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SUMMARY:From rustics to savants: the uses of indigenous materia medica in 
 colonial New Spain - Miruna Achim (Universidad Autómona Metropolitana\, M
 exico City)
DTSTART:20101028T153000Z
DTEND:20101028T170000Z
UID:TALK26656@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Nicky Reeves
DESCRIPTION:This talk explores the ways indigenous knowledge about plant a
 nd animal remedies was gathered\, classified\, 'translated'\, tested and c
 irculated across wide networks of exchange for natural knowledge between E
 urope and the Americas. There has been much recent interest in the 'biopro
 specting' of local natural resources – medical and otherwise – by Euro
 peans in the early modern world. However\, some opacity continues to surro
 und the description of how knowledge travelled. While the strategies emplo
 yed by European travellers\, missionaries or naturalists have been well do
 cumented\, there has been less written on the role played by indigenous an
 d creole intermediaries in this process. And yet\, the transmission of kno
 wledge between indigenous communities and the European cabinet was neither
  transparent nor natural\, and often involved epistemological\, linguistic
  and religious obstacles. Drawing on a number of printed and manuscript so
 urces\, collections of indigenous remedies\, written in places as diverse 
 as Guatemala\, the Yucatán\, Chiapas and Mexico City\, in the sixteenth t
 hrough the eighteenth centuries\, I am interested in exploring how local i
 ntermediaries\, like creoles scholars\, sought to overcome such obstacles 
 by observing indigenous uses of remedies\, by studying indigenous language
 s and by producing natural histories and pharmacopeias in indigenous langu
 ages (Nahuatl and Maya Quiché\, for instance). Ultimately\, behind the cr
 eole participation in the transmission of indigenous remedies\, one can po
 int to more inclusive definitions of knowledge\, which cut across oppositi
 ons between science and superstition\, cabinet and field\, centre and peri
 phery.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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