“Understanding Scientific Research on the Periphery: Towards a new sociological approach?”

KREIMER, PABLO

EASST Review

EASST Society

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 1998 vol. 17 p. 13 - 23

1384-5160

The central question addressed by this paper is how to explain scientific practices performed by actors within the framework of peripheral societies. By “peripheral societies’ are intended those in which science has developed at a later date and in conditions specific to the most dynamic institutional contexts to be particularly in western Europe and the United States. To this end, I shall analyse briefly the principal problems deriving from the conception of science as an international activity, and more specifically the play of elements present in the contexts of the emergence of local scientific communities. I shall then go on to analyse the consequences of the trends in the sociology of science which have emerged over the last twenty years and, finally, by way of illustration, I shall analyse one particular case history in one molecular biology laboratory in Argentina, which exemplifies a phenomenon that I refer to as “subordinated integration”.