Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the intricate relationship between the concept of “savage knowledge,” its significance during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the emerging field of ethnosciences. It specifically focuses on the Amazon region as a pivotal area in the development of the ethnosciences.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the intricate relationship between the concept of “savage knowledge,” its significance during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the emerging field of ethnoscience. It specifically focuses on the Amazon region as a pivotal area in the development of ethnosciences, examining the contributions of the naturalists Carl von Martius, Richard Spruce, and Richard Schultes, who each conducted scientific expeditions to the Amazon basin between the 19th and 20th centuries. Their works are crucial in reevaluating the dynamic interplay between the Western perception of the “savage,” the scientific principles that underpin it, and the asymmetrical geopolitics of knowledge exchange between countries in the global north and south. I argue that the contextual conditions which made possible the emergence of ethnoscience as an imperial area of investigation – including imperial assimilation, extraction, and coloniality – continue to exert influence on twentieth-century political discourses concerning the integration of indigenous cultures into global politics. The study concludes that the incorporation of indigenous knowledge, systematised by the ethnosciences, has often served as a pretext for controlling geographical areas historically regarded as “natural resources,” ultimately transforming them into reservoirs of indigenous epistemologies.