Science And Society In Latin America

Science in Latin America has roots that reach back to the information gathering and recording practices of the Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations. Spanish and Portuguese conquerors and colonists introduced European scientific practices to the continent, where they hybridized with local traditions to form the beginnings of a truly Latin American science. As countries achieved their independence in the nineteenth century, they turned to science as a vehicle for modernizing education and forwarding "progress." In the twentieth century, science and technology became as omnipresent in Latin America as in the United States and Europe. Yet despite a history that stretches across five centuries, science in Latin America has traditionally been viewed as derivative of and peripheral to Euro-American science. To correct that mistaken view, this book provides the first comprehensive overview of the history of science in Latin America from the sixteenth century to the present. Eleven leading Latin American historians assess the part that science played in Latin American society during the colonial, independence, national, and modern eras, investigating science's role in such areas as natural history, medicine and public health, the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, politics and nation-building, educational reform, and contemporary academic research. The comparative approach of the essays creates a continent-spanning picture of Latin American science that clearly establishes its autonomous history and its right to be studied within a Latin American context.

In the form of a sociological pilgrimage, this book approaches some topics essential to understanding the role of science in Latin America, juxtaposing several approaches and exploring three main lines: First, the production and use of knowledge in these countries, viewed from a historical and sociological point of view; second, the reciprocal construction of scientific and public problems, presented through significant cases such as Latin American Chagas Disease; and third, the past and present asymmetries affecting the relationships between centers and peripheries in scientific research. These topics show the paradox of being at the same time "modern" and "peripheral."

In the form of a sociological pilgrimage, this book approaches some topics essential to understanding the role of science in Latin America, juxtaposing several approaches and exploring three main lines: First, the production and use of knowledge in these countries, viewed from a historical and sociological point of view; second, the reciprocal construction of scientific and public problems, presented through significant cases such as Latin American Chagas Disease; and third, the past and present asymmetries affecting the relationships between centers and peripheries in scientific research. These topics show the paradox of being at the same time "modern" and "peripheral."

Studies challenging the idea that technology and science flow only from global North to South. The essays in this volume study the creation, adaptation, and use of science and technology in Latin America. They challenge the view that scientific ideas and technology travel unchanged from the global North to the global South—the view of technology as “imported magic.” They describe not only alternate pathways for innovation, invention, and discovery but also how ideas and technologies circulate in Latin American contexts and transnationally. The contributors' explorations of these issues, and their examination of specific Latin American experiences with science and technology, offer a broader, more nuanced understanding of how science, technology, politics, and power interact in the past and present. The essays in this book use methods from history and the social sciences to investigate forms of local creation and use of technologies; the circulation of ideas, people, and artifacts in local and global networks; and hybrid technologies and forms of knowledge production. They address such topics as the work of female forensic geneticists in Colombia; the pioneering Argentinean use of fingerprinting technology in the late nineteenth century; the design, use, and meaning of the XO Laptops created and distributed by the One Laptop per Child Program; and the development of nuclear energy in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile. Contributors Pedro Ignacio Alonso, Morgan G. Ames, Javiera Barandiarán, João Biehl, Anita Say Chan, Amy Cox Hall, Henrique Cukierman, Ana Delgado, Rafael Dias, Adriana Díaz del Castillo H., Mariano Fressoli, Jonathan Hagood, Christina Holmes, Matthieu Hubert, Noela Invernizzi, Michael Lemon, Ivan da Costa Marques, Gisela Mateos, Eden Medina, María Fernanda Olarte Sierra, Hugo Palmarola, Tania Pérez-Bustos, Julia Rodriguez, Israel Rodríguez-Giralt, Edna Suárez Díaz, Hernán Thomas, Manuel Tironi, Dominique Vinck

Highlighting the relationship among science, politics, and culture in Latin American history Challenging the common view that Latin America has lagged behind Europe and North America in the global history of science, this volume reveals that the region has long been a center for scientific innovation and imagination. It highlights the important relationship among science, politics, and culture in Latin American history. Scholars from a variety of fields including literature, sociology, and geography bring to light many of the cultural exchanges that have produced and spread scientific knowledge from the early colonial period to the present day. Among many topics, these essays describe ideas on health and anatomy in a medical text from sixteenth-century Mexico, how fossil discoveries in Patagonia inspired new interpretations of the South American landscape, and how Argentinian physicist Rolando García influenced climate change research and the field of epistemology. Through its interdisciplinary approach, Geopolitics, Culture, and the Scientific Imaginary in Latin America shows that such scientific advancements fueled a series of visionary utopian projects throughout the region, as countries grappling with the legacy of colonialism sought to modernize and to build national and regional identities.

Latin America plays an increasingly important role in the development of modern Christianity yet it has been underrepresented in current scholarship on religion and science. In this first book on the subject, contributors explore the different ways that religion and science relate to each other.

Illustrating the diversity of disciplines that intersect within global health studies, Healthcare in Latin America is the first volume to gather research by many of the foremost scholars working on the topic and region in fields such as history, sociology, women’s studies, political science, and cultural studies. Through this unique eclectic approach, contributors explore the development and representation of public health in countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, and the United States. They examine how national governments, whether reactionary or revolutionary, have approached healthcare as a means to political legitimacy and popular support. Several essays contrast modern biomedicine-based treatment with Indigenous healing practices. Other topics include universal health coverage, childbirth, maternal care, forced sterilization, trans and disabled individuals’ access to care, intersexuality, and healthcare disparities, many of which are discussed through depictions in films and literature. As economic and political conditions have shifted amid modernization efforts, independence movements, migrations, and continued inequities, so have the policies and practices of healthcare also developed and changed. This book offers a rich overview of how the stories of healthcare in Latin America are intertwined with the region’s political, historical, and cultural identities. Contributors: Benny J. Andrés, Jr. | Javier Barroso | Katherine E. Bliss | Eric D. Carter | David S. Dalton | Carlos S. Dimas | Sophie Esch | Renata Forste | David L. García León | Javier E. García León | Jethro Hernández Berrones | Katherine Hirschfeld | Emily J. Kirk | Gabriela León-Pérez | Manuel F. Medina | Christopher D. Mellinger | Alicia Z. Miklos | Nicole L. Pacino | Douglas J. Weatherford Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.