In this bold reconsideration of the human sciences, an interdisciplinary team employ an expanded theoretical and geographical critical lens centring the notion of the encounter. Drawing insights from Indigenous and Latin American studies, nine case studies delve into the dynamics of encounters between researchers, intermediaries, and research subjects in imperial and colonial contexts across the Americas and Pacific. Essays explore ethical considerations and knowledge production practices that prevailed in field and expedition science, custodial institutions, and governance debates. They re-evaluate how individuals and communities subjected to research projects embraced, critiqued, or subverted them. Often, research subjects expressed their own aspirations, asserted sovereignty or autonomy, and exercised forms of power through interactions or acts of refusal. This volume signals the transformative potential of Indigenous studies and Latin American studies for shaping future scholarship on the history of the human sciences. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

‘An original and outstanding collection of papers on the interaction of indigenous knowledge, history of science and imperial power. A must read for historians, anthropologists, Latin-Americanists and anyone interested in the ethics of research in the human and social sciences.’

Marcos Cueto - Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

‘This interdisciplinary volume sheds new light on the production of knowledge in the human sciences in the Americas by focusing our attention on the disquieting, often uncomfortable, but also multilayered and sometimes ambiguous, encounters it relied on. In an effort to decolonize histories of science, its chapters tell stories of Indigenous agency, refusal and strategic politics to subvert forms of domination and control. By engaging this past, contributors call for an ethics of research in the present that ‘stands with’ rather than merely giving back to the communities they write with and about.’

Sandra Rozental - Centro de Estudios Históricos, El Colegio de México