonial critique of European imperialism. More recent contributions, though, assert that this critique has approached its theoretical limits and that perhaps we should be looking ‘toward alternative models that do not reinforce the omnipotence of the imperial center at the expense of local or moving platforms of knowledge creation’ (Safier, , p. 143; notice the association ‘local or moving platforms of knowledge creation’). However, before joining recent historiography in discarding the diffusionist model and theories of dependency in favour of more flexible and balanced approaches, one needs to assess another reason for the persistence of that model: Europe.…”

“…Scientific ideas and practices did not spread to the colonies as immutable commodities already built and stabilized in the metropolitan workshops. Notwithstanding the asymmetrical character of such interactions, the production of new knowledge was the result of continuous and reciprocal exchanges between different and perpetually shifting localities (Safier, , p. 145). The ‘centres’ had moved to the ‘periphery’ by embracing particular epistemic values of the latter, while ‘peripheries’ valued the ‘centre’ by appropriating particular cognitive attainments of Western thought.…”

“…Strange as it may sound — in the sense that historiography of science increasingly distanced itself from Basalla's model — this notion of appropriation retained until today a persistent influence on a significant number of works dealing with science and the Empire (Harrison, , pp. 61–62; Safier, , pp. 136–137).…”

“…What is more important from the epistemological point of view, however, is that they do not assume that this holds true for every locality. It is a fact only as far as their knowledge can reach (Safier, , p. 140). Human definitions and human interpretations of ‘nature’ as well as the attitudes of the individuals towards ‘nature’ may significantly differ across time and space (Roberts, , p. 10).…”