Flies and Germs: A Geography of Knowledge

Abstract

This little vignette in which the child uses what knowledge is available to her to interpret her mother’s interdiction, illustrates the central theme of this chapter, namely that what we know is an important constraint on what we can think and do. It also illustrates two other important themes which grow out of and into this central theme. The first is that knowledge is historically specific. Thus, before 1871, knowledge of ‘germs’ did not exist. 2 The mother could not have known of their presence and the child would not have had to answer her interrogator. Second, knowledge is geographically specific. Even now, the knowledge of germs does not stretch everywhere in the world and in these nescient places mothers do not have to tell their children something they cannot know.

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