GLOBAL CONNEXITY AND CIRCULATION OF KNOWLEDGEAspects of Anthropology of Knowledge in Latin AmericaAntonio Arellano Hernández et al. S.A.C. | Revue d'anthropologie des connaissances 2012/2 - Vol. 6, n° 2pages a à aa

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Arellano Hernández Antonio et al., « Global connexity and circulation of knowledge » Aspects of Anthropology of

Knowledge in Latin America,

Revue d'anthropologie des connaissances, 2012/2 Vol. 6, n° 2, p. a-aa. DOI : 10.3917/rac.016.a

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Anthropology of knowledge in lAtin AmericA

globAl connexity And circulAtion of knowledge

Aspects of Anthropology of Knowledge in Latin America1

Antonio ARELLANO HERNÁNDEZrigAs ARVANITISdominique VINCK

Since the publication of the first Latin American sociology of science study in Venezuela by Olga Gasparini (1969) until today, social science studies in Latin America have achieved an exceptional level of richness. Their development has been punctuated by some major science policy issues, notably how to make research activity socially and politically legitimate. What research policy coordination instruments should be deployed? How should newly created research councils be operated? How should country needs be met? How should they be defined? How should research activity be linked up with that of businesses? What type of research should be given priority? The gap hollowed out by scientists from the worlds of physics, maths or natural sciences, who had occupied the public arena at the start of the 1970s, has been filled up by sociologists, anthropologists and historians. The different issues abounding can be grouped into three categories: research policy, the formation of a scientific community and the relevance of research in peripheral countries.

1 This special issue of the Revue d’Anthropologie des Connaissances is simultaneously published, in Spanish and Portuguese, in REDES – Revista de Estudios Sociales de la Ciencia (http://www.unq.edu.ar/layout/redirect.jsp?idSection=1892) with which was prepared the call for paper during the ESOCITE 2010 Congress in Buenos Aires.

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FROM INSTITUTIONALISATION TO THE SCIENCE DEBATE

The institutionalisation of scientific and technological research in Latin America has at least three sources (Arellano, 2005):

the creation of isolated university research groups in Argentina, -Brazil and Mexico in the 1930s who were capable of working at the boundaries of knowledge;the internationalisation of the production process following the -second world war with the creation of transnational company subsidiaries, the introduction of multinational capital and technology transfers;the United States’ intention to implement a science and technology -policy to foster the development of the skills necessary for the economic and social development of Latin America while ensuring the region’s political loyalty towards the United States.

In the 1930s, this continent witnessed the emergence of the first groups of researchers able to address the challenges identified by international research at that time. The Peruvian historian Marcos Cueto (1989) qualified this first phase as one of excellence in the periphery. The excellence here referred to the dominating model of international research, which was then somewhat small-scale and localised within state-run universities. The next generation to pursue excellence in research, on a broader scale, relied on the resources of private foundations, notably in order to equip research laboratories. It also depended on international cooperation linked to relatively sustainable mobility phenomena in Europe and the United States.

As of the 1950s, international organisations such as UNESCO and the Organisation of American States (OAS) began to transfer European experience to Latin America with the aim of reducing the scientific and technological gap between Europe and the United States. They introduced science and technology policies, notably following agreements stemming from the meeting of Latin American presidents in Punta del Este in 1967. This triggered the creation of national councils of science and technology, the planning and first professionalisation of scientific activities, and the promotion of instruments to diagnose, manage, assess and disseminate results. These initial efforts were all designed to set technological priorities and boost research, which was almost exclusively led by national governments and state-run universities. Academic research was thus developed within universities and promoted by teachers who had become part of the international scientific community. Technological development, on the other hand, was fostered by sector-based organisations aiming to solve societal problems and transfer knowledge and technology to the production sector and defence industry, as part of state planning schemes. The most striking aspect of this period is that this deployment of the sciences

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was then taken over by eminent scientists or technologist who articulated the academic world and the state-governed political and administrative spheres. This was notably the case of Jorge Sábato, Amílcar Herrera, Oscar Varsavsky, Francisco Sagasti and Marchel Roche. They forged a Latin American thinking about scientific and technological development inspired by the concepts employed by the Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL in Spanish) and stemming from the theory of dependence. Like the CEPAL, they set about analysing the region’s vulnerability and its international integration in terms of relations of dependence between the centre and the periphery.

It was not until the major changes undergone by research in the second half of the 20th century (Arvanitis, 2003), the growing importance of scientific and technological innovation as a factor of societal reproduction, the increasing volume of private research, and the inextricable drawing together of science and technology into an ensemble called technoscience, that a new social and cultural order founded on science and technology appeared, or at least this was how it was seen from the periphery (Escobar, 1994). These changes were anthropological since the emergence of new information technologies, new materials, new sources of energy, and biotechnology, effected a profound global modification to relations between human beings and nature and representations of the world (Arellano, 2005).

However, the progressive consolidation of scientific and technological activity in Latin America and the small number of visible technological achievements such as those in the Brazilian aeronautical industry or the progress in biotechnology in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, were far from reflecting a widespread deployment of scientific and technological research. The region lacked long-term programmes and agendas with explicit priorities. When such programmes did exist, they focused on specific and contingent subjects in order to solve urgent social questions. Associated with economic crises in the region, many projects strove to meet needs in the health, nutrition and housing sectors. They were supposed to set out recommendations for national governmental reference documents but were generally not backed up by enough financial resources or political will power to transform them into reality. To highlight this fact, it can be noted that political spending on S&T did not exceed 1% of GDP, except in Brazil and Argentina. This configuration gave rise to a multiplicity of scientific communities acting according to their own discipline-specific dynamics and seeking above all to integrate global techno-scientific research networks. An ambiguous movement could be observed: a certain decline in the role of central governments and the appearance of increasingly active regional authorities, while new actors took on important roles in terms of research and innovation, e.g. technology-based companies, reinvigorated public research centres, new agencies (Robles, 2011), para-public organisations and, above all, numerous NGOs (Arellano, 2005).

This evolution of the institutionalisation of research (Vessuri, 1994) also ties in with forms of research internationalisation. The example of Argentina

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proposed by Pablo Kreimer (2006) is a good illustration of the changes taking place (see table 1).

Stage Main aspects Period

Founding internationalisation: from colonial sciences to national sciences

Institutionalisation of new scientific fields. Visits from European academics (later, and according to the disciplines, along with a few Americans).

1870-1920

Liberal internationalisation – first phase: partnerships with the centre

Scientific tinkerers: individual negotiations about research agendas with “central” teams on “mainstream” topics.

1920-1960

Liberal internationalisation – second phase: towards Big science1

Emergence of S&T policies in Latin America and development of instruments to support research. Slide towards post docs abroad.

