The geoscientific knowledge of the territories of the Americas was at the core of colonizing projects and international disputes over these territories. The historical studies of various aspects of Earth sciences bring countless references. They have been present since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the writings of the Portuguese Jesuits or chroniclers. Latin America continues to participate in the historiographical production of Earth sciences at the international level, in tune with mainstream trends, but with varying intensity depending on each country’s specific contexts and intellectual traditions. New perspectives suggest counterpoints to the unidirectional views of the old diffusionist proposals in the History of Sciences. They emphasize that governments’ individual, professional, institutional, political, economic, scientific, and theoretical interests are not dissociated and are linked to rocks, fossils, soils, mineral and energy resources, and landscapes. There is much to be explored along with the perspective of circulation of ideas, practices, and objects, and scientific cooperation in the continental context, without losing the dimension that the phenomena associated with Earth sciences, due to their spatial and temporal dimensions, are not subordinated to geopolitical frontiers that, in Latin America and various regions of the world, as a result of colonizing processes, wars, and territorial disputes, have changed over time.

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Historiography of Earth Sciences in Latin America

  • Silvia Fernanda de Mendonça Figueirôa,
  • Maria Margaret Lopes

摘要

The geoscientific knowledge of the territories of the Americas was at the core of colonizing projects and international disputes over these territories. The historical studies of various aspects of Earth sciences bring countless references. They have been present since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the writings of the Portuguese Jesuits or chroniclers. Latin America continues to participate in the historiographical production of Earth sciences at the international level, in tune with mainstream trends, but with varying intensity depending on each country’s specific contexts and intellectual traditions. New perspectives suggest counterpoints to the unidirectional views of the old diffusionist proposals in the History of Sciences. They emphasize that governments’ individual, professional, institutional, political, economic, scientific, and theoretical interests are not dissociated and are linked to rocks, fossils, soils, mineral and energy resources, and landscapes. There is much to be explored along with the perspective of circulation of ideas, practices, and objects, and scientific cooperation in the continental context, without losing the dimension that the phenomena associated with Earth sciences, due to their spatial and temporal dimensions, are not subordinated to geopolitical frontiers that, in Latin America and various regions of the world, as a result of colonizing processes, wars, and territorial disputes, have changed over time.