Rodriguez Medina - Ferpozzi - Kreimer

Science as Culture
ISSN: 0950-5431 (Print) 1470-1189 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csac20
International Ties at Peripheral Sites: Co-producing

Social Processes and Scientific Knowledge in Latin
America
Leandro Rodriguez-Medina, Hugo Ferpozzi, Juan Layna, Emiliano Martin

Valdez & Pablo Kreimer
To cite this article: Leandro Rodriguez-Medina, Hugo Ferpozzi, Juan Layna, Emiliano
Martin Valdez & Pablo Kreimer (2019): International Ties at Peripheral Sites: Co-producing
Social Processes and Scientific Knowledge in Latin America, Science as Culture, DOI:
10.1080/09505431.2019.1629409
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2019.1629409
View supplementary material
Published online: 13 Jun 2019.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 9
View Crossmark data
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=csac20
SCIENCE AS CULTURE
https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2019.1629409
International Ties at Peripheral Sites: Co-producing Social

Processes and Scientific Knowledge in Latin America
Leandro Rodriguez-Medinaa, Hugo Ferpozzib,c, Juan Laynad,c, Emiliano Martin
Valdezb,c and Pablo Kreimerb,c
a
International Relations and Political Science, Universidad de las Americas Puebla, San Andres Cholula,
Mexico; bConsejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina; cCentro
de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina; dUniversidad de Buenos Aires,
Buenos Aires, Argentina
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
In recent decades, scientific knowledge has been increasingly Social issues; use of scientific
expected to contribute to the resolution of public and knowledge; co-production of
controversial issues in Latin America. However, in peripheral knowledge; centers and
peripheries; drivers
sites of knowledge and economic production, the dynamics
of both science and society have been complicated by
tensions between the demands of local stakeholders and the
ties with the global centers of technical and scientific
expertise. First, local public issues are often addressed in
merely discursive ways, rather than effectively, in research and
expert advice; second, local scientific elites often establish
links with experts and the global centers of science in order to
legitimate their stance against competing approaches. An
analysis of four case studies (neglected diseases, mining
pollution, wildlife conservation and migration studies)
involving the production of scientific knowledge intended to
address public issues in Latin America reveals, first, that
material and symbolic asymmetries determine the outcomes
of these engagements and, second, that international ties
with peripheral sites affect the cognitive definition of the
issues at stake and the range of public interventions devised
to address them. Yet, in these four case studies, the key actors
that mediate links between local stakeholders and
international counterparts – or, ‘drivers’ – mobilize the bodies
of knowledge that, ultimately, shape the cognitive and
political contours of the social issues at stake.
Introduction
In recent years, approaches in science, technology, and society studies (STS)
have identified a major gap in the constructivist models that dominate its scho-
larship since the 1980s. Though one important methodological principle under-
lying constructivism is that studies must be locally situated, one specific part of
CONTACT Hugo Ferpozzi hugo.ferpozzi@gmail.com Centro de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad, Hidalgo

775, Ciudad de Buenos Aires 1405, Argentina
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2019.1629409
© 2019 Process Press
2 L. RODRIGUEZ-MEDINA ET AL.
the world (namely Euroamerica) has primarily informed STS studies under the
largely implicit assumption that technoscience invariably operates under the
patterns of developed Western countries. In contrast, authors seeking to ‘provin-
cialize’ STS and integrate postcolonial perspectives – which redefine the under-
standing of relations between the centers of technical and scientific knowledge
and the sites outside dominant social and political orders (Anderson, 2009;
Harding, 2016; Law and Lin, 2017) – promote epistemological approaches
that question these hegemonic assumptions in STS, thereby broadening our
understandings of the dynamics of technoscience in peripheral contexts.
Indeed, scientific knowledge there has been subjected to scholarly scrutiny
and political debate for several decades, where numerous analyses have been
developed on both the dynamics of knowledge production in these localities
and the relationship between central and peripheral sites as one of its constitu-
tive features (e.g. Fischer, 2016; Kreimer and Vessuri, 2018).
This paper explores the dynamics of ‘provincial’ research agendas and their
effects on defining contemporary social issues in peripheral sites of science.
More specifically, we delve into the conditions shaping the production and
use of technical and scientific knowledge by considering the social, political,
and scientific stakeholders involved, the regulating institutions, and the rep-
resentations through which demarcations of scientific and social issues are pro-
duced and negotiated in specific locations. Who defines the issues at stake and
the bodies of expert knowledge that provide an authoritative response to rising
concerns defined as social problems? How are these dynamics of technoscience
and public issues affected, in turn, by the links between local actors and their
counterparts in the global centers of economic and knowledge production?
Our investigation starts from the observation that in Latin America only a
minimal portion of locally produced knowledge is effectively applied as a
response to social problems (Kreimer, 2019). Our argument is that the barriers
to intervening in public issues can be taken as an indicator for understanding
how local knowledge production is sidelined as peripheral. Yet, due to privileged
ties with the global centers of scientific and economic production, certain actors
– which we term ‘drivers’ – are endowed with the ability to initiate or disrupt
local knowledge production and thus shape the local public issues at stake.
Taking Jasanoff’s (2004) co-productionist account of science and society as
our main analytical frame, we posit that the production and negotiation of
knowledge – from the formulation of scientific agendas to the dissemination
and possible applications of results – can be explored through the represen-
tations, discourses, institutions, and identities involved in shaping, addressing,
and settling local public issues. It is, however, at the intersection between the
local and global spheres where the difficulties hindering social usage of scientific
and technical knowledge in peripheral contexts shall be explained. In other
words, the technoscientific peripheries are co-produced with the peripheral pos-
ition of these localities.
SCIENCE AS CULTURE 3
To show these processes empirically, we analyze four previous case studies

representing diverse features in relation to their geographical location; the
fields of expert knowledge involved; the enrollment, configuration, and partici-
pation of stakeholders; and the consensual or controversial nature of the issues
at stake. These cases include: (a) international biomedical networks dedicated
to researching neglected tropical diseases; (b) disputes around pollution caused
by mining activity in the Andes Mountains; (c) strategies for the detection and
conservation of endangered jaguars in the tropical forests of north-eastern
Argentina; and (d) social science research on south–north migrations in Mexico.
Considering the role of stakeholders that intervene in processes of co-produ-
cing knowledge and the definition of public problems, our analysis focuses on
cases in which there was initially no single actor imposing their own interests
and strategies – providing, at least in principle, the possibility of negotiating
common epistemic and political grounds. Furthermore, these cases represent
public issues acknowledged as controversial by international stakeholders,
even if their problematizations in the local scientific spheres remain fairly con-
sensual. The four cases instead differ with respect to two central dimensions:
first, in the kinds of technical and scientific knowledge involved; second, in
the role of the affected and/or non-scientific stakeholders intervening in the pro-
cesses of co-producing knowledge and the definition of public problems.
The paper begins by discussing the implications of the co-productionist per-
spective for peripheral contexts, advancing the notion of the ‘driver’ as a key
actor capable of articulating interests and resources of both local and international
technoscience by means of mobilizing representations on social issues and con-
necting diverse institutional settings. The second section presents the methods
employed to select and analyze each of the case studies. The third section then pre-
sents the features of our empirical cases and the analytical concerns emerging from
them. The emergent features of the four case studies are subsequently discussed in
the fourth section. Last, in the concluding section, we systematize the common
elements in the production and use of knowledge in peripheral sites.
Analytical Perspectives
The notion of co-production theorizes the reciprocal influence that scientific
knowledge and social processes exercise upon each other (Jasanoff, 2004).
Rather than resorting to overarching social processes and structures that
explain the contours of technical and scientific knowledge, or vice versa, a co-
productionist account of science and society posits that:
The dynamics of politics and power, like those of culture, seem impossible to tease
apart from the broad currents of scientific and technological change. It is through sys-
tematic engagement with the natural world and the manufactured, physical environ-
ment that modern polities define and refine the meanings of citizenship and civic
responsibility, the solidarities of nationhood and interest groups, the boundaries of
the public and the private, the possibilities of freedom, and the necessity for control.
(Jasanoff, 2004, p. 14)
We understand from Jasanoff that the processes of co-production between the

scientific and the social, in a general sense, occur along certain recurring histori-
cal pathways that bind the normative and the cognitive together. These pathways
include vocabularies that name phenomena and orientate action (what Jasanoff
terms ‘making discourses’); the questions and responses that account for proble-
matic objects (‘making representations’); irreducible definitions and roles
(‘making identities’); and the reinforcement or contestation of these construc-
tions through the existing repositories of knowledge and power (‘making insti-
tutions’) (Jasanoff, 2004, pp. 39–41).
