From Quilmes to Gondwana : exploring a Latin American history of science

This essay is a survey of some of the symbolic and real conditioning factors that shape the practices of the history of science in Hispanic America. It presents an overview - partly autobiographical - of the topics that historians of science working or born in Latin America - in places such as Quilmes - have chosen in order to establish a dialogue either with other local historians or with the international community.This essay reflects on the role of neocolonialism and national historiographies as well as on the need of questioning the mere idea of Latin America as a space that defines our field.

It proposes to rather adopt - as some scholars are already doing - a spatial historical reference such as Gondwanaland, to think in terms of the areas of a network opened to multi-sided exchanges and connections from all over the world. It also argues that theories, concepts and words far from replacing each other according to the accumulation of knowledge and experience, far from progress and paradigmatic changes, coexist in synchrony, mixing or not, with different degrees of conflict. Far from a characteristic of the history of science in our countries, it appears as a general sign of contemporary academic practice. [Publisher's text]