Cultural Colonialism and New Languages of Power: Scientific Progress in Nineteenth Century Ecuador

Resumen

Abstract This paper examines the practice of natural sciences in Ecuador during the nineteenth century. European visitors promoted science for objectivity and progress, and their work, though generally legitimated by the educated landowning elite, was not so readily accepted by other social groups. The language of scientific discipline is analysed as a potential form of cultural colonialism by focusing on the ways in which scientific discipline and discourse were first institutionalized by the Ecuadorian state with the help of Europeans, and then incorporated into public debate following a series of unprecedented political and natural crises in 1877.