1960-1990

Forced internationalisation: major networks and mega science

Integration in international networks and international division of scientific labour: Latin American researchers have practically no degree of negotiation.

1990-

Science internationalisation stages in Argentina (Kreimer, 2006)Table 1. 2

The stages proposed by Kreimer for Argentina also reflect the evolution of scientific themes and approaches. A gradual slide in research themes redirected researchers’ attention from subjects with a fairly direct application (public health, mines, agriculture) to subjects that were more confined to the laboratory and better integrated into the dominant strains of international research. For instance, this is the case for research on Chagas disease (Kreimer & Zabala, 2008) and on biotechnologies and genetically modified organisms (Chauvet, 2004; Casas, 1991; Arellano & Ortega, 2005).

The periods identified above should nevertheless be weighed against the increasing number of online publications, in the 1980s, reflecting a step-up in Latin American research (see Russell & Ainsworth, 2010 and list of documents on the EULAKS3 site). Research activity, which had been relatively marginal, became one of the pillars of university activity and was included in government priorities (locally and nationally). Similarly, there was an increase in the number of international partnerships and unexpected developments: today, much work is carried out in collaboration with Spanish universities and centres. Brazil, on the other hand, has seen a slow-down in international co-publications, mainly

2 In the hIstory of scIence, Big Science designates new modes of scientific research organisation stemming from the Second World War and based on large-scale projects financed by one or several state governments. See notably Price (1963).3 http://www.eulaks.eu/document/list?_filter_wp=210.

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due to the increase and diversification of its scientific base. However, aside some one-off changes, the most important aspect is the spread of highly diversified forms of research activity. It is not therefore surprising that this evolution is the subject of a growing amount of studies.

EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE IN LATIN AMERICA

The social study of science and technology in Latin America dates back to the 1950s. Over the course of the last six decades, there has been a steady increase in the number of research groups and work in this field, together with a proliferation in theoretical and methodological approaches and a relative structuring of the community. According to Arellano and Kreimer (2011), social studies of science and technology in this region can be divided into three periods:

The first period stretches from the 1950s through to the 1980s -and corresponds to the definition of original Latin American thinking about science, technology and development based on Latin American dependence work.From the beginning of the 1980s until the first half of the 1990s, -social studies of science and technology became institutionalised. Their institutionalisation was characterised by the formation of the first groups of sociology, social history, anthropology and political and economic sciences focusing on technological change and innovation.Begun in the second half of the 1990s and spanning through to today, -the third period has witnessed the consolidation of the social study of science as a field. This is reflected in the regular conferences bringing together a growing number of researchers with a certain amount of experience in research and university training.

How an Original Thinking about Science and Technology Evolved

Unlike in Europe and the United States (Vinck, 2007), STS research groups in Latin America first drew their inspiration from history or politics.

The first works on the history of sciences were “hagiographic” (in the sense that they studied the lives and works of eminent men of science from the region such as Oswaldo Cruz in Brazil or Bernardo Houssay in Argentina,

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both of whom contributed to universal – European science), or “internalist” (i.e. founded on the history of the significant results of each discipline and reporting little about the social, economic, political or cultural context, or the internal social dynamics of disciplines). A turning point occurred at the end of the 1970s when historians became inspired by the “diffusionist” model using it to explain the development (and delay) of sciences outside of Europe, hence reporting on the contextual nature of the so-called “universal” sciences as well as the institutions and working conditions of men of science (“externalist” approach).

However, the true foundations of Latin American thinking about science and technology (Kreimer, 2004)4 are rooted in the role of science and technology policy. This thinking challenges the linear model of innovation (Dagnino et al., 1996) using notions such as national project, social demand and technological styles. The pioneers were engineers and men of science, who had become actors of research policy, such as Marcel Roche in Venezuela, Amílcar Herrera5, Jorge Sábato6 and Oscar Varsavsky7 in Argentina, José Leite Lopes in Brazil, Miguel Wionczek in Mexico, Francisco Sagasti8 in Peru and Máximo Halty Carrère in Uruguay. Their work was generally executed outside of academic structures although they maintained institutional relations with their original discipline by teaching in engineering, exact sciences, pharmacy or medicine faculties. Even today, S&T policy analysis does not fall within the scope of the political

4 According to Pablo Kreimer (2004), it is perhaps not appropriate to talk about a school of thought even if the personalities having marked this thinking (pensamiento latino-americano en ciencia, tecnología y sociedad - PLACTS), between the end of the 1960s and the start of the 1980s, took part in national and international debates and published joint collections of articles. Above all, together they formed a set of relatively isolated voices but only devoted themselves to the social study of science on a part-time basis. The review Ciencia Nueva, in Argentina, acted as a channel for debates about the strategy underlying S&T policies. While this thinking became fairly widespread in the 1970s, it did not really lead to the creation of academic training programmes. Nevertheless, the Science and Technology Policy programme at Campinas University in Brazil under the management of Amílcar Herrera, who combined post-graduate university research with training, formed an exception to this general rule. 5 Between 1974 and 1976, Amílcar Herrera and his Latin American World Model team (Bariloche project) studied a prospective (neo-Malthusian) Club of Rome model. Herrera demonstrated the feasibility of a planetary-scale development based on the technologies of the time. He is the author of the only STS best seller published in Spanish: Ciencia y política en América Latina (1971).6 Teacher, militant and actor of the National Atomic Energy and Industry Commission, Jorge Sábato marked STS thinking in Argentina, notably with the concept of a State-Enterprise-R&D Institution triangle (Sábato & Botana, 1968) and the idea that development must integrate science and technology. 7 In Argentina, Oscar Varsavsky (1969) radically criticised scientism and proposed the concepts of “technological style” and “national project”. He underlined the international cultural dependence of scientific institutions (via foundations, scholarly societies or symposia), which promoted the global dissemination of norms and knowledge stemming from prestigious research centres. He saw the international science aristocracy as a danger for humanity and pleaded for a diversity of scientific styles.8 The Peruvian Francisco Sagasti with the STPI (Science and Technology Policy Instruments) project, financed by the IDRC, brought together several Latin American, African and Asian countries to help developing countries with the decision about S&T policy.

