Abstract

GARCIA FERRARI, Mercedes. A "South-American" Knowledge. Fingerprinting at the Latin American Scientific Congress, 1901-1909. hist.crit. [online]. 2016, n.60, pp.81-101. ISSN 0121-1617.  https://doi.org/10.7440/histcrit60.2016.05.

Towards the end of the 19th century Juan Vucetich created a system of identification by means of fingerprinting that spread throughout Latin America, Europe and Asia. Based on a study of the minutes of three meetings of the Latin American Scientific Congress (1901, 1905 and 1908/1909), the article inquires into the importance of these regional scientific exchanges for legitimizing and disseminating the Argentine fingerprinting system. Although it was not the only space in which the new method was consolidated, in these meetings Argentinean fingerprinting methods did take on symbolic contents that favored its adoption throughout Latin America. It concludes that fingerprinting acquired a set of meanings associated with the success of Latin American science, the regional elites' dreams of progress, and the modernization of government institutions.

Keywords : History of Science; Latin American History; Police (Thesaurus); Latin American Scientific Congress; Dactyloscopy (author's keywords).

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