Avaliação: Historia del Americanismo – On the possibilities of Quantitative History: Data Management in the Study of Americanist Networks (1885-1915)

This paper contributes to the discussion of the transnational history of science and Americanist knowledge production. Gathered in the International Congress of Americanists from 1885 to 1915, 485 researchers from thirty two counties took part in global interactions of multilingual discussions about the Americas, their past and present. By focusing in conducting research on that continent, they contributed to the professionalization of archaeology, anthropology and history and to the emergence of museums as the main infrastructure of their knowledge production.
Based on the Actor-Network-Theory of Bruno Latour, my intervention proposes the analysis of the social interactions in those scientific networks. With an actor-centered approach the data of 485 americanist active during that period will be examined. That information brings light on the geographical and socioeconomical origins of the americanists, their biographical trajectories and institutional links with national museums, museums of history, archaeology and ethnography in Europe and the Americas.
Through their ethnographic and archaeological work, theoretical contributions, search for collections, or later musealization of them, the Americanists reflect in their own trajectories the development of research in museums, entanglements and interactions of different theoretical debates. In that regard, the data management in the study of americanist networks brings interesting approaches on the possibilities of quantitative history for science studies.

• Americanistas
• Museos
• Historia de la ciencia
• Arqueologia
• Antropología