Indigenous peoples do not feature prominently as agents of knowledge and science in conventional narratives of exploration of the Amazon River in early modern times. However, a close reading of the documents recording the first European expeditions along the Amazon, led by Francisco de Orellana and Pedro de Ursúa in 1541 and 1560, respectively, paints a different picture. Whereas the second half of both voyages revolved around circumstances of military persecution and confrontation, the closer intercultural relations that took place during the first half of those expedition facilitated the gathering of geographic and hydrographic knowledge of the upper and middle Amazon. For the Spanish, longer stays in Amazonian settlements and familiarity with local guides and interpreters meant that their observations of the river depended on their access to Indigenous riverine knowledge.

However, recovering Indigenous participation in these expeditions is no easy task. Not only because we need to rely on sources produced by Europeans but, more importantly, because of the scant attention these records pay to Indigenous contributions to both expeditions. Another major obstacle that exemplifies the challenges of writing about Indigenous knowledge in early modern Amazonia is that one major source, whose author is still anonymous, but which highlights the contribution of Amazonian natives to these European voyages, has remained in manuscript form for at least three centuries. This denotes not only the difficulties of accessing materials dealing with this topic but the overall disinterest of the academic community in writing the early modern history of Indigenous knowledge.

In the second half of the seventeenth century, at least two-dozen comets are known to have been observed and reported upon. This took place while the so-called Scientific Revolution was going through its late stage, approaching a “completion” that has, time and time again, been equated with secularization, the emergence of (Northern European) modernity, disenchantment, and so on. Several generations of historians of science have linked a handful of comet observations of that period to the rise of a mechanical, quantitative world view that supposedly displaced religion and conferred upon Northern Europe an irresistible advantage over the rest of the world. In addition to the blatant teleology, this story simply brushes away the fact that there are strikingly many more reports of observations of comets performed across what we would now call the "Global South" than by those few actors who are given pride of place in the history of modern science. In this talk, I will analyze, compare, and connect observations that were made in places such as Mexico and Salvador, Boston and Chiloé Island, Chihuahua and Goa, Macao and Manila, from 1650 to 1700. I will show that comets were not only casually seen in the skies, but had their orbits traced and calculated, their material constitution debated, their possible influences (or lack thereof) on earthly affairs investigated — not differently in any way from what was taking place in the few European centers viewed as the sole birthplaces of whatever came to be understood as modern science.

The emergence and institutionalization of anthropological practices in Latin America date back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and have often been interpreted as products of the expansion of European anthropology, which constitutes a simplification of processes of interdependent linkage between scientific development and the consolidation of national States in the region. Additionally, efforts to write the history of Latin American anthropology have been insufficient. The same occurs with the history of the twentieth century, its production is limited despite its importance for understanding neocolonialist and resistance processes in the region, even though there is a solid historiographic tradition in countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
The current challenge of Latin American anthropological history goes beyond the quantitative character, since a critical analysis of the way in which it is produced is necessary. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the characteristics of the historiographic production of Latin American anthropology, and from Latin America, in order to review its capacity to offer a reconstruction of the links between anthropological production, the constitution of specialized communities, theoretical definitions. and methodological with union, institutional and local political interests; but also to connect with broad processes of regional impact, such as the subjugation, marginalization and/or extinction of native populations; their links or their distances from Eurocentric or North American-centric perspectives; or, their emancipatory or controlling functions, as the case may be, and their relationship with the societies in which they were produced.

How did infectious diseases become wild? At first sight, the question may appear strange. After all, we know that wild animals – bats, civets, monkeys, to name a few – harbour microbes that can potentially spill over to humans and provoke epidemics and even pandemics. That is why most pandemic prevention efforts aim to avoid or reduce the risk of pathogens jumping from wild animals to domesticated animals or humans in rural or wild settings. Thus, most infectious diseases have a wild origin. But throughout the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, biomedicine was confronted with a different situation worldwide: plague and yellow fever – two of the main infectious diseases – began to disappear from cities and advance towards rural spaces. In these areas, the plague bacillus started to circulate among wild rodents and the yellow fever virus among marsupials and primates. From these animals, both diseases eventually infected rural populations and wild animals, becoming therefore wilder. Brazil was pivotal for the history of wild diseases. It was one of the sole countries having both wild plague and wild yellow fever in its territory, which attracted national and international attention. Moreover, in Brazil, the human cases and deaths linked to wild diseases pushed for longstanding sanitary actions covering large parts of its continental territory and targeting the ways of living of rural populations, and different animals, such as mosquitos, fleas, rodents, marsupials, and primates. This presentation will investigate the scientific, social, and environmental dimensions of wild diseases in Brazil.