Instrumentation between Science, State and Industry

KREIMER, PABLO

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

Sage publications

Año: 2002 vol. 7 p. 378 - 385

0971-7218

There is a great deal of discussion nowadays about the contemporarynature of the processes involved in knowledge production, even thoughit is not clear whether we are confronted with a ’situation’ that has changedsubstantively over recent decades or have put forward new conceptualtools to analyse older phenomena. As far as most approaches in science,technology and society (STS) studies are concerned, ’conceptual innovation’seems to have established itself as a hallmark. This is visible inthree of the most popular trends in recent years: (a) the claim that thereis a ’new production of knowledge’ that demands a new mode (Mode 2)as against the traditional mode of producing knowledge; (b) the postulationof a ’triple helix’ of relationships between science, industry andthe state; and (c) radical constructivist approaches, according to whichknowledge is a hybrid product of nature and culture produced by thejoint action of human actors and inanimate entities.