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sciences. It was thus logical, then, that these individuals channelled a normative concern linked to action rather than to the analytical rigour of the academic world. According to some of these researchers, S&T policy was supposed to contribute to the consolidation of the Republican or Socialist State. According to others, it aimed to promote a national strategy. In the eyes of all, it was supposed to support economic and social development. This period was marked by the setting up of national research policy authorities and thinking about planning (Antonorsi & Avalos, 1980). These activities were inspired by soviet approaches or those inherited from the social-democratic models in Europe that underpinned policy-related work, meetings9 and training actively supported by international organisations such as UNESCO, the Organisation of American States, the Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL), and the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC).10

These first researchers, who were public actors and strove to occupy positions of power in decision-making as a means of social change, were greatly concerned by the political dimensions. They defended the social side of the technological phenomenon and approached the technological transfer process with a critical eye, seeing it as a dependence phenomenon. To counter this phenomenon, they promoted endogenous development, underlining the active role of governments in terms of national research paths. Sábato and Botana conceptualised the idea of the development of science and technology as part of a triangle made up of research institutions, governmental bodies and productive entities. They highlighted the absence of links between research and national productive sectors. Oscar Varsavsky proposed more radical transformations, questioning the very foundations of Latin American science systems which, according to him, were aligned with a sort of international scientific bureaucracy entirely disconnected from the needs of society. As for

9 UNESCO and the OAS worked to disseminate the results of S&T policy studies focusing on technological development issues. For over 10 years (1963-1976), one conference a year was held on the subject in Latin America (Albornoz, 1990). The series began in 1962 with the Argentinean Pan-American Courses in Metallurgy organised by the National Atomic Energy Commission. These led to the creation of a Latin American network disseminating ideas about autonomous technological development. In 1963, two conferences initiated by the United Nations (on the application of science and technology and on trade and development) focused on technological development and technology transfer. In 1965, UNESCO supported a conference in Chile on the application of science and technology in Latin America. In 1967, the meeting of American presidents in Punta del Este focused on the technological gap. The OAS conference in 1969 resulted in a pilot project for technology transfer. Towards the end of the 1960s in Argentina (Bariloche foundation), critical discussion seminars on technology transfer processes were set up. These brought together researchers, engineers, industrialists, politicians and unionists, until the military dictatorship was born in 1976. Between 1971 and 1975, debates explored local technology transfer and the creation of technological packages. The series of coups d’état and dictatorships in several Latin American countries prevented debates from taking place. The OAS Office of Science and Technology financed the implementation of a Pan American Course in Science and Technology Policy (Study of Latin American Science – ECLA, Salvador University in Buenos Aires) between 1972 and 1978.10 For a report on the history of the field in Latin America, see: Oteiza & Vessuri (1993), Dagnino et al (1996), Kreimer & Thomas (2004).

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Amílcar Herrera, he underlined the need to focus on the agendas hiding behind economic policies and other public proposals and which reflected the implicit side of policies and shackled autonomous technological development. All of these researchers wanted to build an integrated Latin American autonomous regional development project, i.e. a Latin American social project as part of a deep-reaching societal transformation.

The First Works on Scientific Disciplines and Diagnoses of the State of Science

The study of sciences in Latin America is closely tied up with political thinking about science. The first real sociological research on science in Latin America attempted to explain the development of scientific communities at national level or the development of specific disciplines. Unlike what was being done at the same time in Europe and the United States, this research was not inspired by the functionalism of Merton (who limited his attention to the institutional norms of scientific production, leaving epistemology and “internalist” history to deal with the content). The work of the Chilean Edmundo Fuenzalida (1971) can be cited here. Fuenzalida studied the situation of researchers and the behaviour of research in his country, embedding these in the stratified international scientific context. The Brazilian Simon Schwartzman (1979) reported on the emergence and development of the scientific community in Brazil, from the country’s Portuguese heritage to the institutionalisation of its research in a sociological analysis of the transformations of Brazilian society. The Venezuelan Marcel Roche studied the scientific community of his country within an historical and cultural framework in order to uncover its relationship with the international scientific community and with society as a whole.

One of the first places for thinking about the formation of the scientific community was Venezuela, thanks to the professional associations of researchers and to the presence of two leading figures: Marcel Roche and Hebe Vessuri (Arvanitis 1996). Absorbed by his research as an “enlightened amateur” to begin with and then as a convinced professional, the doctor Marcel Roche ran the young Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC), which focused on fundamental research. He was one of the linchpins of the project led by UNESCO, which resulted in the creation of national research councils across the entire continent. In 1965, when the preparatory commission that paved the way for the future CONCIT (a Venezuelan research coordination body) published its report, many studies focused on the different disciplines, both from a historical and sociological point of view. With the research led by Olga Gasparini (1969), these works were gathered together into a book that formed one of the founding documents for the social analysis of science and scientific research policy in the region. Following on from this, between 1965 and 1975, several historical works were published on scientific disciplines or on scientific personalities. The CONICIT strove to maintain this close relationship

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between academics in charge of understanding scientific activity in the country. Later, the coordination organisation signed a framework agreement with the Department of Science and Technology (Area de Ciencia y Tecnología) in the Centre for Development Studies (CENDES) 11 at the Central University of Venezuela. The department’s group of researchers was run according to this framework agreement as a supplier of personnel and research work focusing on research policy. As the CENDES was an academic and research institute specialised in the training of government planning officials, it was logical that it take over the training of future CONCIT officials. This is why the CONCIT financed a research contract for the team created in 1975 for a period of nine years. The CONCIT thus furthered the work of the preparatory commission that had created it, ordering many scientific activity diagnostic studies of the country.

The following year, Marcel Roche created a Department of Science Studies (IVIC). Both institutes are important for their pioneering role in Latin America. The building of an academic community around these subjects proved to be much more fragmented in the other countries (Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Columbia).

Hebe Vessuri, an Argentinean anthropologist who had trained at Oxford and taken refuge in Venezuela, like many of her compatriots fleeing the military dictatorship, became the second director of the CENDES Department of Science and Technology. Here, she initiated research work and teaching that took into account the contributions of the sociology of the sciences. For nine years, she directed what was for a long time the only centre to focus on social research and university teaching on science and technology in Latin America. The CENDES ran a “Maestria” in planning that offered a “Science and Technology” option, the only one of its kind in Latin America until recently.

It is thanks to Hebe Vessuri that various researchers joined forces on common research projects on science. This is reflected in several collections of articles on scientific disciplines and institutions in Venezuela written by sociologists, economists and historians, but also by doctors and scientists working in the exact and natural sciences. She pursued these efforts at the IVIC where she became director of the Science Studies Department after running the master’s course at Campinas University in Brazil (which was created by A. Herrera). Finally, as part of her university union activity, she also strove to defend the role and place of research at university – a theme underpinning the emergence of the scientific community in Venezuala (Ruiz et al. 1992; Rengifo et al. 1997) and Brazil (Botelho 1989).

With her work, Hebe Vessuri opened up thinking about science in Latin America on all fronts12: in relation to university teachers’ union activity,

11 The CENDES was also an institution created by one of the founding members of the CEPAL and one of the homes of dependence thinking in Latin America.12 The first collective work on “peripheral science” that she led (Vessuri, 1984) contained all of these themes: a recent collection of her work (2007) also reflects the extent of the intellectual field she covered.

