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Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge

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Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge Author(s): David Wade Chambers and Richard Gillespie Source: Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 15, Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise (2000), pp. 221-240 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/301950 . Accessed: 14/10/2014 18:17 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press and The History of Science Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Osiris. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 142.103.183.194 on Tue, 14 Oct 2014 18:17:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Localityin theHistory of Science: ColonialScience, Technoscience, and IndigenousKnowledge David WadeChambers* and RichardGillespie** INTRODUCTION DURING THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY,THE "colonialworld" becamea prominentresearch focus for historians of sci- ence. In theprocess of establishingthis new subdivisionof knowledge,colonial sciencehistorians took pains to clarifytheir use of theterm "colonial," an exercise thathelped refine the terminology ofthe larger colonial and postcolonial discourse.' But thesediscussions were more concerned with the meaning of "colonial"than withthe meaning of "science," consideration of which was generallyleft to philoso- phersand sociologistsof knowledge.And duringthis same period, philosophers, sociologists,and a fewhistorians (variously arrayed as positivists,realists, and con- structivists)were indeed contending over the nature of science.It maynow be seen thatconstructivist approaches,2 because they emphasize the locally contingent char- Scienceand Technology Studies, Deakin University, Deakin, Victoria, Australia. MuseumVictoria, G.P.O. Box 666E, Melbourne3001, Australia. 1 The leadingscholar in thisenterprise is RoyMacLeod, who has publishedimportant theoretical piecesproviding a refreshingbreadth of perspective. See, forexample, Roy MacLeod, "On Science and Colonialism,"Science and Societyin Ireland:The Social Contextof Science and Technologyin Ireland,1800-1950 (Belfast: Queen's University, 1997) pp. 1-17;"Reading the Discourse of Colonial Science,"in Les Sciencescoloniales: Figures et institutions(Paris: Editions de l'Officede la Recher- che Scientifiqueet Technique d'Outre-Mer, 1996) pp. 87-96; and"On Visitingthe 'Moving Metropo- lis': Reflectionson theArchitecture of ImperialScience," Historical Records of Australian Science, 1982,5, 3:1-16.In addition,he has produceda greatrange of localitycase studiesthat range across Australia,the United Kingdom, India, and thePacific. Finally, he has editedmany useful volumes, such as Roy MacLeod and RichardJarrell, eds., DominionsApart: Reflections on theCulture of Scienceand Technologyin Canada andAustralia,1850-1945 (Scientia Canadensis, 1994, 17, 1 and 2); Roy MacLeod and PhilipRehbock, eds., Nature in its GreatestExtent: Western Science in the Pacific(Honolulu: Univ. of HawaiiPress, 1988); andRoy MacLeod andDeepak Kumar,eds., Tech- nologyand theRaj: TechnicalTransfer and BritishIndia, 1780-1945 (New Delhi: Sage, 1995). 2 Thereare manypossible entry points into the literature of constructivistthought. In additionto bookscited in thebody of this paper, some recent titles that provide a usefuloverview include: Barry Barnes,David Bloor, and John Henry, Scientific Knowledge: A SociologicalAnalysis (Chicago: Univ. ofChicago Press, 1996); PeterGalison and David Stump,eds., The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Contexts,and Power(Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1996); JanGolinski, Making Natural Knowl- edge: Constructivismand theHistory of Science(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998); Ian Hacking,The Social Constructionof What?(Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniv. Press, 1999); David Hess, ScienceStudies: An Advanced Introduction (New York:New YorkUniv. Press, 1997); Karin ? 2001 byThe Historyof ScienceSociety. All rightsreserved. 