SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE OF DDLD IN ARGENTINA: TENSIONS BETWEEN THE VISIBLE AND THE EXISTING

TORRES, L.; ABRAHAM E. M.

Cancun

Conferencia; 3rd UNCCD Scientific Conference "Combating desertification, land degradation and drought for poverty reduction and sustainable development", UNCCD,; 2015

UNCCD

The present study is a continuity of a previous one, conducted as part of a wider framework of analysis under the umbrella of a Task Force on Land and Soil promoted by DesertNet International. In this framework, the existing scientific knowledge of DDLD in Argentina was analyzed, understanding ?existing? knowledge as that likely to be captured in major international databases. The adopted methodology consisted of a biobliometric analysis of scientific papers captured in Web of Science between 1993, when the first record is computed, and 2012. This experience reveals the existence of contributions that have a strong disciplinary bias and a great predominance of papers produced from the physical-natural sciences, most of them published in English and in foreign international journals. In a parallel manner, it is observed that databases fail to capture a large number of papers and authors that have made seminal contributions to the understanding of desertification processes in the region, even before establishment of the UNCCD (Abraham 2003). At this point of the path, it begins to become evident that the ?existing? is much broader than the ?visible?, it then being necessary to further analyze the reasons that account for the lack of visibility of knowledge relevant to the region. Complementarily, and because the UNCCD insists from its very origins on the need to generate processes of dialogue between the scientific community, decision makers and the most affected populations (Poulsen 2013; Matallo 2008), it turns out important to examine the extent to which scientific knowledge ?visible and existing- is taken into consideration at the time of planning and implementing combat actions. Three interrelated goals are proposed in the present work: 1. Describing scientific knowledge of DDLL in Argentina which is visible in international databases. 2. Retrieving existing scientific knowledge that is not visible, particularly knowledge that has made contributions to an integrated understanding of desertification and that opens channels for dialogue between the physical-natural sciences and the social sciences. 3. Analyzing the limitations attested to by decision makers, particularly those involved in the design of actions to combat desertification, in their access to available scientific knowledge, also considering the alternatives they envision to bridge the existing gaps between the political and academic fields. The working methodology adopted is the result of combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies for scientific research. Among the former, bibliometric analysis is resorted to, and a description is made of the scientific studies of DDLD generated in Argentina which are visible in international databases. Based on the knowledge captured by Web of Science, the contributions are analyzed from shared categories of analysis (scientific disciplines from which studies were generated, fields of knowledge that have been integrated in each case, languages in which papers have been published, and places of origin and characteristics of the journals containing them). Subsequently, the technique of document analysis is applied to the scientific papers on DDLD, existing but not visible, generated in Argentina. The relevance of these papers is considered in virtue of the approach they take and of the degree of coupling they show in relation to agreements achieved within the UNCCD. Finally, and using qualitative techniques, in-depth interviews are made to decision makers, which are key to the implementation of actions to combat desertification. In the first and second axis of analysis, corresponding to goals 1 and 2, work is done at national level; for the qualitative adjustment, corresponding to goal 3, work is at provincial level. Therefore the province of Mendoza is considered, given that it is amongst the areas most affected by desertification in the country and that it has developed early action measures to combat desertification. 206 The recorded results allow noticing that knowledge construction processes cannot be considered making abstraction of the place where they occur. On the contrary, the geographies of scientific knowledge are historical spatialities that exert a strong influence on the contexts in which researchers approach the study of reality (Ramos et al 2004). In Argentina, it is also observed that the existing knowledge is far broader than the internationally visible knowledge. In turn, the latter appears to be detached from the problems exhibited by local contexts and are relatively strange and little accessible to decision makers. Conversely, internationally less visible studies are more accessible locally, not only because they are published in Spanish but also, and fundamentally, because they seek to think of desertification processes as related to the local contexts and regions where they occur, and because they favor higher levels of dialogue between the physical-natural and social sciences.