In a slightly more restricted sense, co-production has been used in the analysis
of technical objects, disciplines, research topics, political constituencies, forms of
expertise, and spheres of practice. Recent studies on climate change (Bremer and
Meisch, 2017), public policy (Flinders et al., 2016), life and information sciences
(Chow-White and García-Sancho, 2012), urban sustainable development
(Muñoz-Erickson, 2014), emotions (Pickersgill, 2012), ports (Puente-Rodriguez
et al., 2016), and public health (Wehrens, 2014) suggest that the concept might
even have become some sort of ‘buzzword’ (Ewert and Evers, 2012). For
example, when applied to the specific context of knowledge production in
Latin America, the concept remains ambiguous in: (a) its lack of sensitivity to
the different power relations at local and international level; and (b) the assump-
tion that all actors involved in co-production processes are, theoretically, equally
able to affect their outcomes. Jasanoff even recognizes that:
Race, colonial relations, and social class have all been sustained by work in the human
and life sciences, from anthropology to medicine and genetics. As yet, however, studies
of science and technology have only begun to look for the often subtle incorporation of
other cultural categories in the practice and content of scientific knowledge-making.
(Jasanoff 2004, pp. 35–36)
Unsurprisingly, it is the STS scholarship in peripheral regions that has been sen-
sitive to this unequal matrix of knowledge and power relations, including its
effects in co-producing peripheral/metropolitan science and societies (Baber,
2003; Losego and Arvanitis, 2008; Wagner, 2008; Rodriguez Medina, 2013,
2014; Delvenne and Kreimer, 2017).
Indeed, countries such as those studied in this paper are relatively peripheral
in relation to the global centers of scientific and economic production. However,
local scientific elites – through their connections to key scientific, technical, and
political counterparts in central metropolitan areas – have played a fundamental
role in shaping both the dynamics of knowledge production and in privileging
international scientific knowledge to address local social issues. They also,
thereby, redefine the basis of social problems and select among disputed
approaches to identify possible responses, becoming authorized spokespersons
in the process of institutionalizing larger social issues in their respective contexts.

These assumptions about social needs can be embedded in research agendas and
cooperation agreements or, perhaps more commonly, tacitly agreed on as a
result of cultural patterns and policy frameworks that dominate research fields
and institutions (Hess, 2011; Kreimer, 2014; Feld, 2015).
However, co-production theory has generally taken for granted that actors
engage in co-producing knowledge and society without assigning them any
defining feature within this process, although Jasanoff (2004) does acknowledge
that certain ‘forces’ stabilize and become ‘hegemonic’ (p. 36). Put differently,
while power relations are acknowledged, all participating actors are endowed
with enough agency to be active contributors to co-production processes. This
raises the question of how power is distributed in Jasanoff’s account? One poss-
ible answer is that, a priori, it cannot be determined who (or what) will have the
ability to initiate, continue, or finalize co-production processes. More specifi-
cally, any analysis should recognize the differential capacity of social actors
based on their control over material and symbolic resources.
On this issue of differential capacity, Latin American STS scholarship has
been highly relevant, and its critical contributions toward identifying these con-
straints and inequalities can be synthesized around three recurring tensions. The
first derives from the complexities inherent to the forms in which knowledge can
be used socially, whether ideally or effectively. While the purported social rel-
evance of knowledge does influence the formulation of scientific agendas,
researchers in a peripheral context aim to concurrently participate in global
research networks that will not necessarily prioritize the outcomes defined as
locally relevant (Kreimer, 2014). Put simply, this means that local research
dynamics accommodate, often ambiguously, the demands and expectations of
both local and international stakeholders.
The second tension derives from the separation between experts and other
concerned stakeholders in defining the public issues at stake. Experts usually
claim that social considerations have been addressed (although often only rhet-
orically) in justifying their research efforts. Furthermore, experts become the
authorized spokespersons of the issue in question, dismissing alternatives
advanced by marginal scientific groups or lay stakeholders, in processes often
aided by the reciprocal legitimation of international institutions, local scientific
elites, and policymakers (Kreimer, 2015).
The final, more general, tension arises from the difficulties typically experi-
enced by peripheral countries in their attempts to industrialize locally produced
scientific knowledge. Studies of local innovation, management, or development
have understood these hindrances as connected to broader contextual issues
such as inadequate intellectual property protection and incentive structures,
lack of entrepreneurial culture and funding, or insidious political interference
in academia and business (Lederman et al., 2014; Ciocca and Delgado, 2017).
However, Latin American STS scholarship has shown that the separation of
local scientific research (e.g. biomedicine) from its potential contexts of appli-
cation (e.g. drugs for neglected and poverty-related diseases) is a distinctive
feature of its knowledge production dynamics (Vessuri and Kreimer, 2017).
Key to understanding these tensions, is an examination of certain social actors
that we call ‘drivers’. This term refers to those social actors able to initiate or
disrupt processes of local knowledge production and to mobilize specific sets
of knowledge that ultimately shape the contours of the public problems at
stake. Located in the interstitial space between mainstream/peripheral tech-
noscience and societies, drivers intervene in the pathways of knowledge pro-
duction and eventual utilization to shape and address local public issues.
From this perspective, co-production always implies, on the one hand, a
specific articulation between the local and the international and, on the other,
a process of coordination between scientific and non-scientific stakeholders’
interests and resources.
Therefore, while the general parameters being co-produced are social pro-
cesses and technoscientific knowledge, it is the peripheral condition of these
sites and the global situation of knowledge production that simultaneously
accounts for the asymmetrical nature of such dynamics in Latin America.
Specifically, two pathways, present in those initially proposed by Jasanoff, are
central to our analysis: that is, making representations and making institutions.
Representations are cognitive, epistemic and disciplinary frameworks that select
among different knowledge concerns, shaping the objects and situations that
must be understood and addressed: these frameworks include scientific and
technical knowledge, produced by the recognized members of the established
fields, but also alternative interpretations that stem from uncertified sites of
knowledge production. Institutions, in turn, refer to the social and political
arrangements whereby these representations become stable, providing resources
and normative repertories that sustain their functioning and, in many cases,
their relation with other stakeholders and logics of intervention into the
objects or situations deemed as problematic (Jasanoff, 2004, pp. 38–39). In
these contexts, drivers mediate between asymmetrical institutional settings,
resources and relations; by mobilizing specific forms knowledge production,
drivers, in turn, privilege the dissemination of certain representations among
alternative proposals.
The concept of the driver could thus be connected to other theoretical notions
such as ‘knowledge entrepreneurs’ (Brustureanu, 2018), ‘knowledge brokers’
(Meyer, 2010), ‘knowledge mobilizers’ (Menashy and Read, 2016), and
‘mediators’ (Osborne, 2004). Yet the notion we advance can be distinguished
from these alternatives in two ways. First, drivers are necessarily situated at
the intersection of spaces/geographies characterized by symbolic and material
asymmetries (e.g. drivers are members of international research consortia
where the academic division of labor greatly determines their relations and
responsibilities). Second, drivers shape peripheral societies by mobilizing
scientific knowledge and cognitive capabilities in such a way that the definition
of local problems and needs (e.g. epidemiological priorities) are reinterpreted
through the lens of their research fields and institutional networks.
In the following sections we describe and analyze the four cases in which both
research and the outlines of social problems are reciprocally established through:
(a) ranking authoritative discourses within scientific communities; (b) disputes
between privately and publicly commissioned technical reports in legal assess-
ments of an environmental controversy; (c) reconceptualizing the terms under
which an ecological problem is defined; and (d) spatializing scholars’ responses
to migration issues. Furthermore, we identify some key factors accounting for
the effective participation (or the absence) of specific stakeholders in the
definition of social issues requiring interventions of scientific and technical
expertise, singling out the drivers and their specific roles within these dynamics.
Methods
We primarily used qualitative methodological techniques and analysis, deployed
in a two-stage strategy adapted to each case study. The first stage comprised
open and in-depth, semi-directed interviews and non-participant observation,
mostly conducted between 2013 and 2017.
In the case of neglected diseases research, 23 semi-structured interviews and
informal conversations were conducted with biomedical sciences researchers,
public communicators of science, international non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) linked to the field of neglected tropical diseases, and managers of bio-
technology firms.
In the case of wildlife conservation, nine open and in-depth interviews were
conducted with researchers and NGO directors, complemented by non-partici-
pant observation of diverse scientific interactions in the field of ecology and
environmental sciences.
