Negotiating policy, knowledge and productive agendas in the bioeconomy. Aquaculture for sustainable local development (Paraná River, Argentina)

GÁZQUEZ, AYELÉN; BORTZ, GABRIELA MIJAL

New Orleans

Congreso; 4S 2019 New Orleans. Innovations, interruptions, regenerations. Society for Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting; 2019

Society for Social Studies of Science

This presentation aims to analyze the shaping and institutionalization of the interaction between scientific, productive and governmental actors in the process of designing biotechnologies and using natural resources for local socio-productive and sustainable development. In 2018, the Government of Santa Fe Province in Argentina opened the Paraná River Aquarium, a scientific, technological, recreational and educational center aimed to the environmental conservation and sustainable use of the Paraná River. The river is the region with the richest freshwater fish in Argentina, being artisanal fishing one of its main productive activities. The initiative brought together a research laboratory with a long R&D trajectory in fishing genomics oriented towards natural resources preservation, municipal and provincial government agencies, and local artisanal fishers. The general community was invited through leisure and science education facilities. How these actors negotiate knowledge, practices and interests? Who participates, how and when? How these interactions take place and become institutionalized? How actors? agendas (R&D, governmental, productive) change, widen, reformulate in the interaction process? How this initiative articulates a local socio-productive and sustainable development scheme through a bioeconomical strategy based on natural resources?Research draws upon an instrumental case study methodology, based on qualitative interviews and documentary analysis. We explore how social, productive and sustainability problems are approached through biotechnological R&D for local and sustainable development, and how R&D agendas are shaped in turn by heterogeneous interactions. This presentation will provide some insights on how these socio-technical developments involve negotiations within global and local scientific traditions and agendas.