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thinking and training of government officials, the relevance of research, the very animated debate about the status of science opposing sociologists and epistemologists, the definition of a research policy within universities, the issue of research publications and the role of publishing in a peripheral context. All of these themes have a “macro” outlook and concern science policy, hence contrasting greatly with the division between science studies and research policy deplored by American and English sociologists of science (Hackett et al., 2008). Field studies still have a direct resonance with political questioning in Latin America (Casas and Luna, 1996; Villavicencio, 2009). It is therefore not surprising that economic studies on the transfer of technology and innovation, technological learning and research-industry relations, research policy and the sociology of scientific communities continue to flourish.

The Institutionalisation of Social Studies of Science and Technology in Latin America (1975-1995)

In the middle of the 1970s, a new, constructivist sociology of science emerged in Europe and the United States. It aimed to open the “black box” of knowledge building by reporting on its underpinning social aspects. Towards the end of the 1970s in Latin America, a new era spanning the next twenty years commenced during which work on the social studies of science no longer depended solely on individuals from the natural sciences or engineers but researchers with a background in the social study of research and innovation. Many new university courses saw the light of day during this period. In fact, the whole historiography of STS in Latin America can be traced back to these courses.

Throughout these twenty years, the social study of science and technology unfolded taking on many dimensions and encompassing various disciplines to form increasingly diverse research topics. The main issues explored covered the institutionalisation of the knowledge society, the relations between scientific disciplines and industry, the formation of scientific fields, the relations between technoscience, environment and society, the regionalisation and spatial-temporal localisation of science, and, finally, the ever-present questions of S&T policy, political participation, democracy, ethics, etc. The initial diversity of disciplines (sociology, anthropology, economy, history, etc.) was transformed into a mixture of interdisciplinary approaches and subject areas. Aside works marked by sociology, anthropology and history, the period also witnessed the powerful emergence of socio-economic studies on innovation at national and regional level, as well as research on the ability to manage the innovation and skills expressed in learning processes and the build-up of innovation capacity in different social and economic spheres.

The formulation of research programmes led to tensions between critical or “autonomous” outlooks focusing on the subjects and approaches from the point of view of Latin America (or that of “non-hegemonic” countries, to use the term proposed by Losego & Arvanitis in 2008), and less critical approaches.

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Among the first to appear were works on the natural and exact sciences. Only a select few actually performed a critical analysis of the circulation of knowledge in the social sciences between the centre and the periphery. There were also attempts to apply the frameworks elaborated by various international hegemonic movements to research subjects in Latin America. In some cases, the application of these analytical models required adaptations to local contexts, which gave rise to certain conceptual and methodological adjustments, while others were simply applied mechanically. Some examples of this mechanical application can be seen in the use of concepts like “post-modern society”, “globalised scientific networks”, “triple helix”, “actor-network”, “social construction of knowledge”, etc. These were taken up lightly without much thought being given to their relevance in relation to local research issues and topics (Arellano and Kreimer, 2011).

The Relative Consolidation of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in Latin America (after 1995)

The third period is populated by a second generation of researchers trained in STS by one of the European or American research groups recognised in this field. Most Latin Americans received training from the SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research) at Sussex University, or attended the STS centre at the CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers) in Paris and the Paris MINES Centre for the Sociology of Innovation. On their return to their own countries, they initiated research programmes to match international programmes and promoted these across the globe. They also created post-doc programmes in their university institutes13 hence preparing the way for the next generation of locally trained STS researchers. The training programmes and research groups created in the 1980s met the need to plan ahead for future development and optimise S&T policy management structures. They have notably trained individuals in science and technology management and planning.

13 Specialised, master’s and doctoral programmes, notably: - specific STS programmes: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes in Argentina; Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá; Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas in Venezuela.- history or philosophy of sciences programmes: Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero in Argentina; Universidade Federal da Bahía in Brazil; Université Nationale Autonome in Mexico.- programmes focusing on the economics of technical change, S&T policy and management of technology or innovation: Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina (Departamento de Política Científica e Tecnológica), Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Universidade Federal da Bahía in Brazil; Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Unidad Xochimilco, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico; Universidad Ricardo Palma, Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería, CONCYTEC in Peru; CENDES Universidad Central de Venezuela, Universidad del Zulia in Venezuela.

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As of 1995, the Latin American STS community based its organisation on a regular symposium14 (the ESOCITE Latin American Meeting of Social Studies of Science and Technology) and a doctoral school. Its researchers also began to submit their works to discipline-specific national and regional symposia.15 In 1999, the CTS+I (Science, Technology and Society plus Innovation) research network, organised by the Organisation of Ibero-American States (OEI) for Education, Science and Culture, began to support the dissemination of work, the publication of educational texts, the creation of training curricula and CTS+I chairs in state-run and private universities in Latin American countries16 as well as in Spain and Portugal. Furthermore, articles were published in several reviews. The most significant were:

Quipu, Revista Latinoamericana de historia de las Ciencias y la Tecnología - 17: founded in 1984 by the Latin American Society of History of Science and Technology (SLAHCT), this review was published in Mexico and above all disseminated work related to the history of science. The review’s name was inspired by the old mathematical calculation system used by the Incas.REDES. Revista de Estudios Sociales de la Ciencia - 18: founded in 1984 and published in Argentina, this review promoted original academic articles as well as the translations of emblematic STS texts, in particular those dealing with the sociology of science and technology. It played a structuring role for STS in Latin America.CTS-Revista Iberoamericana de Ciencia, Tecnologia y Sociedad - 19: launched in 2003 by the Grupo Redes (as an off-shoot of the REDES review).Other reviews published articles relating to STS: - Interciencia20 (published in Venezuela, studied the social contexts of scientific research, including S&T management and policy); Espacios21 (published in Venezuela and focusing on S&T policy and management, this review became the official channel for ALTEC publications); Ciencia y desarrollo (Mexico) (scientific popularisation), Ciencia, Tecnologia y Desarrollo (Columbia) (scientific popularisation).

14 See ESOCITE web site: http://www.uaemex.mx/esocite/.15 Congress of the Latin American History of Science and Technology, the Latin American Sociology Association (ALAS), the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), the Latin American Labour Studies Association (ALAST) and the Latin American Association of Technological Management (ALTEC).16 Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Salvador, Uruguay.17 http://www.revistaquipu.com/ 18 http://www.unq.edu.ar/layout/redirect.jsp?idSection=1892.19 http://www.revistacts.net/20 http://www.interciencia.org/21 http://www.revistaespacios.com/espacios.html.

