Knowledge, Science and Health in the Early Modern Caribbean with Pablo Gomez

Pablo Gomez (University of Wisconsin, Madison) comes on the podcast to talk about knowledge, science and health in the early modern Caribbean. The conversation begins with the basics and how the region does not fall into the tropes of modernity, then focuses on Pablo’s interest in how people of African descent navigated the area and period. Pablo speaks specifically about a group of Black ritual practitioners and covers some of the ways in which he learns about them in sources (mostly inquisitional records). The conversation continues to discuss topics such as the transmission of specialized knowledge, memory of earlier societies in the area and the partial presence of the Caribbean in standard narratives of epidemics and pandemics. A brief reflection on Covid wraps up the interview.