Creating hybrid scientific knowledge and practice: the Jesuit and Guaraní cultivation of yerba mate

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe drinking of yerba mate tea has become a common symbol of southern South American culture and many studies have explored the economic and social history of yerba mate in Argentina, Paraguay, and southern Brazil. The consumption of yerba mate has its roots in Guaraní culture and practice, and, at the time of European contact, the Guaraní had developed effective practices of harvesting and processing the leaves. The tree is native to different forest types of the Rio de la Plata Basin and its exploitation by the Spanish occurred mainly through natural forest stands from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the Jesuit missionaries in colonial Paraguay successfully developed the technology to plant yerba mate in forest stands around the mission towns. This not only stabilized their production but also represented the domination of European scientific knowledge and practice on the untamed wilderness of the Rio de la Plata Basin. This article examines how Jesuit discourse surrounding the invention of this technology masks the very active participation of the Guaraní in developing and testing this scientific practice. The process of cultivation and “civilization” of the wild environment and people of the Americas by the Jesuits was not one sided, but it was rather a hybrid construction of knowledge and technology that actively involved both the Guaraní and the Jesuit Fathers, creating new knowledge and understandings of the forest environment.