ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the contrast between diffusionist approaches to scientific and technological contact between nations, East and West, and what in the light of work which call 'relocationist' approaches. It examines the possibilities of applying the relocationist approach to technological co-production normally studied as a process of 'technology transfer'. The chapter explores the example of steam engine technology in India in the early nineteenth century to work these ideas through, particularly with, a view to identifying key sites for further research. The history of steam in India in the early nineteenth century is an important area of investigation through which the development and use of indigenous expertise and knowledge in connection with that technology might be demonstrated to a greater degree than before imagined. Historiography of science and technology has sought to transcend the once-popular diffusionist approach. There have been a number of aspects of this transcendence.
