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Problematizing the Past: An Overview of Teaching the History of Science in Latin America in the Anglophone Classroom and Its Major Issues

Science in Latin America has a rich, complicated history, but it is often ignored both by traditional historians of science, as well as Latin American historians. Latin American science is characterized by liminality, "nepantlismo," an in-between-ness, a hybridization, a "mestizaje&qu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The History teacher (Long Beach, Calif.) Calif.), 2019-02, Vol.52 (2), p.191-235
Main Authors: Cluxton, Hadley Sinclair, Horst, René Harder
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Science in Latin America has a rich, complicated history, but it is often ignored both by traditional historians of science, as well as Latin American historians. Latin American science is characterized by liminality, "nepantlismo," an in-between-ness, a hybridization, a "mestizaje" of multiple indigenous, Creole, imperial Iberian, and Western/Northern knowledge practices. The segregation of a Southern science from a Western (or Northern) science is a false dichotomy that leads to exclusion of one or the other within historical narratives. This inability to effectively categorize and constrain Latin American science within the traditional narrative of the Western history of science means that Latin America is often excluded from world histories of science, and frequently omitted from narratives written and taught by Anglophone historians in the West. A greater awareness of the richness of Latin America's history of science, combined with different methodological approaches, can help pry open the doors to greater discourse and learning in a wider variety of settings. The key to teaching and learning about the history of science in Latin America is to employ a multitude of methods and to include a plurality of voices and places. This essay is an English-language overview of a few of the broad themes in the history of science in Latin America, an introduction to the historiography of science in Latin America, and potential approaches to teaching and learning about the history of science in Latin America in the Anglophone classroom moving forward.
ISSN:0018-2745
1945-2292