In the case of the Veladero mine controversy, seven open and in-depth inter-
views were conducted with laboratory directors, spokespersons from social and
political organizations, and other public figures involved. These were comple-
mented by non-participant observation of diverse interactions among
stakeholders.
Finally, in the case of migration studies in México, 43 in-depth interviews
were conducted with social scientists. Additionally, institutional and policy regu-
lations were analyzed, along with relevant empirical literature on migration
studies and internationalization of the social sciences. The interviews for this
case were analyzed with Atlas.ti, whereas those for the other three cases were
analyzed directly by the researchers, without any software.
The second stage comprised document analysis. For the first case, the focus
was on journal articles and on institutional and policy documents that framed
the problem or devised ways to address it. The focus in the second case was
on technical reports about water safety, court rulings, public allocutions,

national laws, and media articles. For the third case, the focus was on papers
and a pioneering PhD thesis concerning conservation biology, journal articles,
and official statements from local government authorities and expert organiz-
ations engaged in conservation initiatives. The focus in the fourth case was on
reports on migration issued by the Mexican Federal government and academic
institutions.
Data collection and analysis were structured according to our theoretical fra-
mework, paying attention to the reciprocal engagements of scientific actors and
objects in producing knowledge and public issues. Drawing on the idea of pro-
ductive processes, we thus sought to identify the inputs and outputs of knowl-
edge production, as well as the actors, practices, material devices, legal
framing, and moral valuations involved in transformation, circulation, and
appropriation in their respective loci. More specifically, participants were
asked about their actual research links, funding sources, institutional settings,
and general practices in order to generate a rich description of networks. Key
informant interviews were also conducted to assess the elements perceived as
motivations, facilitators, and constraints regarding researchers’ actual collabor-
ation practices, including researchers’ stance on the social problems related to
their investigations. Simultaneously we identified groups and actors formally
related to the networks, identifying connections from institutional documents,
websites, and various written sources. Finally, we determined the different
levels of regulation that might affect the open and collaborative character of
international scientific networks. Special attention was given to the interventions
of both expert and lay stakeholders in public arenas.
A detailed list of interviewee profiles and institutional affiliations, together
with the documents consulted, is presented in the Appendix.
Case Studies
Chagas Disease Research: Networks of Knowledge Production
Chagas disease is endemic in Latin America, where it currently affects nearly

eight million individuals. As a consequence of migration processes over the
last four decades, the disease has spread to developed and traditionally non-
endemic regions, which only recently began to consider the presence of
Chagas as a public health concern connected to migrant population movements
(Castillo-Riquelme, 2017).
Known also as American trypanosomiasis, this disease is mainly transmitted
through the bite of vector insects that inhabit rural areas in Latin America and
southern United States, introducing the Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi) – the
parasite that causes the disease – into the host organism. While Chagas is com-
monly considered a rural sickness, it is increasingly transmitted serologically and
congenitally; that is, through blood transfusion and from mother to child.
During the chronic phase that occurs some time after initial infection, the
disease causes cardiac and gastroenterological disorders, although its symptoms
often remain unnoticed and can take years to manifest. In view of its epidemio-
logical patterns and the lack of an effective, readily-available treatment, the
World Health Organization (WHO, 2012) and other expert groups have
classified Chagas as among the most neglected diseases (Porrás et al., 2015).
Despite its rural aspect, this health issue has interested Latin American
(especially in Argentina and Brazil) and international scientific elites since its dis-
covery at the beginning of the twentieth century. The advancements in biological
research into T. cruzi in the 1960s and 1970s reinforced local and international
scientific interest in the disease, drawing the attention of global health organiz-
ations and research centers such as the WHO’s Special Programme for Research
and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR). In the 1990s, the international collabor-
ation of the T. cruzi Genome Project (TcGP) began to sequence the parasite
genome, which tookover a decade to complete. Doctors without Borders, the Rock-
efeller Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are some of the other
institutions interested in researching and potentially eradicating the disease.
Although intensive and sustained support for both local and international bio-
medical investigations exist, focused on the potential development of therapeutic
applications, there remains no effective treatment for Chagas disease. The only
medication, benznidazole, which is only partially available, was developed half a
century ago by Roche (a transnational pharmaceutical firm based in Basel), and
the assessed effectiveness has remained controversial. Its alternative, nifurtimox,
is even more controversial in terms of its side-effects. Hope for developing suitable
drugs was placed in the TcGP and the genome databases developed afterwards.
One of the most striking examples of these recent developments is TDR
Targets, an open-access genomics resource oriented toward detecting and prior-
itizing possible targets to attack the parasite using chemical compounds, and
which expanded in scope to include an important series of poverty-related
and neglected diseases (WHO, 2007; Magarinos et al., 2012). However, as we
shall discuss later, the possibility of developing applicable knowledge, sensitive
to local needs, rarely depends on the production of scientific knowledge and rel-
evant biomedical data alone; it is also influenced by the interactions between the
political and scientific spheres, as well as the connections between public health,
affected populations, and the private companies in charge of developing treat-
ments. Since different conceptions on what counts as necessary knowledge
outputs among the intervening actors – or, how these different forms of knowl-
edge ultimately translate into concrete biomedical applications – can diverge sig-
nificantly, the outcomes of these processes depend on the possibilities of
imposing uniform, widely accepted criteria.
The path to commercializing or distributing a new drug is, indeed, slow and
difficult: it normally requires dealing with government offices in different
jurisdictions, negotiating the prevailing legislation, conducting reliable clinical

trials, and ensuring that its delivery is economically viable in the long term
(Masum and Harris, 2011; Lezaun and Montgomery, 2015). These deficient pro-
cesses of application are worsened, first, by the ‘neglected’ nature of Chagas
disease and, second, by the fact that its mortality rates and morbidity are rela-
tively low compared to other neglected and poverty-related diseases (Federal
Ministry of Education and Research, 2015, p. 11).
In recent decades, the representatives of biology and mainstream biomedical
research have become spokespersons on the overall impacts of Chagas disease.
In this context, scientific production is conceived by the central intervening
actors as a legitimate strategy for tackling the disease as a public health issue.
However, affected populations and other advocacy groups unfamiliar with the bio-
medical field rarely manage to participate in constructing the problem or prioritiz-
ing research agendas and further initiatives for health (Kreimer, 2015). This
dominance of biomedical forms of representation has rendered less visible other
scientific and social arrangements approaching the issue. At the same time, the
dynamics of knowledge production are highly dependent on the institutional, sym-
bolic, and material support provided by global NGOs and research centers in devel-
oped countries. As the literature on global and critical public health has shown, this
type of global actors barely contemplates (or conceives of) the complex needs and
problematics of local contexts, and only a few select local stakeholders are able to
participate in negotiations and exchanges with international actors and organiz-
ations (Behague et al., 2009; Reynolds and Sariola, 2018). Non-government organ-
izations such as the WHO (and, to a lesser extent, Doctors without Borders’s Drugs
for Neglected Diseases initiative) managed to play the required mediating role as
‘drivers’, but only with limited outcomes in their coordinating efforts.
These limitations can also be observed when comparing the dynamics of
researchers with those of health professionals. Although the asymmetries in
knowledge and power relations are less marked in these cases (in comparison
with the populations at risk), professionals engaged in patient care are frequently
excluded from the spaces of knowledge production and decision-making, and
their ability to access financial or political resources is significantly lower com-
pared to those in the mainstream biomedical field (Zabala, 2010). In recent
years, this asymmetry has elicited concerns about scientific assumptions about
the effectiveness of drugs and diagnostic methods, most of which have been
based on abstract biomedical models removed from the contextual and
patient-oriented epidemiological specificities of the disease – a process termed
‘purification’, applying a laboratory analogy (Kreimer, 2019).
Cyanide Spills in Jáchal: Socio-Technical Dispute

The Veladero mine enclave is located in San Juan province, Argentina, and has
been exploited by the Canadian firm Barrick Gold Corporation since 2005.
Minerals (primarily gold and silver) are extracted by means of cyanide leaching;
also known as opencast mining, this process separates the precious metals using
cyanide solutions. For this reason, the mining enclave is largely incompatible
with the main productive activities in the region (i.e. agriculture, cattle
farming, and viniculture), and operates in striking opposition to the demands
from broad layers of the local population.