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The research initiated by these groups and networks was above all descriptive in nature (case studies performed according to protocol). It called on the first theories developed as part of Latin American thinking or the approaches introduced by European and American research groups. Field surveys on science in the making represented progress insofar as they allowed researchers to move away from philosophical and political speculations about science in general and criticise the linearity of the models dominating S&T discourse and policy. Such is the case of Hebe Vessuri’s work in Venezuela, that of Antonio Arellano and Rosalba Casas in Mexico, Jorge Charum in Columbia or Pablo Kreimer, Hernán Thomas and Leonardo Vaccarezza in Argentina. In the history of science, researchers like Juan José Saldaña in Mexico or Marcos Cueto in Peru developed a social history of science.

Nevertheless, the empirical studies performed did not lead to the invention of new conceptualisations, unlike the audacious analytical and political research carried out by the generation of the 1970s. They reflected a case of subordinate integration, according to Pablo Kreimer (1998), in other words a strong wish for collaboration with international partners in order to publish work in renowned international specialist reviews. In some disciplines, a scientific mainstream managed to impose itself (Keim 2010). One consequence of this alignment on the hegemonic countries was the buckling of critical thinking about science and the introduction of new S&T policy instruments (incubators, technology parks, clusters, indicators, etc.), designed to support technical and economic competitiveness on the globalised markets. It should also be noted that Latin America underwent a wave of research and innovation policy researchers and managers who paved the way for the creation of S&T observatories as of the 1990s. Financed by the Organisation of American States, UNESCO and the Ibero-American Science and Technology for Development Programme (CYTED), they organised themselves as a regional-scale network (RICYT – RED de Indicadores de Ciencia Y Tecnología), whose job was to coordinate and harmonise the production of indicators with the production of the Bogotá Manuel (a follow-on from the Frascati Manuel).

The result of the genealogical events exposed above was a series of new questions. In particular, the idea of peripheral or non-hegemonic science began to occupy debates. While at the time this idea made it possible to pinpoint the scientific and technological dynamics that were unfamiliar to researchers in the “North”, today it is likely to shroud the effective disparities in these fields. For instance, while it is difficult to talk about the centrality or hegemony of countries like Greece or Poland, it is just as difficult not to talk about the regional hegemony of Brazil or Argentina. Furthermore, over the last few decades, the relevance of thinking about scientific and technological dynamics from a national point of view has been challenged as researchers have increasingly focused on transnational networks and regional (and at times transborder) spaces. Today, new intellectual spaces are channelling the attention of STS researchers and these spaces are at once specific and international.

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FROM PERIPHERAL SCIENCE TO THE SOCIAL UTILITY OF SCIENCE

Hebe Vessuri, with her book Ciencia periférica (Díaz, Texera & Vessuri, 1983), strove to point out that scientific dynamics were specific to a peripheral context. She was the first to conceptualise the problem by underlining the influence of the sociocultural context on scientific directions and practices, concepts, research topics and institutions. This better understanding of the forms of scientific activity heralded the importance of relations with society and with the social applications of science.

Since then, analysing the conditions of scientific development in a peripheral context has been a recurring topic in the sociology of science in Latin America. The science historian Marcos Cueto (1989), who studied the appearance of research on the continent, referred to scientific excellence at the periphery. He analysed the development of research in physiology and biomedical sciences in Latin America, financed by the Rockefeller foundation, and showed how local researchers developed strategies to achieve scientific success, from the periphery, by focusing their work on the priorities of internationally recognised programmes. He thus argued that the sciences of peripheral countries were not “under-developed” sciences, nor were they necessarily orbiting around international scientific movements but were deployed according to their own specific rules.

Pablo Kreimer (1999) explored the constitution of scientific traditions in peripheral contexts and defended the idea that not only local contexts should be taken into account but also the structure of international relations, scientific migrations and the nature of exchanges between central country and peripheral country researchers. He proposed the concept of subordinate integration to qualify the form of international division of labour he observed whereby the most competent researchers of peripheral countries worked on highly qualified but routine-based tasks while the conceptual work was the priority of a handful of “central” laboratories. Peripheral excellence in research was thus integrated at international level while at the same time being limited to research work allowing little room for innovation.

All of the first work performed in Latin America raised the central question of the social and local utility of scientific and technological knowledge and the link between research and development, what Arvanitis (1996) referred to as the uncertain relationship. In Columbia, as part of thinking about research assessment tools, Jorge Charum and Luz Stella Parrado (1995) suggested viewing this utility as the result of a social construction process whose analysis involved characterising both the users and the potential underlying researchers’ work that they (the researchers) hoped to see recognised. In Argentina, Pablo Kreimer and Hernán Thomas (2003) formulated an “integrated” approach to the problem of utility, thereby suggesting that the question was present throughout research projects, from their initial shaping to the process of giving new meaning to established knowledge. They also underlined the importance

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of actors other than researchers taking part in these utility-construction and attribution processes (Vaccarezza & Zabala, 2002). Hernán Thomas (1995, 2002; Thomas et al., 2004) dealt with this question as a sociotechnical trajectory whose sociotechnical style he strove to characterise. With Renato Dagnino (Dagnino & Thomas 1995, 2002; Dagnino, 2003), he worked on the sociotechnical match. This question was all the more crucial given that the production of scientific and technological knowledge that failed to lead to any effective application, innovation or solution to social or environmental problems (or CANA by its Spanish acronym, meaning non-applied applicable knowledge)22 (Kreimer & Thomas, 2004) constituted a large-scale phenomenon.

With the work of Antonio Arellano in Mexico, laboratory studies and the anthropology of science and technology were introduced to the continent (Arellano, 1996 and 2010; Kreimer, 1999). Arrellano implemented several surveys in laboratories working on plant genetics (Arellano, 1999), biotechnologies (Arellano, 1998) and several areas of applied physics (Arellano, 2011 and 2012) or studies on climate science (Arellano, 2011) and the production of beauty products (Ramírez & Arellano, 2010). This work marked a turning point in that the creation of sociotechnical networks and the circulation of knowledge became objects of thought. To a certain extent, this work provides an empirical answer to the question of the utility of science and attempts to bridge the gap between a more attentive analysis of institutional and political forms and work focusing on the content of research in greater detail.

The concern for the social utility of science links up with the problem of innovation introduced to the region, notably through the Neo-Schumpterian inspired economics of technical change. Following work on local innovation and technological development policies as part of a dependent economy, Latin America produced an original school of thought on technological learning in businesses (see Arvanitis & Villavicencio, 1998), in the wake of the proposal contained in the original article by J. Katz (1976). The dominating theme in the 1980s was that of relations between universities and enterprises. Mario Albornoz, Rodrigo Arocena, Renato Dagnino, Enrique Oteiza, Judith Sutz, Daniel Villavicencio and Hernán Thomas associated this political type of concern for the local production of scientific and technological knowledge and the role of national academic communities with the development of the region. Another more general theme was that of managing technical change from an economic and administrative point of view. At this point, many courses were set up in universities, notably in Brazil and Mexico, to promote this new theme. It was at the CENDES, in Venezuela, that the first multi-disciplinary team on this subject was set up (as part of a project on technological learning (Pirela, 1995). An interesting conjunction between the sociology of work and

22 The concept of CANA is an extension of the concept of RANA (Research that is Applicable but Not Applied) that Callon (1988) had forged in order to qualify the considerable volume of so-called applied research activity, which escaped the assessment criteria of fundamental research without necessarily being applicable in the absence of a socio-economic actor interested and involved in building on the utility of the knowledge produced.

