Social Studies of Science and technology in Latin America: a Field in process of consolidation

KREIMER, PABLO

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

Sage

Lugar: Londres-New Delhi; Año: 2007 vol. 12 p. 1 - 11

0971-7218

The social studies of science and technology are relatively new in Latin America. The first reflections, in the sixties and seventies, were very promissory and they even gave place to the idea of a “Latin American thought about science, technology and society”. Those works, written mainly by scientists and engineers, had a main political concern: to find the ways and instruments to develop scientific and technological knowledge locally, so that it could be suitable for the needs of the region. The objective of that generation, which was partially reached, consisted in making of science and technology an object of public study, as a topic bound to a social and economic development strategy. Besides, there was an emphasis on the fact that science and technology are not neutral and universal but that are processes with specific features according to the context in which they are introduced. Thus, as it was then said, there was a paradox: while the lesser developed countries try to produce scientific knowledge locally, they are subject to a dependence relationship of the knowledge –particularly technological- produced in the industrialized countries.