In 2015, employees at the Veladero mining enclave informed the public about
cyanide spills into the watercourse that feeds vital rivers in the region; this infor-
mation circulated informally through social networks. Soon after, the province
governor and Ministry of Environment officials referred to the event as an
‘environmental contingency’, thereby defining the issue as a public problem.
However, it is necessary to consider the broader social context to understand
the public problem that framed the controversy: on the one hand, the provincial
economy depends heavily on the income generated by extractive, large-scale
mining activities. This dependence is manifested in the irregular contracting
conditions under which mining activities take place: for instance, operations
at the mine hold de facto control over the mining territory, to the point that
no official audits are known to have been conducted within the enclave. In
addition, the provincial government has direct control over local media
outlets and information systems, both private and public. Thus, information
on legal and technical regulations regarding the impact of mining activities
has been systematically withheld, and press articles critical of the Veladero
mine enclave barely achieve dissemination.
In this context, the technical reports commissioned by the firm, which were
then produced privately as a payment for services, became a central element
in shaping the conflict. These studies were confidential in nature, both in
their production and terms of publication. Decision-making or, more specifi-
cally, a judicial ruling therefore relied on private technical reports produced in
highly restricted conditions. Subsequent reports mandated by the provincial
executive branch indicated normal or non-existent levels of cyanide, but did
not refer to other potentially toxic elements. These reports were also treated
as confidential and their criteria remain largely unknown.
The initial secrecy imposed upon this controversial reporting stemmed from
introducing asymmetrical power relations between the intervening actors and
the enabling institutional arrangements (in this case, consolidated through the
executive branch of the provincial government and the local media outlets).
In order to become drivers and have a say in the issue, the affected collectives
needed to deploy their own technical and cognitive resources but also find
alternative, though widely credited, institutional settings to validate a different
definition of the public problem at stake (Kreimer, 2014).
Consequently, the mine resumed operations without any major disruption
while concerned stakeholders organized themselves into two main groups,
each led by diverging ‘drivers’ in the controversy. The first block comprised
the provincial government and the mining company, along with certain media
outlets, universities, environmental management institutions, and business
groups related to mining activities as its most prominent stakeholders. The
second block comprised grassroots associations, such as the local Hands Off
Jáchal Assembly (in Spanish: Asamblea Jáchal No se Toca, AJNST), alongside
various organizations engaged in environmental struggles, such as the Union
of Citizens’ Assemblies, the Argentinean Association of Environmental
Lawyers (in Spanish: Asociación Argentina de Abogados Ambientalistas), left-
wing parties, NGOs, and collectives formed of professionals and researchers.
The second block did not necessarily acknowledge the spill as an isolated
environmental incident and demanded the immediate closure of the mine and
the guarantee of employees’ income and jobs.
However, alerted by their political allies and motivated by distrust of official
reports, the AJNST unilaterally intervened, which was reinforced by mass par-
ticipation in the controversy. First, by means of demands made to Jáchal’s
mayor, the group was able to enroll laboratory experts at the National University
of Cuyo: based in the neighboring province of Mendoza, and thus outside the
San Juan government’s sphere of influence, it was expected to yield unbiased
results. The criteria for this report included analysis of cyanide and heavy
metal concentrations. It ultimately found no evidence of the presence of
cyanide but did find concentrations of heavy metals that made water unsafe
for human consumption.
Opening up a new political and cognitive stage in the dispute, the AJNST
filed a federal lawsuit against both Barrick Gold Corporation and the state
officials for polluting interprovincial and national watercourses. In 2016, the
federal court ordered additional studies from other institutions (such as the
Department of Environmental Offenses of the Federal Police), which yielded
results that support those originally reported by the University of Cuyo in
2015.
With high levels of public exposure, these new investigations stimulated a
response from the provincial executive branch, which fined Barrick Gold
approximately US$10 million – a sum that would be allocated toward reme-
dying problems in the affected communities. Subsequently, the federal court
facilitated the intervention of Robert Moran, an internationally renowned
expert in the fields of hydrogeology and mining who had been chosen and
enlisted by the AJNST. Moran was the first representative of the AJNST’s
interests to enter the mining site in order to determine details surrounding
the spill. Through Moran’s participation, the AJNST was able to redefine cog-
nitive boundaries previously set around the dispute: the local grassroots organ-
ization achieved a considerably high level of public and academic recognition,
and thus became capable of producing and utilizing new technical knowledge
and challenging the reports produced by stakeholders linked to the mining
company.
Endangered Jaguars: Participatory Research Networks
The Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest is a highly threatened biodiversity area dis-
tributed across eastern Paraguay, most of Misiones Province in Argentina,
and parts of southern Brazil. In addition to being considered a global biodiver-
sity hotspot (Myers et al., 2000), this ecoregion hosts diverse cultures and a large
part of Brazil’s population and economic activities. Recent studies indicate that
only 12 percent of the forest’s original extent remains (Ribeiro et al., 2009). As a
result of rapid deforestation and habitat loss, the area is at risk of losing its top
predator; the jaguar. In describing this case, we focus on the production of bio-
logical knowledge about jaguars, analyzing the way in which basic data on the
jaguars’ status was produced. Specifically, we focus on how certain qualities of
jaguar populations as a scientific object (their ‘undetectability’ and ‘charisma’),
have also shaped local research practices, encouraging modes of participatory
knowledge production.
Jaguar and human populations have coexisted in Misiones for over 10,000
years (Holz and Placci, 2003), but poaching, loss of natural habitat, and environ-
mental fragmentation have led this feline species to the brink of extinction.
Argentine jaguars were, then, categorized in 2012 as ‘critically endangered’ in
the Red Book of Threatened Mammals of Argentina (Ojeda et al., 2012).
Compared with other species, jaguars are among the least-known cats in
ecology and conservation biology (Furtado et al., 2008, p. 41). Over the years,
several innovative methods have been developed to study this elusive animal:
from telemetry studies with VHS technologies to telemetry with GPS for track-
ing the jaguars; from analog to digital camera traps for estimating jaguar density;
and from using trained hounds to employing modified leg-hold snares for cap-
turing jaguars. The methodological choices for studying jaguars depend on a
study’s purpose, its location, and the experience and resources available to the
research team.
Just as jaguars were considered a blind spot in global biological research,
Argentine jaguar populations only became subject to scientific research in the
mid-1990s. Until the production of the first scientific reports, knowledge
about jaguars in Misiones relied mainly on anecdotal accounts from national
park rangers, hunters, or naturalists. Indeed, one of the first studies was con-
ducted in the 1990s by Brazilian biologist Peter Crawshaw (1995). Although
his estimations were not precise (Di Bitteti, 2015), Crawshaws’s pioneering
study was still valuable due to the lack of data and difficulties in monitoring
this species. His methods consisted of capturing specimens, fitting collars with
a radio-signal transmitter, and triangulating these signals to determine their
source (a technique known as radio telemetry). These studies provided the
first estimations of jaguar population density in Misiones and identified the
main sources of pressure, such as excessive hunting and depletion of jaguars’
natural prey.
In 2002, the NGO World Wildlife Fund Argentina (in Spanish: Fundación Vida
Silvestre) kickstarted a conservation plan for the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest, in
which the jaguar plays a key role as a ‘flagship species’ (Di Bitteti et al., 2003). The
flagship approach is a common strategy in conservation biology, with some species
chosen as icons or symbols that play multiple roles in human–wildlife conflicts
(Douglas and Veríssimo, 2013). Species defined as flagship are popular, possessing
charisma that appeals to the public and generates funding and support opportu-
nities that could also benefit other (less charismatic) species (Caro and O’Doherty,
1999). In the context of the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest’s rapid destruction,
World Wildlife Fund Argentina designed the Jaguar Project, in which jaguars
are central to the broader conservation strategies defined for this area. Its main
objective is to assess the conservation status of jaguars in Misiones and to identify
the main threats to this species in the region (Di Bitteti, 2015). The project’s
research objectives have, thus, been: determining the distribution of jaguars in
the Misiones’ Green Corridor; identifying the main features of the ecological
areas inhabited by jaguars; identifying the main drivers of population density vari-
ation; and estimating the number of individuals in the region under consideration.
Given the ecological qualities of the jaguar, the project’s research objectives
would be unfeasible for a traditional laboratory-based organization. We
suggest that the species’ features, as well as the project’s limited resources,
pose a series of specific practical problems that cannot be addressed with the
methods and institutional arrangements used in previous studies. On the one
hand, the research team comprised just three researchers who, with limited
funds, needed to collect data over an extended period; on the other hand,
their focus was a nocturnal animal species dwelling in a region of over 27
million hectares (across three countries), characterized by harsh geographical
conditions and lacking communication infrastructure.