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the economic analysis of technology emerged giving rise to an original approach over this twenty-year period. At the end of the decade of the1990s, some close links had been set up between Latin American training and European “evolutionist” economists leading to a continuous flow of work as part of the world Globelics network created by Lundvall and supported by graduates of British, Swedish and Dutch universities. The dominant paradigm, which was to progressively replace that of technological learning, was that of the national innovation system (a conceptual substitution that continues to be questioned by many). This concept established the link between empirical work and the needs of politics in favour of technological development. From this point of view, Mexico is a genuine textbook case study, notably owing to its highly active university courses (sociology of work, socio-economics of industrial development, innovation economics, history and sociology of science, etc.), the proactive policy of the national research council (CONACYT), the brutal transformation of the Mexican economy in the years of economic liberalisation initiated by president Salinas de Gortari and the deep-reaching transformation of its research institutes. It is thanks to the CONACYT’s proactive policy that an important study on a network linking research, industry and universities was financed (the “Macroproyecto” in polymers, see Dutrénit et al., 1996), with the work being carried out by economists and sociologists at the Xochimilco UAM university. Generally speaking, since this period there has been a close relationship, at least in Mexico, between work on the economy and the society and the setting up of technological development support policies.23 However, other than these rare instances of convergence between sociology and economics, the study of innovation and that of science have remained distant, as reflected in the absence of sociologists in sessions of the ALTEC (association grouping together economists and managers in Latin America).

At the same time, Latin America became a sounding board for great questions about the evolution of knowledge production modes (one of the most noteworthy contributors to thinking about the new science production mode is none other than Simon Schwartzman, a pioneer of the social studies of research in Brazil). Mexico’s closeness to the United States also led to closeness in the analysis proposed by Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (1997) on the “Triple Helix” to be woven between universities, industry and government. Aside the name, this layout has a strange resemblance to Sábato’s triangle (see above). The third international Triple Helix conference was held in Rio de Janeiro in 2000. The conference housed an extremely rich intellectual debate during which it was a European, Terry Shinn (2002), who voiced criticism and not, as might have been expected, a Latin American. Yet, this set of questions

23 As well as this issue of the Anthropology of Knowledge Review, the analysis performed in Uruguay on the links between research and policy should also be cited: Snoeck, M., Sutz, J., Cohanoff, C. and Grass, N. (2010). Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) Research and Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy-Making in Latin America: a Nexus Perception Study. Montevideo - proyecto EULAKS: CSIC – Universidad de la República (Uruguay).

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permeates the work of PhD students and researchers, as reflected in the most recent research some of which is published in our Review.

A NEW ELDORADO OF KNOWLEDGE?

As of the 1990s, the knowledge society became the new Eldorado of politics, economy and research (Valenti et al., 2008). The knowledge stemming from research together with empirical and local knowledge were capitalised on through a knowledge economy and management. It was not until the financial crisis and globalisation that an inflection in thinking emerged alongside the idea of taking into account popular knowledge and allowing citizen participation. From then on, heterogeneous knowledge was taken on board, catapulting the social sciences into the role of knowledge coordinator. The big question became that of the overlapping between local knowledge and scholarly knowledge, and between local powers and global powers. This turning towards a knowledge society was accompanied by a change in the scale of international cooperation: greater integration of local scientific production into global science alongside an increase in ‘local’ bases for research with the development of university courses. Paradoxically, this led to a focus on local knowledge and situated practices while the thinking itself was global. The Latin American originality, i.e. the distance of this “Far Western” continent, which was still very tangible in the 1970s24, has now disappeared.

Today, the same thinking feeding into work in South Africa and India also permeates research in Mexico and Brazil. This is why the call for contributions prior to the publishing of this first edition of the Anthropology of Knowledge Review emphasised the articulations between local knowledge and globalised knowledge, between local activities and policies and global networks, and the role of knowledge and technology in Latin America in a globalised world. The call also raised the reflexive question of the role of the research produced by social studies in Latin American societies.

Hebe Vessuri (2007) referred to the famous note written by Rodriguez, Simon Bolivar’s master: “Invent or disappear”, which might be freely translated here as “O inventamos, o erramos!” and qualifies the challenges of Latin American researchers. One wonders whether they have not lost that peculiarity that so attracted their European colleagues and transformed Latin America into a vast anthropological research laboratory. Some have worked hard to no longer be Latin American, to be seen and recognised first and foremost as researchers. History will tell us whether this path, with its bend from singularity to global integration, was the right choice. For the moment, there is a big push for global integration; it is a phase where planetary questions are finding their way into movements that are not only intellectual but popular, in America just as much as

24 As reflected in the book by Alain Touraine (1988).

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in India (Quet, 2012) and Africa (Moity-Maïzi, 2011) where the users of scientific knowledge and the production of this knowledge are highly interconnected. The growing number of places for debate should also be noted (for example, the C&T Foro in Mexico25), and the fact that these are close to the legislative powers and intertwined with political debate. In this way, the flame nurtured by work on “politics and science” has been revived, the same flame that was lit by the first Latin American school of thought on science and technology.

The opposition between fundamental and applied science that hounded Europe from the 1960s to the 1980s, i.e. until the invention of innovation policies, has not entirely disappeared from Latin American discourse. It has simply faded away until it is no longer visible: Latin American researchers are moving from an “academic” science to a “useful” research activity (Robles, 2011). “Purely fundamental” institutes like the IVIC have practically disappeared or been converted. Fundamental research institutes have become the place where start-ups are born. The strong involvement of universities and research centres in public programmes (programmes fighting poverty in Mexico, AIDS prevention programmes in Brazil, etc.) has increased the amount of applied work being carried out, i.e. work reflecting public debate. Out of all of these extremely deep-reaching and problematic transformations, work on science and technology is probably the most difficult to report on owing to the extreme diversity. Arellano and Kreimer consider this field to be weak as yet in Latin America. It is nevertheless a very active field striving to develop new knowledge and methodologies. One thing is sure, and that is that today’s researchers are certainly less “militant” than their predecessors. However, in the renewed interest in “indigenous” knowledge, a new form of militantism can be detected. This new militantism even preceded several of the social movements in Europe and is richer and more multi-disciplinary than in Europe (Bataillon, 2008). One might even ask whether the field has not been instrumentalised in its politcal advisory function, embedded in the very origins of thinking about science in Latin America, as already underlined. Finally, alongside the “knowledge society”, one might also wonder whether the new Eldorado is not to be found in work on the environment (including the atmosphere and climate), natural substances, the debate about the genetic heritage of plants and, quite tellingly, indigenous knowledge.