0369-7827/99/1401-0004$02.00 Osiris,2001, 15:00-00 221 This content downloaded from 142.103.183.194 on Tue, 14 Oct 2014 18:17:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 222 DAVID WADE CHAMBERS AND RICHARD GILLESPIE acterof theknowledge-making process, held particular promise and powerful ana- lyticconsequence for the emerging discipline of colonial science history.3 Gradually, withinthe new field,explicit commitment to theprevailing positivist assumptions gaveway to implicitacceptance of constructivnist perspectives. Thismove from a mainlypositivist to a mainlyconstructivist orientation was, in significantmeasure, empirically driven-not the result of considereddebate over abstractions.When an historianstudies a particularlocality,4 by definitionone would expectthat locality to becomethe "center" of his or her interest. Yet positivist colo- nialhistorians of, say, science in New Spainwere, in reality, often writing the larger social and intellectualhistory of Europe,and notthe history of Mexico,5seeking outlocal "traces"of Europeanideas andintellectual movements.6 "'Europe"' says DipeshChakrabarty, "remains the sovereign theoretical subject of all histories,in- cludingthe ones we call 'Indian,''Chinese,' 'Kenyan,' and so on."7When historians soughtricher, deeper, "thicker" accounts of science in non-European localities,8 they soonbecame dissatisfied with analyses in which every standard of truth and rational- itywas setin Europe,and in whichthe very meaning of "rationality,""enlighten- ment,""progress," and "usefulknowledge" had been defined on thatdistant conti- nent.Thus, little by little,historians of local sciencesloughed off a paradigmof Knorr-Cetina,Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard Univ.Press, 1999). 3For example,Bruno Latour's writings have made a particularlyuseful contribution, both by in- sistingon eliminatingthe "great divide" between science and traditionalmodes of thought,and by locatingthe power of modernscience in its distinctiveinternational network of institutions.The workingsof that network create the conditions that make legible and commensurable (for the center) all theobservations, measurements, representations, and textsproduced in thevarious peripheries. See especially Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientistsand Engineers Through Society(Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniv. Press, 1987). 4In thispaper I shalluse theterms "local" and "locality"flexibly to indicate"places" in which scienceis accomplished.A localitymay be a region,country, city, or even a singleinstitution, incor- poratingsocial, cultural, political, and economic factors and relationships, and including both centers and peripheries. I In fact,Mexican historians have been somewhatless Eurocentricthan historians of sciencein manyother colonial localities. Nevertheless, at thefirst Mexican colloquium in thefield (September, 1963), thirty-fourof the sixty-onepapers presented were part of a symposiumon theEuropean Enlightenmentin Latin America. Enrique Beltrdn,ed., Memorias del PrimerColoquio Mexicano de Historiade la Ciencia,2 vols. (Mexico City:Sociedad Mexicana de HistoriaNatural, 1964). The historyof Mexicanscience has a venerableand distinguisheddisciplinary history with antecedents in thenineteenth century. See EnriqueBeltrnn, "Fuentes mexicanas de la historiade la ciencia," Anales de las Sociedad Mexicana de Historia de la Ciencia y de la Tecnologia, 1970, 2:57-112; Juan JoseSaldafia, "Marcos conceptuales de la historiade las cienciasen LatinoAmerica: Positivismo y economicismo,"El Perfilde la cienciaen America (Mexico City: Sociedad Latinoamericana de Hist- oriade las Cienciasy la Tecnologia,1986); and Elias Trabulse,"Aproximaciones historiogrnficas a la ciencia mexicana," Memorias del Primer Congreso Mexicano de Historia de la Ciencia y de la Tecnologia(Mexico City:Sociedad de Historiade la Cienciay de la Tecnologia,1989), vol. 1, pp. 5 1-69. 6 See forexample, Roland D. Hussey,"Traces of FrenchEnlightenment in Colonial Hispanic America,"in LatinAmerica and theEnlightenment, ed. ArthurP. Whitaker,2nd ed. (Ithaca:Cornell Univ.Press, 1961), pp. 23-51. This book,originally published in 1942,uncovered useful material butremains a classicexample of a projectin Europeanhistory focused on LatinAmerica, and is one thathelped set the agenda for writing colonial science history. All six of thedistinguished contribut- ingscholars were apparently English speaking and basedoutside Latin America. 7Dipesh Chakrabarty,"Postcoloniality and the Artificeof History:Who Speaks for 'Indian' Pasts?" Representations,1992, 32:1-26. 8 CliffordGeertz referred to thestudy of local cases as "thickdescription," without which more generalcultural meanings and power relationships cannot be understood.Clifford Geertz, The Inter- pretationof Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973). This content downloaded from 142.103.183.194 on Tue, 14 Oct 2014 18:17:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions LOCALITY IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 223 culturaldeficit, replacing it witha
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