Indigenous Knowledge and Material Histories : The Example of Rubber / Jens Soentgen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Soentgen, Jens, author.

Series:

Cambridge elements. Elements in environmental humanities 2632-3125.

Elements in Environmental Humanities Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Traditional ecological knowledge.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (67 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, England : Cambridge University Press, [2024]

Summary:

This Element deals with stories told about substances and ways to analyse them through an Environmental Humanitie's perspective. It then takes up rubber as an example and its many stories. It is shown that the common notions of rubber history, which assume that rubber only became a useful material through a miraculous operation called vulcanization, that is attributed to the US-American Charles Goodyear, are false. In contrast, it is shown that rubber and many important rubber products are inventions of Indigenous peoples of South America, made durable by a process that can be called organic vulcanization. It is with that invention, that the story of rubber starts. Without it, rubber would not exist, neither in the Americas nor elsewhere. Finally, it is shown that Indigenous rubber products also offer some ecological advantages over industrially manufactured ones

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 22 May 2024).

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9781009442732

1009442732

9781009442749

1009442740

9781009442756

1009442759