QUERYING KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE CIRCULATION

This section of the Anthropology of Knowledge Review aims to provide readers with enlightenment about the Latin American contribution to the important questions for STS studies. It especially aims to pave the way for comparative

25 http://www.foroconsultivo.org.mx/home/

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work that looks at aspects specific to regional situations but also the knowledge circulation and hybridisation process in both Latin America and the rest of the world. Thus, the Review confirms the need to commence genealogical work on the STS research movement, which has for a long time focused on scientific production (in research institutes and laboratories), noble disciplines and high technologies, and to move towards other social, political and material forms of knowledge production, circulation and legitimisation. The idea is no more or less than to found an approach that would take better account of knowledge heterogeneity and articulation.

This is a considerable challenge: the idea is to reconsider the place of non-hegemonic countries in the world production of knowledge. Ethnographic surveys performed in Latin America, like in other regions across the world, have demonstrated the ethnocentricity of ideas placing Europe at the summit of human evolution. Such is the case, for example, of the peripheral science theme. Anthropology itself, a discipline that historically specialises in the study of non-Western cultures and situates its knowledge mode in the societies it studies, has come to question its own hegemony (Saillant et al., 2011). A descriptive anthropology of knowledge, practices, representations and institutions should strive to study not only the circulation of knowledge and techniques between high-tech laboratories spread across the world26 but also the circulation of knowledge and technologies between so-called “traditional” collectives, in particular in the context of developing countries, and collectives of researchers from developed countries.

The creation of some disciplines, in Europe, actively drew on work carried out on the Latin American continent – probably well beyond the geographic region and anthropology and in proportions as yet unknown.27 In Latin America, the economic, scientific and ideological influence of the major powers has fashioned a highly contrasting region, just as contrasting as the circulation and translation of knowledge, technologies and objects between Latin America and other parts of the world (notably Europe). This is why the anthropological studies of knowledge and technology carried out in and on Latin America represent a strategic line of research in order to further the programme for the anthropology of knowledge and technology.

This issue begins with a contribution from Adriana Feld and Pablo Kreimer as they trace back over an important episode in the history of Latin American debates about science. At the end of the 1960s, the world, including Latin America, saw the emergence of a critical thinking movement focusing on the role of science

26 It should be remembered that this analysis concerning international mobility and Latin American collaboration at world level is far from being completed. See recent works (currently being published) by Gaillard, Gaillard & Arvanitis (2010), or Dominique Vinck on this subject (2013).27 The case of Élisée Reclus immediately comes to mind here (Ferretti, 2011). However, the multiplicity of relations between, for example, the University of Sao Paulo (USP) and Europe testify to these exchanges where Europeans have most often found themselves in the position of those receiving rather than those offering. Among those linked with USP, the following names should be recalled: Fernand Braudel, Lévi-Strauss, Pierre Monbeig, Pierre Denis, Pierre Gourou, Pierre Clastres and Roger Bastide. See the works of Patrick Petitjean (1992).

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and technology. In Argentina, it took the form of institutional spaces for debate and the production of knowledge about science and technology. The contrasting ideas that were developed led to the politicisation of science with, on the one hand, a “moderate” movement seeking analytical and normative tools to set up public policies for S&T, and, on the other hand, “radicals” whose goal was none other than to integrate science and technology into politics. Their article homes in on the radical movement and reports on the science politicisation process, the emergence of spaces for debating science and technology, in particular the Ciencia Nueva review, the confrontation between the political and epistemological positions of Oscar Varsavsky, who was the emblematic figure of the radicals, and his contemporaries, and the adoption of some of these positions by the political and union organisations of the time. The authors draw out a series of themes that are still in fashion today: subordination to the scientific styles determined by developed countries and the match between the production of knowledge and the needs of today’s globalised market. Although the alternatives imagined in the past might seem to have disappeared, and the role of researchers is no longer a central theme of political and institutional debates, the questions they raised are still very meaningful: what type of knowledge should be produced, for whom, how should scientific activity be organised and regulated, how are the research strategies that seduce whole armies of researchers from hegemonic and non-hegemonic countries defined.

A recurring theme in thinking about science is how people work in this field. Antonio Arellano Hernández takes another look at this theme by exploring the reconfiguration of the collegial production of techno-scientific knowledge between two research teams from different fields: physics and medicine. Taking the case of extracorporeal lithotripsy, he presents the results of an ethnographic study of inter-disciplinary collaborative work. His study involves an examination of the conceptual and methodological dimensions of this work to which he applies various tools and notions: epistemological and normative discourse on inter-disciplinarity; the notion of boundary object, which he uses to study the nature of collaborative scientific work in the absence of consensus; and the notion of advanced translation for the study of science in the making. Antonio Arellano Hernández is especially interested in practices and in their attempt at techno-cognitive integration from one discipline to another. The article gives the example of a social study of science and technology in the making at the interface between high-technology disciplines in a peripheral region.

The article written by Arthur Arruda Leal Ferreira focuses, on the other hand, on a specific discipline, psychology, in order to report on radical multiplicity. The discipline is in fact presented as a network of highly diverse and at times contradictory knowledge and practices. The article first examines the epistemological debate about the scientificalness of psychology and its radical multiplicity. Based on the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour, Annemarie Mol and John Law and on the political epistemology of Isabelle Stengers and Vinciane Despret, the author operates a shift in the approach in order to consider various psychologies as devices for the ontological production of subjectivity.

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He analyses a set of research activities, focusing on the forms of subjectivation among Rio de Janeiro high school students, in order to qualify the ontological policies linked to the methodological choices of these research activities.

The article submitted by Ana Spivak L’Hoste and Matthieu Hubert sheds light on the construction of knowledge production modes linked to the movement of researchers. Using the accounts of their career paths given by Argentinean doctors, the authors map their geographic and institutional mobility paths, their view of working contexts and the resulting ways in which research is carried out. They hypothesise that researchers’ movements contribute to knowledge production modes (collective and institutional identifications, practices and values). Using this analysis, Ana Spivak L’Hoste and Matthieu Hubert discuss the distinction between centre(s) and periphery(ies).

The next three articles focus on the sole universe of researchers in order to explore different situations where heterogeneous, scientific and non-scientific knowledge is articulated.

