Saberes andinos: Ciencia y tecnología en Bolivia, Ecuador, y Perú ed. by Marcos Cueto

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 181 issues ranging from dieting, to dentistry, to organ transplants, prostheses , in vitro fertilization, and sex change. It serves as a reminder to T&C readers that cars and bridges are not the only suitable sub­ jects for study. Bodies in the 20th century too are technological arti­ facts. Hausman’s book demonstrates that these topics should not be left to medical professionals, gender studies, queer studies, and transsexuals alone. They deserve serious historical study if we are to understand one of the major technological frontiers of the 20th century. Ruth Oldenziel Dr. Oldenziel is associate professor in gender, technology and representation at the Belle van Zuylen Institute, University of Amsterdam. Saberes andinos: Ciencia y tecnología en Bolivia, Ecuador, y Perú. Edited by Marcos Cueto. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1995. Pp. 213; notes. Price not available. Marcos Cueto is a researcher at the Peruvian Studies Institute, and this edited volume is an attempt to cover the history of science and technology in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. The essays examine how indigenous knowledge resisted, survived, and combined with Euro­ pean knowledge from the 16th century until the 1950s. In his intro­ duction, Cueto proposes a social history of science and technology to help overcome diffusionist models that look upon countries such as these as passive receivers. He offers the Central Andes region as a case for the study ofthe relationship between “official knowledge” and “native knowledge” (p. 11). All of this has a political motive because Cueto considers science and technology vital objectives for the achievement of complete integration and material and cultural development of the countries of the Andean area. The first essay, by Suzanne Austin Alchon, points out the failure of the Spanish colonial regime to place a significant number ofphy­ sicians in Ecuador. As a result, the practices of indigenous healers were tolerated from the time of the colonial era, and attempts to eradicate idolatry among the indigenous people of the Andes failed, in spite of prohibitions by the church and crown (pp. 26-28). Edu­ ardo Estrella addresses the issue of “illustrated science and common knowledge” in the case of quina (chinchona bark), arguing that knowledge of the use of quina by the indigenous people of Ecuador was not taken into account by 18th-century Spaniards. Estrella out­ lines the weak communication between official and native knowl­ edge, which is made clear in an essay by Kendall W. Brown on the reception of Spanish mining technology in the Huancavelica mines in the 18th century. Brown points out the inability of the Spaniards to introduce the techniques that had been developed in central Eu­ 182 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE rope into mercury production in the Andes, since the Peruvian min­ ers, colonial government officials, and the Spanish crown resisted innovations and were incapable of applying them. One of the rea­ sons underscored by Brown is that the Spaniards feared Peruvian nationalism—not very plausible in a country that was one of the last bulwarks of the Spanish regime and in which the governing elite of the 19th century maintained a strong cultural bond with the ancient metropolis. This last aspect is dealt with by Jorge Cañizares, in an essay titled “The Utopia of Hipólito Unanue: Commerce, Nature and Religion in Peru,” in which he analyzes the ideas ofa physician, thinker, and politician considered the champion of the illustration in the viceroyalty ofPeru. Guided by the traditional Spanish mercan­ tile perspective, Unanue put “more emphasis on the merchandise itself which passed from hand to hand than on the mechanization and modernization of Peru” (p. 96). Colonial continuity is reflected in an essay by Leoncio LópezOc ón, “Nationalism and the Origins of the Geographic Society of Lima,” in which, based on a confusing center-periphery scheme, he analyzes the course of that organization, created in 1888. Finally, Manuel E. Contreras contributes an analysis of the relationship be­ tween engineers and the state in Bolivia, a country in which the teaching of engineering became possible only in the 20th century. For that reason, the role of Bolivian engineers was marginal com­ pared to that offoreigners, a situation which led to some paradoxes...