To achieve the Jaguar Project’s research objectives, a participatory network of
volunteers and collaborators was established. Participants were trained in
simple, indirect methods of detection, involving the collection of fecal samples
and identification of footprints from big cats, and were deployed to help
obtain records of the jaguars. Initially, participants included biologists from
the three involved countries who had been engaging in fieldwork in the zone,
but it also included park rangers, members of local NGOs, and government
officials; they were later joined by students, local people, and forestry workers.
In this case, construction of the monitoring network relied on the jaguar’s
powerful appeal: their charisma and cultural significance makes them flagship
species that motivated the participation of volunteers and institutions
(Lorimer, 2007). Therefore, participatory monitoring ‘allowed coverage of a
vast area at relatively low cost whilst enhancing collaborative management pol-
icies among people and institutions’ (De Angelo et al., 2011, p. 543).
After almost two decades, the monitoring network is still operational. Besides
obtaining and updating maps with the distribution of this feline species in the
Upper Paraná Forest area, the work of these experts and lay stakeholders
managed to establish a new matrix of social relations and a change in the
species’ valuation, which both eventually extended from network participants
to their broader social and cultural circles.
South–North Migrations in Mexico: Development of Social Science

Knowledge
Migration research in Mexico has grown in prominence within the social sciences
in recent years. Since Donald Trump became president of the USA, legal and illegal
migration has reached the top of the bilateral agenda, blocking the signature of a
new North American Free Trade Agreement. Simultaneously, human rights
organizations and United Nations dependencies have emphasized the problem
of Central American migrants in Mexico, which is particularly complex at the
Mexican southern border. In this context, the topic cannot be more pressing for
governments, civil society, and inter-government organizations.
In scholarly terms, Schiavon (2016) points out that migration studies in
Mexico have shifted from a disciplinary vision (international relations), concen-
trating on Mexican migration to the United States, to a multidisciplinary
approach focusing on regional migratory systems, giving rise to broader
studies of Central America and North America. In any case, social science
studies of migration, which rely on people’s perceptions and behaviors, have
blurred the separation between study subjects and objects.
As a public issue, migration in Mexico illustrates three problems of pro-
duction of knowledge in peripheral contexts. First, it shows that knowledge pro-
duced locally is not easily appropriated by locals. Second, since the border
between Mexico and the USA is one of the few frontiers between a developed
and an underdeveloped country, Mexican research on migration is permeated
by the features of peripheral science and its tension between local relevance
and international impact (Alatas, 2003). Third, research on migration illustrates
the co-production of knowledge (Jasanoff, 2004), especially by emphasizing how
actors in different parts of the country problematize the phenomenon and con-
sequently propose different actions.
Two contexts of knowledge production are discussed in this section. First, we
introduce the role played by the College of the Northern Border (in Spanish:
Colegio de la Frontera Norte, COLEF) and its migration survey – arguably,
Mexico’s only big data social science project to last 25 years. We then shift
focus to the southern border and analyze the role of the Higher Studies
Center for Mexico and the Caribbean (Centro de Estudios Superiores sobre
México y el Caribe, CESMECA), the College of the Southern Border (Colegio
de la Frontera Sur, ECOSUR), and the Research and Higher Education Center
for Social Anthropology (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en
Antropología Social, CIESAS). We argue that while COLEF, which more
connected with the USA and its scholarly culture, has informed local and federal
government policy-making, the institutions in the south tend to co-produce
migration differently due to their collaboration with local organizations and
engagement in broader socio-political activities.
COLEF, a center attached to the National Science and Technology Council
(Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, CONACYT), has played a central
role thanks to its Migration Survey on the North Border of Mexico (Encuesta
sobre Migración en la Frontera Norte de México, EMIF). COLEF has conducted
this survey annually since 1993, and the results are openly accessible on its
website. When interviewed, COLEF representatives pointed out that this
survey continues to be a priority project and has even become an attraction
for foreign graduate students who, supported by grants, come to Mexico to
use the accumulated statistical data. Behind this instrument lies an impressive
list of public institutions: the National Council for Population, Secretary of
Work and Social Security, National Institute for Migration, Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, Secretary of Health, Secretary of Government, CONACYT,
and National Council for Prevention of Discrimination. A simple Google
search for ‘EMIF’ returns 1,950 hits on national and sub-national government
websites, which illustrates the impact of this study beyond the academic realm.
Though COLEF does not partner with any NGOs, academics and students do
work and have close contact with these organizations, taking advantage of their
accumulated knowledge on identifying the right places to survey, developed
through presence in the field. Arguably, while the COLEF and its associated aca-
demics seem interested in making available their data and findings and main-
taining constant communication with authorities, an interest in the typical
scholarly products, such as research articles or grants, still prevails. The issue
of migration in the north seems to require the involvement of the highest
level of the state and of prestigious academic institutions, since results of the
survey not only inform local actors but also provide data for diplomatic
exchange (and political coordination) with the USA. The asymmetry between
countries could be seen as a factor pressuring COLEF and associates toward
mainstream, big social science projects such as this annual survey.
On the southern border the situation is even more complex. Institutions such
as ECOSUR, CESMECA, and CIESAS conduct significant research on the
border area (whether directly or indirectly linked to migration). Unlike in
Tijuana (a city on Mexico’s northern border where COLEF is located), the
southern institutions seem to regard the migratory phenomenon as impossible
to approach other than through direct and permanent contact with civil
society. Perhaps due to the conflict-ridden presence of state authority in the
region (e.g. military involved in human right abuses or unjustified incarceration
of NGO leaders), the indigenous populations with their claims and demands that
complicate the panorama, or the lack of resources (compared with institutions in
other parts of the country), research into migration at the southern border seems
more responsive to the specific needs, interests, and realities of local actors, par-
ticularly through NGOs and social movements (Harding, 2011; Hess, 2011).
This border is not merely a discourse or research problem but a situatedness
that irredeemably entangles scientists and the subjects that experience it.
Accordingly, research is more intimately connected with the local subjects
and only indirectly with the federal state and decision-makers. Furthermore, it
is unsurprising to observe here an interest in new platforms for contacting
social groups, such as researchers’ radio programs on local stations, or documen-
taries about the reality of migrant workers. Thus, social movements and NGOs,
along with scholars and academic institutions, problematize not only the flow of
people from Central American countries but also the role of the Mexican state.
The existing asymmetries between both borders and their respective insti-
tutions do not prevent scholars in both areas from knowing each other’s research
– at least at an institutional level – but has hindered a scholarly dialogue that
could encourage a different understanding of migration and different uses of
the knowledge produced. This could partly explain why the government, on rea-
lizing the need for knowledge on the southern border, requested it from COLEF,
which has been responsible for the new EMIF, now recoined Encuestas sobre
Migración en las Fronteras Norte y Sur de Mexico (Migration Survey on the
North and South Borders of Mexico) since 2004.
Furthermore, on the question of how scientists and stakeholders negotiate a
problem to frame it as both academically and socially relevant, this case illus-
trates that they may resort to spatial considerations. Instead of trying to reach
some consensus on how migration should be conceptualized – given the mul-
tiple dimensions raised by government officials, scholars, NGO staff, etc. – sta-
keholders find different places as spaces of opportunity to develop alternative
agendas and meet diverse goals.
Discussion
In analyzing our case studies, we understand the configuration of public pro-
blems in a peripheral context as entailing processes of co-production between
social processes and technoscientific knowledge, which is sometimes disputed
by other cognitive arenas and representations more generally. These processes
establish what becomes thinkable in both public and epistemic terms, and
thus potentially subject to eventual contestation. However, far from being uni-
versal, the frameworks and fields of expertise under which each problematic
issue is defined only become applicable in the contexts established by ‘drivers’
and their interaction spaces. These spaces are marked by the intersection of
international research and funding organizations with local stakeholders that
manage to engage in exchanges with both local and global counterparts
(Kreimer and Vessuri, 2018; Kreimer, 2019). Epistemic concerns thus become
technical and scientific objects with a history.
In these contexts, drivers are the sort of actors endowed with ability to initiate
or disrupt processes of knowledge production, mobilizing specific sets of knowl-
edge in accordance with potential uses – actual, intended, or ideal – and ulti-
mately shaping the public problems at stake (see Table 1). Drivers, indeed,
become the authorized speakers throughout the process of establishing represen-
tations about larger social issues; these representations stem from dominant
scientific fields or research agendas, but can also be tacitly agreed on as a
result of long-standing dynamics of scientific relations with the global centers
of knowledge production (Kreimer, 2015).
