ENG_ESP Indigenous Knowledge Workshop (Sept. 10-11, 2018).pdf (original) (raw)

Since antiquity, knowledge has often been juxtaposed with opinion. Whereas opinion referred to subjective perceptions and viewpoints, knowledge was intended to represent objective and verifiable propositions. On this view, knowledge per se had a universal dimension in that it pretended to be approvable through the reason of everyone, everywhere. This universal aspect of the occidental concept of knowledge stands in marked contrast to cultures of local knowledge, where the generation of knowledge was dependent on specific times and places. One such example is the validity of indigenous knowledge contested by Europeans and likewise, indigenous challenges to European knowledge. Based on religious, linguistic, demographic, and cultural disparities, knowledge operative in one context was adapted, manipulated, reframed, or dismissed, as spurious or heretical in another framework. Focusing on the early modern period, this multidisciplinary workshop will focus on specific examples of global and local knowledge transmission, reception, and interaction between Europe and the Americas, including the Canary Islands and the Philippines. Among the broad range of possible topics and textual/pictorial/material sources are bilingual and pictorial catechisms, archive inventories, European natural histories, maps, commodity money, sources on indigenous medicine and nutrition, child-specific knowledge, and climate and the environment. We also encourage comparative perspectives on the knowledge dynamics and policies in the territories dominated by the Spanish and the Portuguese, such as from the English, French, Dutch and Nordic (e.g. Russian, Danish, Swedish) colonies in the Caribbean, North America, and the Guianas. In addition, ways in which indigenous knowledge was preserved or included in archives, libraries or manuals allows for further angles of inquiry. Last, historiographical discussions on 'indigenous knowledge' will examine to what extent the concept was manifested in early modern societies, or whether the concept is exclusively a modern analytical tool.