The transnational approach is synonymous with the language of movement, circulation, and flows across borders and between nodes in a network. Notwithstanding this focus on movement in this genre of historical analysis, we notice the absence of attention to travel itself, as if the movement from one place to another is unproblematic. In this chapter we fi ll this lacuna. We concentrate on the materiality of movement and the intricate, different kinds of networks, contacts, and fl ows that make travel possible. By tracing the itinerary of a mobile radioisotope laboratory as it meandered through several Latin American countries, we highlight the challenges faced not only in crossing borders but in traveling from one town to another within any one country. These challenges were not simply bureaucratic: on the contrary, they were precipitated by an inability to imagine what travel in a “developing” country entailed, by a divergence of cultural norms and expectations between local offi cials and those in an international organization in Europe, and by the vagaries of nature itself, from earthquakes to fl oods, and their devastating effects on local infrastructures. People and things don’t only move across borders: they travel. Physically crossing space involves planning, money, time, and paperwork, mundane materialities that are ignored at one’s peril in a transnational approach.
Source
University of Chicago Press
Language
English
Cite as
Gisela Mateos & Edna Suárez-Diaz, "Technical Assistance in Movement", contributed by Arturo Vallejo, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 22 August 2019, accessed 3 May 2024. https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/technical-assistance-movement
Critical Commentary
The transnational approach is synonymous with the language of movement, circulation, and flows across borders and between nodes in a network. Notwithstanding this focus on movement in this genre of historical analysis, we notice the absence of attention to travel itself, as if the movement from one place to another is unproblematic. In this chapter we fi ll this lacuna. We concentrate on the materiality of movement and the intricate, different kinds of networks, contacts, and fl ows that make travel possible. By tracing the itinerary of a mobile radioisotope laboratory as it meandered through several Latin American countries, we highlight the challenges faced not only in crossing borders but in traveling from one town to another within any one country. These challenges were not simply bureaucratic: on the contrary, they were precipitated by an inability to imagine what travel in a “developing” country entailed, by a divergence of cultural norms and expectations between local offi cials and those in an international organization in Europe, and by the vagaries of nature itself, from earthquakes to fl oods, and their devastating effects on local infrastructures. People and things don’t only move across borders: they travel. Physically crossing space involves planning, money, time, and paperwork, mundane materialities that are ignored at one’s peril in a transnational approach.