Mestizajes tecnologicos y cambios culturales en Mexico (review)

This collection of essays raises interesting new questions and reassesses existing characterizations about the process of mestizaje in Mexico. Specifically, as the title reveals, investigation targets the phenomenon of technological mestizaje and the relationship between the emerging dynamics of Old and New World technological symbiosis and the processes of cultural change and preservation. The balance of analysis compares pre-Columbian with colonial conditions, yet some works extend the chronological scope until the present. Perhaps the most important collective contribution the seven essays offer is forcing reconsideration of what mestizaje meant in the colonial context.

Scholars know a great deal about how the Spaniards imposed European material and psychological changes upon the American natives, and how indigenous groups utilized colonial institutions either to defend pre-conquest political and social practices or modify them along lines that served native interests. Such understandings suggest that the Europeans monolithically introduced new elements and Indians were reduced to formulating responses to the penetration of foreign institutions and perspectives. Consequently, new forms derived from American, European (and, in some cases, African) cultural traditions, yet Europeans are seen as the definers and Indians as the preservers. As the essays in this volume demonstrate, the process of technological mestizaje was genuinely dialectical, depending upon the integration of knowledge, material, and effort from both native and European sides. Far from mere European imposition of technological practice and understanding, or stubborn resistance by native groups, technological development in the colonial period drew from both traditions.

These essays provide insightful reading for scholars interested in expanding their understanding of the myriad aspects of cultural encounters as well as those who focus upon the transition from pre-industrial to industrial productive processes. Furthermore, each essay stands alone as worthy of consultation by specialists in the areas of water resources (Magdalena A. García Sánchez, Diana Birrichaga Gardida), crop cultivation and processing (Beatriz Scharrer, Arnold J. Bauer), textile production (José Ignacio Urquiola Permisán), government structure (Margarita Menegus Bornemann), and images of pre-Columbian technology (Guy Rozat). Four in particular best serve to illustrate the range of technological mestizaje because they represent points of comparison regarding mestizaje in water and field based agriculture and crop processing procedures. For example, García Sanchéz' chapter examines the uses of water and water ecosystems in the Valley of Mexico during the colonial period, and provides a fascinating illustration of how native techniques, tools and materials became cemented to the colonial economy despite the fact that European tools and knowledge came to dominate the most lucrative agro-economic activities. Arguing that certain elements of indigenous life associated with water use were not transformed forcefully as a result of Spanish conquest, García Sánchez focuses upon indigenous techniques and tools used in water-related fishing, hunting and harvesting that continued as central components of daily life in the Valley of Mexico. Birrichaga Gardida employs conquest era chronicles and colonial legal documents concerning water rights to examine mestizaje in the area of water-related technology. The author concludes that European attempts at irrigation, water diversion, and mine drainage appeared to dominate the "hydraulic" system of colonial Mexico, yet European technology had to adapt to the realities of the colonial setting, which meant that structures such as aqueducts and mills of European design were built upon the foundation of native labor, artisan knowledge, and American materials.

Essays by Bauer and Scharrer evaluate technological mestizaje tied to the cultivation and processing of two specific crops, sugar and maize, and both demonstrate the integration of native tools, cultivation techniques and, in the case of maize, indigenous processing methods, into the larger colonial economy. Bauer's argument is fascinating as he demonstrates that the unique qualities of dried and soaked maize resisted mechanized milling until the latter stages of the nineteenth century, meaning that the pre-Columbian metate became a central tool in colonial life, and that women, as users of...