Social Studies of Science and Technology in Latin America: A Field in the Process of Consolidation (original) (raw)

THE SOCIAL STUDIES of science and technology are relatively new in Latin America. The first reflections, in the 1960s and 1970s, were very promissory and they even gave place to the idea of a ‘Latin American thought of science, technology and society’. Those works, written mainly by scientists and engineers, had a main political concern to find ways and instruments to develop scientific and technological knowledge locally, so that it could be suitable for the needs of the region. The objective of that generation, which was partially reached, consisted in making science and technology an object of public study, as a topic bound to a social and economic development strategy. Besides, there was an emphasis on the fact that science and technology are not neutral and universal, but that are processes with specific features according to the context in which they are introduced. Thus, as it was then said, there was a paradox: while the lesser developed countries try to produce scientific knowledge locally, they are subject to a dependence relationship of the knowledge— particularly technological—produced in industrialised countries. One of the main achievements of this Latin American thought was the criticism of the linear model of innovation and the proposal of analytical instruments as ‘national project’, ‘social claim for S&T’, ‘implicit and explicit policy’, ‘technological styles’ and ‘technological packages’ (Dagnino et al. 1996). Represented by emblematic characters and real ‘fighters’, whose commitment to scientific and technological development exceeded intellectual concern, the field constituted a whole political cultural practice. They were Oscar Varsavsky, Amílcar Herrera, Jorge Sábato, Máximo Halty and Marcel Roche, among others.