In the case of Chagas disease research, the approach to the problem that dom-
inates local and global research landscapes is that established by biomedical
sciences. Through this research-based approach, lead researchers converging
around the field of molecular biology and research in life and biomedical
sciences act as the counterparts of the international drivers of knowledge pro-
duction, shaping the problem of Chagas disease through the cognitive and insti-
tutional dynamics specific to the field. Yet under these dynamics of knowledge
production, the production of therapeutic applications for treatment and diag-
nosis – potentially commensurable with broader health needs and demands –
relies on a different set of stakeholders that also includes international health
organizations – chiefly, the WHO –, the pharmaceutical industry, and, to a
lesser extent, government agencies in the affected countries.
In this context, both international organizations and pharmaceutical firms
possess material and symbolic resources not necessarily available to research-
ers or local government bodies, and so are lost once these intervening actors,
such as the TDR, abandon active collaboration efforts with local counterparts.
In any case, these dynamics of knowledge production exclude possible
representation of affected populations, whose inclusion is typically assumed
to remain outside the scope of action of the central stakeholders defining
the issue.
This question is quite different in the case of technical reports on the Jáchal-
Veladero mining controversy. The dispute was initially situated in a context of
controversial productive structures that gave rise to exclusive and highly
restricted knowledge. These processes opposed the dynamics mobilized by
other stakeholders questioning the problem’s initial definition, including the
secrecy imposed by the mining company and its allies, as well as the overall tech-
nological relationship with the local social and productive context. The pro-
duction and circulation of these new reports entailed specific dynamics of
social and political relations, characterized by collaborative knowledge pro-
duction, contingent modes of political organization (for example, the consti-
tution of the AJNST and its resulting network of political alliances), and
certain types of socio-cognitive skills such as defining analysis criteria, drafting
reports, mobilizing university laboratories, and selecting and enlisting a clique of
national and international experts.
Table 1. Drivers and the shaping of local social issues: asymmetries and tensions emerging from the moblization of knowledge through diverse institutional settings.
Actors and Knowledge and
institutional settings representations
Case Social issue Drivers engaged mobilized Asymmetries Emerging tensions
Chagas >8 million International public and Biomedical research Biological and genomic Inability to coordinate knowledge International visibility and
disease individuals global health organizations centers at global research on T. cruzi and production and criteria for scientific legitimation
research affected and at risk and peripheral sites; other poverty-related implementation; criteria versus widespread
International public infectious agents Disparate economic, social and economic use
and global health institutional and technical
organizations; resources
Transnational
pharmaceutical
firms;
Public health
officials
Cyanide spills Social concerns and Collective led by local Networks enabled by Standardized sampling Access to technical assessment Definition of possible risks
in Jáchal environmental assemblies, including local organizations of materials, testing for and reports; determined exclusively on
damage caused by environmental and political pollution levels, Differential influence over main the basis of cyanide levels
mining activity organizations, left-wing alliances; technical criteria and media outlets; versus broader, systemic
party members, alternative Provincial reporting; Territorial control over disputed conceptions of risks and
media outlets, and local and government and Alternative activities damage stemming from
international experts; judiciary; environmental mining activity
(Initially: provincial Enclave-based geographical, and
government and mining foreign mining ecological knowledge
company) company;
Laboratories;
SCIENCE AS CULTURE
Local media outlets;
Legal and
environmental
associations
Endangered Jaguar population Conservation biologists and Conservation Jaguar populations Differential ability in defining Conservation strategies
jaguars decline in the local NGOs biologists; status (density and conservation strategies versus academically
Upper Parana Provincial and distribution) pertaining to local stakeholders recognized knowledge
Atlantic Forest federal government (mainly livestock breeders) and production about local
offices; wildlife
(Continued )
19
20
L. RODRIGUEZ-MEDINA ET AL.
Table 1. Continued.
Actors and Knowledge and
institutional settings representations
Case Social issue Drivers engaged mobilized Asymmetries Emerging tensions
Local and local scientists and international
international NGOs; NGO allies
Research;
Local communities
South-North Attending to Social science researchers Government offices; Migration as an issue of Research recognized globally in Political utility of knowledge
migrations vulnerable (mostly in international Academia and international relations, the Northern border but locally for decision-making (in the
in Mexico migrating relations and anthropology) research centers; population security in the Southern border; Northern border) versus
populations International NGOs and economic impact Divergent political significance social and economic
of borders in Mexican politics; engagement (more evident
International relations as an in the Southern border)
academically acknowledged and
influential field for public policy
(anthropology as a locally well-
connected field but less
recognized nationally and
globally)
In the case of participatory strategies in environmental conservation, the

configuration of research is shaped by a driver (researchers) who distributes
information-collecting tasks among diverse actors (mainly local dwellers). Citi-
zens’ participation occurs in selected steps of fieldwork activities. However, since
data processing and analysis are exclusively conducted by experts, the signifi-
cance of the findings remain restricted to academic circles and the intervening
organizations concerned with wildlife protection.
In the case of migration studies in Mexico, the social scientists themselves act as
the drivers. Yet unlike in the other cases, the boundaries eventually become diffuse:
the production of knowledge – as in much social sciences research – is inevitably
undertaken by researchers interacting with the subjects or communities under
study. Therefore, even if the subjects are providers of information, they necessarily
redefine the problem of migration by offering their own insights and represen-
tations on the issue. This is also how de facto tensions arise between interpret-
ations. Varied degrees of integration are, therefore, possible in this context, and
the utilization of knowledge outputs can be the object of disputes of varying con-
nection to its cognitive dimension. In addition, the COLEF and scholars based in
the northern border are more connected with international scientific standards,
and typically exclude the participation of people foreign to academia, whereas
scholars based in the southern border have established bonds with local popu-
lations, with whom they negotiate the meaning of the research.
Another meaningful dimension pertains to the disciplinary regimes in play,
which vary according to the degree of international integration and specializ-
ation. When anchored to a single, strongly established discipline that is inte-
grated into international research agendas, regimes are guided chiefly by the
dynamics of legitimation based on ‘internal’ scientific recognition, rather than
focus on public problems (Shinn and Joerges, 2002), thus contradicting declared
discourses on the social utility of knowledge. This is illustrated by molecular
biology and genomics in the study of T. cruzi, as well as other diseases that
have been prioritized by the WHO due to their social and epidemiological sig-
nificance in the region.
In contrast, the processes of co-production, as outlined by Jasanoff (2004),
around the Jáchal dispute unfolded through the confluence of various disciplin-
ary fields with less specialization and international integration. This eventually
led to participation scenarios with less scientific and cognitive restrictions,
enabling the AJNST (constituted by non-expert publics) and scientific allies to
intervene with remarkable impact and depth.
In the case of conservation strategies for a threatened species, though the driver
was originally situated within environmental studies and conservation ecology,
this field is also less structured by disciplinary specialization, rendering it, in prin-
ciple, more permeable to the influence of non-certified stakeholders. Furthermore,
the mobilized sets of knowledge were gathered from objects constituted previously
as research problems: e.g. soils, environmental and climate systems, and studies of
human action. Cognitive problems in these disciplines, whose empirical objects are
distributed on a wide-ranging regional scale (as with conservation biology), offer
possibilities for citizen collaboration, both in terms of utilizing technological infra-
structures and reliance on non-specialist collaborators.
Social sciences present special features as a disciplinary regime and the sorts
of cognitive representations enabled. Besides rendering the boundaries between
knowledge producers and research subjects more nebulous due to the problem
of reflexivity, the frontiers between the different disciplines forming the research
field of immigration and territorial studies are, again, less clearly demarcated.
Conclusion
This paper examined the co-production of social processes and scientific knowledge
in peripheral contexts by analyzing their relations with international counterparts
in the central spaces of knowledge and economic production (see Jasanoff, 2004).
Through four empirical case studies, we showed that the engagement of local sta-
keholders and exchanges with the international scientific mainstream shaped the
dynamics defining public issues and knowledge-driven intervention strategies.
More specifically, the definition of local public issues changed as the scientific
sphere introduced pre-existing disciplinary frameworks and representations –
often aligned with the credited scientific mainstream – to (re)address their cognitive
and political contours, which are also shaped by the historical links with institutio-
nalized counterparts in the central and hegemonic contexts of science and pro-
duction. In these contexts, the cognitive definition of the issue also determined
the range and nature of potential public interventions devised to address them.
