From the end of the nineteenth century into the first decades of the twentieth, Colombian chicha (a fermented beverage made from maize) was at one and the same time alcohol and food, a product produced and consumed on a large scale in an urban setting, and an object of intense scientific scrutiny, with multiple meanings and transformations. In this article, I argue that industrial chicha production, local scientific practices, and food policies and regulations crossed paths in Colombia, influencing each other. I explore the situated and diverse practices of knowledge production about the relationship between chicha, bodies, and society, as well as their actual implications in, and mutual effects with, matters of food governance. In laboratories and hospitals, but also in the places of production and consumption of chicha, Colombian scientists produced toxicological, physiological, nutritional, and statistical knowledge about this beverage, shaping diverse racialized perceptions of local poor populations and their capacities to achieve national progress. In turn, the material transformations in the production of chicha (related to modern urban configurations), the industrial producers of this beverage, as well as the emerging practices of governance over chicha and the bodies of its consumers, influenced the making and use of knowledge claims about this same food product. With this case study, I call attention to some insights that history of science and medicine can offer to the fields of biopolitics and food history, and their interconnections. In methodological terms, I propose a biographical approach that follows some of the multiple historical lives of chicha, both as an object of science and as a commodity.

中文翻译：

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Chicha的科学生活

从 19 世纪末到 20 世纪初，哥伦比亚奇恰酒（一种由玉米制成的发酵饮料）既是酒又是食物，是一种在城市环境中大规模生产和消费的产品，并且是一个受到严格科学审查的对象，具有多重含义和变化。在本文中，我认为工业奇恰咖啡生产、当地科学实践以及食品政策和法规在哥伦比亚相互影响。我探索了有关chicha、身体和社会之间关系的知识生产的情境化和多样化实践，以及它们在食品治理问题中的实际影响和相互影响。在实验室和医院，还有在chicha的生产和消费场所，哥伦比亚科学家提供了关于这种饮料的毒理学、生理学、营养学和统计知识，塑造了对当地贫困人口及其实现国家进步的能力的不同种族观念。反过来，chicha 生产中的物质转变（与现代城市配置相关）、这种饮料的工业生产商，以及对chicha 及其消费者身体的新兴治理实践，影响了知识的制作和使用关于同一食品的声明。通过这个案例研究，我提请注意科学和医学史可以为生物政治和食品史领域提供的一些见解，以及它们之间的相互联系。在方法论方面，我提出了一种传记方法，它遵循奇查的多个历史生活中的一些，