This document discusses post-colonialism and post-colonial theory. It notes that even local studies should imply connections to other places through movement of people, practices, and objects. Post-colonialism examines the cultural legacies of colonialism and imperialism. Engaging science studies and post-colonial theory could destabilize conventional accounts of Western technoscience and reveal how it mutates beyond Europe. It advocates analyzing political economies from local cultural perspectives and considering hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies, and complex transactions in global contexts.

1. Maria G. Mandourari

2. ‘[…] even the most
local studies should
imply a
network, suggesting
connections with
other sites through
traffic of
persons, practices
and objects’ (Warwick
Anderson 2002: 652)

3. Post-colonialism
Post-colonial Studies
Post-colonial Theory
Cultural legacies of colonialism and of
imperialism

4. Contemporary history
modes of cultural perception

7.  Historical sub-disciplines:
a) economic history
b) agrarian history
c) environmental history
d) history of medicine
 Medical & environmental history
Identify & investigate technology related issues

8. “[…] an engagement of
science studies and
postcolonial theory would
not simply provide us with
instances of Western
science and technology in
different settings -
potentially it might even
'colonialize' & destabilize
conventional accounts of
Western technoscience at
'home' Warwick
Anderson, Introduction:PostcolonialTec
hnoscience, Social Studies of
Science, 32: 5/6 (2002), pp. 643-
658, 648

9. Challenge to diffusionist theories of technoscientific
development
critics of development practising an anthropology of
the modernities mutating beyond Europe

10. New modes of analysis
New world of social investigation
“History of the present”
Systemic understandings of political
economies from local cultural worlds
Hybrid identities, flexible
hierarchies, complex
transactions, displacements and
fragmentations

11. Linking local and global identities
Analytical tools
west/non-
west, developed/developing, or
north/south techno-cultural divides
Science in motion
 Rarely mobilised explicitly to explain
the transaction, translation &
transformation of science &
technology