In the four cases, we showed how scientific and expert fields, geographical
contexts, institutional settings, and interventions strategies were jointly enabling
or excluding non-specialized stakeholders’ participation in defining the issues at
stake. In those cases where local stakeholders were engaged, such as in the
Argentinian mining controversy and part of migration studies in Mexico, the
definition of public issues and the bodies of knowledge and expert fields
intended to address them also changed, adding contestation and reflexivity to
their initial formulation. Asymmetries present in the distribution of skills and
resources – whether symbolic, material, or cognitive – largely determined
these outcomes. Such asymmetries were apparent in the cases of biomedical
research on neglected diseases and conservation ecology. As a matter of fact,
the affected stakeholders became part of the scientific concerns only discursively
or as mere handlers of localized knowledge, thus rarely influencing the definition
of issues and the expert knowledge utilized to address them.
Yet, in their international dimension, these asymmetries also affected the
definition of the issues at stake and the possibilities of producing socially appli-
cable knowledge to intervene. This is where the role of key social actors – or,
drivers – can be helpfully introduced. Given the longstanding ties of local
biomedical elites with the international scientific mainstream and other influen-
tial stakeholders in the field of health, leading research communities serve as pri-
vileged spokespersons on the issue of neglected tropical diseases, although they
cannot engage pharma without the direct intervention of these international
agencies. Local dwellers also have little effect on the research outlines of biol-
ogists and ecologists monitoring endangered species in the Upper Paraná Atlan-
tic Forest, but these researchers still need to negotiate and legitimate the
definition of their research problem with wildlife protection NGOs concerned
with global biodiversity. Conversely, the stakeholders countering pollution
caused by mining activities in Argentina were only able to become drivers in
the controversy after joining forces with political organizations, laboratories,
local media outlets, and international experts – rather than the scientific main-
stream itself. Migration studies, by contrast, offered diverging approaches in
their involvement as drivers, depending on whether they focused on Mexico’s
southern border (where local populations were engaged to introduce reflexivity)
or its northern border (which prioritized international recognition, rather than
producing locally applicable knowledge).
Finally, another dimension outside the scope of this paper may require
further reflection: namely, how the spatial situation of public issues are
entangled with geopolitical meaning. Cyanide spills and vanishing jaguars are
issues that must necessarily be embedded in local geographies, yet these issues
were separated from their local contexts by international knowledge networks
and firms. By contrast, migration and neglected diseases relate to the problem
of population and (bio)security, introducing a topological significance to their
problematization (Law, 2002; Kreimer, 2019).
In a critical dialogue of postcolonial STS (see for example Harding, 2011,
2016), our approach emphasizes local and international power relations, but
does not take the postcolonial order as a single (or, even sometimes, the most
relevant) analytical matrix. The relations between cognitive frameworks and
institutional spaces have been shown as entangled in power relations that
exceed the international division of labor in terms of knowledge production
and utilization on which postcolonial STS has been often focused. Moreover,
we proposed the existence of drivers, strongly linked to the local and inter-
national institutionalized forms of science and technological development, as
actors playing a fundamental role in (re)producing the asymmetries that postco-
lonial STS takes both as a historical and analytical starting point. Thus, the
aggregation of these experiences in the peripheral contexts of knowledge pro-
duction may allow more reflexive analyses of how the definition of scientific
and public issues connect to central sites. If the dynamics in peripheral contexts
represent spaces for further exploration, they cannot be understood outside a
constitutive, yet distinct, relation with the global dynamics of technoscience.
This sort of exploration demands a revision of the long-standing dichotomies
of STS without analytically dissolving them – or their effects – entirely.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the anonymous referees and the editors of Science as Culture for their
helpful comments and support.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
The funding for this work has been provided through the Open & Collaborative Science in
Development Network (OCSDNet), supported by Canada’s International Development
Research Centre and the UK Government’s Department for International Development;
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas.
Notes on contributors
Leandro Rodriguez-Medina is Associate Professor at Universidad de las Américas Puebla
and a member of CONACYT’s National System of Researchers (Level II). His research inter-
ests include the international circulation of knowledge, the relationship between culture and
urban development, and the social and political studies of science and technology in Latin
America.
Hugo Ferpozzi is a postdoctoral researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research
Council, Argentina. His research at the Centre for Science, Technology and Society focuses
on the recent problematization of neglected tropical diseases in global health politics.
Juan Layna is a doctoral candidate at the University of Buenos Aires and UBACyT fellow-
ship holder. He also collaborates with the Centre for Science, Technology and Society. His
research interests are primarily in public understanding of science and the construction of
public problems in socio-technical controversies.
Emiliano Martin Valdez is a doctoral fellow of the National Scientific and Technical
Research Council at the University of Quilmes and member of the Centre for Science, Tech-
nology and Society. His topics of interest are open and collaborative practices of knowledge
production in conservation biology and relations between environmental NGOs and scien-
tific groups in the conservation of threatened species.
Pablo Kreimer is a sociologist with a PhD in Science, Technology, and Society (STS Center,
Paris). He is a principal investigator at the National Scientific and Technical Research
Council, Argentina, professor at the University of Quilmes and director of the Centre for
Science, Technology and Society at Maimonides University. He is specialized in political soci-
ology of science with a focus on the historical dynamics of scientific fields, internationaliza-
tion of research, and co-production of knowledge between central and peripheral contexts.
References
Alatas, S. F. (2003) Academic dependency and the global division of labour in the social
sciences, Current Sociology, 51(6), pp. 599–613.
Anderson, W. (2009) Re-orienting STS: Emergent studies of science, technology, and medi-
cine in Southeast Asia, East Asian Science, Technology and Society, 3, pp. 163–171.
Baber, Z. (2003) Provincial universalism: The landscape of knowledge production in an era of
globalization, Current Sociology, 51(6), pp. 615–623.
Behague, D., Tawiah, C., Rosato, M., Some, T. and Morrison, J. (2009) Evidence-based
policy-making: The implications of globally-applicable research for context-specific
problem-solving in developing countries, Social Science and Medicine, 69(10), pp. 1539–
1546. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.08.006
Bremer, S. and Meisch, S. (2017) Co-production in climate change research: Reviewing
different perspectives, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 8(6), pp. 1–22.
Brustureanu, B. (2018) Academics as knowledge entrepreneurs, Social Science Information,
57(4), pp. 662–690.
Castillo-Riquelme, M. (2017) Chagas disease in non-endemic countries, The Lancet Global
Health, 5(4), pp. e379–e380. doi:10.1016/S2214-109X(17)30090-6
Caro, T. and O’ Doherty, G. (1999) On the use of surrogate species in conservation biology,
Conservation Biology, 13, pp. 805–814.
Chow-White, P. A. and García-Sancho, M. (2012) Bidirectional shaping and spaces of con-
vergence: Interactions between biology and computing from the first DNA sequencers to
global genome databases, Science, Technology & Human Values, 37(1), pp. 124–164.
Ciocca, D. R. and Delgado, G. (2017) The reality of scientific research in Latin America; an
insider’s perspective, Cell Stress and Chaperones, 22(6), pp. 847–852. doi:10.1007/s12192-
017-0815-8
Crawshaw, P. G., Jr. (1995) Comparative ecology of ocelot Felis pardalis and jaguar Panthera
onca in a protected subtropical forest in Brazil and Argentina, Doctoral dissertation,
University of Florida, 1995.
Delvenne, P. and Kreimer, P. (2017) World-system analysis 2.0: Globalized science in centers
and peripheries, in: D. Tyfield (Ed) Routledge Handbook of Political Economy of Science,
pp. 390–404 (London: Routledge).
De Angelo, C., Paviolo, A., Rode, D., Cullen, L., Sana, D., Abreu, K. C., Xavier da Silva, M.,
Bertrand, A.-S., Haag, T., Lima, F., Rinaldi, A. R., Fernàndez, S., Ramírez, F., Velàzquez,
M., Corio, C., Hasson, E. and Di Bitetti, M. S. (2011) Participatory networks for large-
scale monitoring of large carnivores: Pumas and jaguars of the Upper Paraná Atlantic
Forest, Oryx, 45(4), pp. 534–545.
Di Bitetti, M. S. (2015) Cómo estudiar poblaciones de mamíferos silvestres, Ciencia Hoy, 25
(146), pp. 23–29.
Di Bitetti, M. S., Placci, G. and Dietz, L. A. (2003) A Biodiversity Vision for the Upper Paraná
Atlantic Forest Eco-region: Designing a Biodiversity Conservation Landscape and Setting
Priorities for Conservation Action (Washington, DC: World Wildlife Fund).
