“Hybrid corn was the invention of a method of inventing, a method of breeding superior corn for specific localities. It was not a single invention immediately adaptable everywhere. The actual breeding of adaptable hybrids had to be done separately for each area.” From Zvi Griliches, “Hybrid Corn: An Exploration in the Economics of Technological Change” […]

How do we deal with an episode of epistemic colonialism invited by the to-be-colonized? Must we establish that the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation program by the Mexican government does not represent an autonomous decision by every denizen of that government? Can we establish, somehow, that to indigenous groups within Mexico, the Mexican federal government […]

As long as the story of science, technology, and medicine is told with the language of colonialism, it should be written using the methodologies of colonial, anti-colonial, and post-colonial history; as long as the story of science, technology, and medicine is told with the language of management, bureaucracy, and control, it should be written using […]

The Green Revolution was first brought to Mexico and only later to India. Why is there such an imbalance in the number of scholarly treatments of the ecological, economic, and cultural ramifications of the Green Revolution in favor of India? This paper seeks to provide some small amount of ballast, and gratefully acknowledges and utilizes […]

Can this taxonomic scheme (techne, episteme, and technai) apply to the interactions between Western-mode agronomists and Oaxaca’s indigenous population? What does it mean that Marglin’s essay employs the attitude and technique of episteme in order to make these claims? “But what is culture? We are all accustomed to thinking of culture as a set of rules, largely tacit […]

“Another reason why choice sets contract is that many activities are indivisible and require a minimum scale to be feasible. The substitution of mass-produced articles for local craft products is conventionally seen as an enlargement of choice. And for many consumers this is exactly right: plastic buckets win out over clay pots in the market […]

From Stephen Marglin’s “Towards the Decolonization of the Mind”: What is the nature of choice for the indigenes of Oaxaca in the implementation of agricultural modernization? Are they left with the choice of retaining traditional agricultural techniques and philosophies? What choices did they make? What do their ‘revealed preferences’ (see Marglin) indicate about both agricultural […]