Beyond Diffusion: Maintenance, Craft, and the Rise of Technical Prestige in Colonial Lima

Challenging diffusionist accounts of early modern technology, this article argues that maintenance labor—not invention or transfer alone—drove technological change in colonial Lima. Focusing on the import and upkeep of mechanical clocks following the city’s founding in 1535, it shows how sustained maintenance enabled artisans, including enslaved laborers, to develop expertise, authority, and social mobility. Drawing on municipal contracts and artisanal records, the article reframes early modern technological exchange as an artisan-driven, urban process linking craft, governance, and technical prestige.