Barriers to Knowledge: The Ambivalence of Media in Spanish Colonial Politics

Whereas the 'warehouse theory of knowledge' suggests that each piece of information augments the knowledge of its owner, empirical research has frequently demonstrated ambivalent and even contrary effects. My talk will focus on how media were used within Spanish colonial politics in such an ambivalent manor – transporting information on the one hand and constituting new spaces for personal or political secrets on the other. In my eyes, this ambivalence of media is constitutive for the modern interplay of showing and hiding information. As a consequence we should consider the use of, for example, inaccurate maps, blank papers, incomplete reports as a common strategy within the political economy of knowledge. This 'economy' provides incentives as well for sharing information as for keeping specific secrets.