Hernan Thomas and Guillermo Santos analyse the way the circulation of knowledge, between America, Europe and Africa, in the field of diagnosing and treating small pox, configured the practices set up in Latin America in the 18th century. They show that the procedures established to deal with small pox epidemics – inoculation, religious processions, isolation and quarantining – were understood differently by the different actors and according to the type of problem for which the procedures were considered as a solution. Aiming to create later immunity, human small pox inoculation practices configured complex sets of actors: individuals with specific and at times diverging interests, knowledge with different origins, traditional know-how or academic knowledge, political, medical, religious or commercial institutions, and micro-political controversies and struggles. The article draws inspiration from the constructivist sociology of technology in order to shed light on science and the anthropology of knowledge. It steps beyond linear evolutionist visions by deconstructing the uniqueness of sociotechnical processes and reconstructing the socio-cognitive processes underlying dialogue between knowledge. As it does so, the article also highlights the complexity of knowledge circulation and transculturality phenomena.

The article proposed by Costa Marques concerns the implementation of a public health programme in Brazil started in the 1970s: the Multimistura food programme. The author provides a historiographic overview of the programme (i.e. the chronological series of relatively stable facts) and then three types of stories told by the actors involved. The first account is the “soulless” story of the Multimixture seen from the point of view of university research nutritionists, who analysed the composition of the mixture and concluded that it could not produce the effects announced; the Multimixture did not pass the “reality test”; its nutritional capacity was completely fictional and not in the least scientific. The second account of the Multimixture project mixes science and culture, body and soul, nature and society, and technology and political economics. What is found to be “factual” cannot be explained as a consequence of the “reality test” produced within laboratories cut off from the rest of the world and

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its underlying interests. The Multimixture is thus transformed by researchers from the social, economic and political sciences, who use the modern Euro-American metaphysical point of view to report on the body and soul formulated by Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and Sigmund Freud. The third story escapes the prison of the “reality test” and steps beyond the limits of Euro-American symmetry and relativism by drawing on current anthropology. The “reality test” does not really test reality; it tests proposals that are contrary to a preconceived idea of reality. This third account withholds multiple realities underpinning the Multimixture and knowledge about disease and health, body, mind and soul. Drawing inspiration from the work of the anthropologist Piers Vitebsky, Ivan da Costa Marques concludes his article by proposing an explanatory match between these three versions of reality.

Finally, the article by Kelly Escobar questions the uncertainty linked to the management of Amazonian territories. It shows how each new programme for using natural resources in the Amazonian region has raised controversies that have led to the re-examination of knowledge production modes, relational behaviour styles and methods for managing geographic areas and their human and non-human populations. The article takes the extreme example of voluntarily isolated peoples and shows that the problem is not only that of managing land and populations, but also involves the ways in which knowledge about these silent entities, who are unable to have or do not want any contact with others, is produced in order to discuss how to take them into account. The questions this raises for the cognitive anthropologist are embedded in the backdrop of competition for the internal colonisation of Amazonia and of processes for defining protected areas. The article explores two cases: the Serviço de Proteção aos Índios (1910-1967) in Brazil and the Seminario Regional Pueblos indígenas en aislamiento voluntario y contacto inicial en la Amazonía y el Gran Chaco (Santa Cruz de la Sierra Bolivia, 2006). Kelly Escobar identifies two controversies that testify to the complexity of the theme.

Thus, given the choice of authors for this edition of the Anthropology of Knowledge Review, we have moved through the highest places of production of scientific knowledge down to voluntarily isolated populations who challenge our ability to build knowledge. Often exploiting their peripheral situation, the authors step back from the scene using a globalised vision of science and development and underline the multiplicity of versions of the world and knowledge. Hence, they question modes of knowledge production from one discipline to the next, within a specific discipline, in space and time but also taking into account other actors and other activities when their study so requires. Thus they define reality differently or produce multiple and, at times, immeasurable versions of it.

Thanks

The Anthropology of Knowledge Review editorial team would especially like to thank Philippe Losego who, right from the start, entirely coordinated the material for this

review with the support of Antonio Arellano Hernández.

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Antonio ARELLANO HERNÁNDEZ has a PhD in anthropology (Université Laval). He carried out post-doctoral studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France). He works as a researcher at the Institut d’Etudes sur l’Université and is a level II national researcher. He is a member of the Mexican Academy of Science. His research concerns the anthropology of science and technology and epistemology and social technology based on an ethnographic approach. He is the author of five books and has coordinated nine other works. He has published over 60 articles and chapters in books. His latest work is entitled Tramas de redes sociotécnicas. Conocimiento, Técnica y Sociedad en México (Ed. Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 2011) and one of his latest articles “Capital colaborativo socio-técnico e innovación antigraffiti”, was published in the Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 74 (1), 2012, 99-132.

Address: Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico Toluca (Mexico)E-mail : aah@uaemex.mx

Rigas ARVANITIS is a research director at the IRD. As a sociologist, he specialises in technological development, science policy analysis, sociology of scientific institutions and socio-economics of innovation. He is a member of the Development and Societies UMR 201 “Science, Technology and Society” team (Université Paris 1 and IRD). He is also a member of the Francilian Institute for Research, Innovation and Society (IFRIS). He currently works in the Lebanon (after living in Latin America for 10 years and China for 4 years) for the Lebanese national scientific research council and is a guest professor at the American University of Beirut (AUB).

Address: IRD UMR Développement et société/ IEDES IEDES, Bâtiment 4 bis 45 bis av. de la Belle Gabrielle 94736 Nogent-sur-MarneE-mail: rigas@option-service.fr ou rigas.arvanitis@ird.fr

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Dominique VINCK is a professor at Lausanne University and teaches also at the Lausanne Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale. He is a member of the Lausanne University Social Sciences Institute (Institut des Sciences Sociales) and an associate researcher at the PACTE Politique – Organisations laboratory (CNRS, Grenoble University). His research focuses on the sociology of science and innovation. He is currently exploring the field of cultural engineering and digital humanities. He recently published Everyday Engineering – An Ethnography of Design and Innovation (MIT Press, 2003; in French, PUG, 1999; in Brazil, Fabrefactum, 2012), Pratiques de l’interdisciplinarité (Grenoble, PUG, 2000), Science et Societé. Sociologie du travail scientifique (Paris, A. Colin, 2007) (English version published by E. Elgar, 2010), L’équipement de l’organisation industrielle. Les ERP à l’usage (Hermes, 2008), Les nanotechnologies (Le Cavalier Bleu, 2009), Comment les acteurs s’arrangent avec l’incertitude (EAC, 2009), Les Masques de la convergence (EAC, 2012).

Address : Université de Lausanne (UNIL) Institut des Sciences Sociales - LABSo 1015 Lausanne (Suisse)E-mail: Dominique.Vinck@unil.ch

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