Douglas, L. R. and Veríssimo, D. (2013) Flagships or battleships: Deconstructing the relation-
ship between social conflict and conservation flagship species, Environment and Society:
Advances in Research, 4, pp. 98–116.
Ewert, B. and Evers, A. (2012) Co-production, in: V. Pestoff, T. Brandsen, and B. Verschuere (Eds)
New Public Governance, the Third Sector and Co-production, pp. 61–78 (Abingdon: Routledge).
Federal Ministry of Education and Research. (2015) Global Health in the focus of research.
Funding Concept: Neglected and Poverty-Related Diseases (Berlin, Germany: Federal
Ministry of Education and Research).
Feld, A. (2015) Ciencia y política(s) en la Argentina, 1943–1983 (Bernal: Universidad
Nacional de Quilmes).
Fischer, M. J. (2016) Anthropological STS in Asia, Annual Review of Anthropology, 45, pp.
181–198.
Flinders, M., Wood, M. and Cunningham, M. (2016) The politics of co-production: Risks,
limits and pollution, Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice, 12
(2), pp. 261–279.
Furtado, M. M., et al. (2008) Studying jaguars in the wild: Past experiences and future per-
spectives, Cat News, 4(special issue), pp. 41–47.
Harding, S. (2011) Introduction: Beyond postcolonial theory, in: S. Harding (Ed) The
Postcolonial Science and Technology Reader, pp. 1–31 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).
Harding, S. (2016) Latin American decolonial social studies of scientific knowledge, Science,
Technology, & Human Values, 41(6), pp. 1063–1087. doi:10.1177/0162243916656465
Hess, D. (2011) Science in an era of globalization: Alternative pathways, in: S. Harding (Ed)
The Postcolonial Science and Technology Reader, pp. 419–438 (Durham, NC: Duke
University Press).
Holz, S. C. and Placci, L. G. (2003) Socioeconomic roots of biodiversity loss in Misiones, in:
Gusmão Câmara Galindo-Leal (Ed) State of Hotspots. The Atlantic Forest of South
America: Biodiversity Status, Threats, and Outlook, pp. 207–227 (Washington: Island Press).
Jasanoff, S. (2004) The idiom of co-production, in: S. Jasanoff (Ed) States of Knowledge: The
Co-production of Science and the Social Order, pp. 2–12 (New York: Routledge).
Kreimer, P. (2014) ‘Citizen of the world’ or a local producer of useful knowledge? That’s the
question, in: F. Beigel, and H. Sabea (Eds) Academic Dependency and Professionalization in
the South, pp. 170–195 (Mendoza: EDIUNC).
Kreimer, P. (2015) Co-producing social problems and scientific knowledge: Chagas disease
and the dynamics of research fields in Latin America, in: M. Merz, and P. Sormani
(Eds) Sociology of Science Yearbook, pp. 173–190 (Dordrecht: Springer).
Kreimer, P. (2019) Science and Society in Latin America. Peripheral Modernities (New York:
Routledge).
Kreimer, P. and Vessuri, H. (2018) Latin American science, technology, and society: A his-
torical and reflexive approach, Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society, 1
(1), pp. 17–37. doi:10.1080/25729861.2017.1368622
Law, J. (2002) Objects and spaces, Theory, Culture & Society, 19(5-6), pp. 91–105.
Law, J. and Lin, W. (2017) Provincializing STS: Postcoloniality, symmetry, and method, East
Asian Science, Technology and Society, 11, pp. 211–227.
Lederman, D., Messina, J., Pienknagura, S. y Rigolini, J. (2014) Latin American.
Entrepreneurs. Many Firms but Little Innovation (Washington: The World Bank).
Lezaun, J. and Montgomery, C. M. (2015) The pharmaceutical commons, Science,
Technology, & Human Values, 40(1), pp. 3–29. doi:10.1177/0162243914542349
Lorimer, J. (2007) Nonhuman charisma, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 25,
pp. 911–932.
Losego, P. and Arvanitis, R. (2008) Science in non-hegemonic countries, Revue d’anthropo-
logie des connaissances, 2, 3(3), pp. 343–350. doi:10.3917/rac.005.0343
Magarinos, M. P., Carmona, S. J., Crowther, G. J., Ralph, S. A., Roos, D. S., Shanmugam, D.,
Van Voorhis, W. C. and Aguero, F. (2012) TDR targets: A chemogenomics resource for neg-
lected diseases, Nucleic Acids Research, 40(D1), pp. D1118–D1127. doi:10.1093/nar/gkr1053
Masum, H. and Harris, R. (2011) Open Source for Neglected Diseases: Magic Bullet or Mirage?
(Washington: Results for Development).
Menashy, F. and Read, R. (2016) Knowledge banking in global education policy: A biblio-
metric analysis of World Bank publications on public-private partnerships, Education
Policy Analysis Archives, 24(95). doi:10.14507/epaa.24.2523
Meyer, M. (2010) The rise of the knowledge broker, Science Communication, 32(1), pp. 118–127.
Muñoz-Erickson, T. A. (2014) Co-production of knowledge–action systems in urban sustain-
able governance: The KASA approach, Environmental Science & Policy, 37, pp. 182–191.
Myers, N., Mittermeier, R. A., Mittermeier, C. G., da Fonseca, G. A. B. and Kent, J. (2000)
Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities, Nature, 403, pp. 853–858.
Ojeda, R. A., Chillo, V. and Isenrath, G. B. (2012) Libro Rojo de Mamíferos Amenazados de la
Argentina, (Buenos Aires: SAREM).
Osborne, T. (2004) On mediators: Intellectuals and the ideas trade in the knowledge society,
Economy and Society, 33(4), pp. 430–447.
Pickersgill, M. (2012) The co-production of science, ethics, and emotion, Science, Technology
& Human Values, 37(6), pp. 579–603.
Porrás, A. I., Yadon, Z. E., Altcheh, J., Britto, C., Chaves, G. C., Flevaud, L., Martins-Filho, O.
A., Ribeiro, I., Schijman, A. G., Shikanai-Yasuda, M. A., Sosa-Estani, S., Stobbaerts, E.,
Zicker, F. and Debrabant, A. (2015) Target product profile (TPP) for Chagas disease
point-of-care diagnosis and assessment of response to treatment, PLOS Neglected
Tropical Diseases, 9(6), p. e0003697. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0003697
Puente-Rodríguez, D., van Slobbe, E., Al, I. A. C. and Lindenbergh, D. E. (2016) Knowledge
co-production in practice: Enabling environmental management systems for ports
through participatory research in the Dutch Wadden Sea, Environmental Science &
Policy, 55, pp. 456–466.
Reynolds, L. and Sariola, S. (2018) The ethics and politics of community engagement in
global health research, Critical Public Health, 28(3), pp. 257–268. doi:10.1080/09581596.
2018.1449598
Ribeiro, M. C., Metzger, J. P., Martensen, A. C., Ponzoni, F. J. and Hirota, M. M. (2009) The
Brazilian Atlantic Forest: How much is left, and how is the remaining forest distributed?
Implications for conservation, Biological Conservation, 142, pp. 1141–1153.
Rodríguez Medina, L. (2013) Objetos subordinantes: la tecnología epistémica para producir
centros y periferias, Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 75(1), pp. 7–28.
Rodriguez Medina, L. (2014) Centers and Peripheries in Knowledge Production (New York
and London: Routledge).
Schiavon, J. A. (2016) Migration studies in Mexico: Interdisciplinary studies for a multi-
tiered phenomenon, Migration Studies, 4, pp. 455–457. doi:10.1093/migration/mnw008
Shinn, T. and Joerges, B. (2002) The transverse science and technology culture: Dynamics
and roles of research-technology, Social Science Information, 41, pp. 207–251. doi:10.
1177/0539018402041002003
Vessuri, H. and Kreimer, P. (2017) Les sciences en Amérique latine. Tensions du passé et
défis du présent, in: M. Kleiche-Dray (Ed) Les ancrages nationaux de la science mondiale,
pp. 99–134 (Paris: Edition des Archives Contemporaines).
Wagner, C. (2008) The New Invisible College: Science for Development (Washington:
Brookings Institution Press).
Wehrens, R. (2014) Beyond two communities – From research utilization and knowledge
translation to co-production?, Public Health, 128, pp. 545–551.
WHO. 2007. New online database to help fight infectious diseases. Available at: http://www.
who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr14/en/ (accessed 23 April 2014).
WHO. 2012. Research priorities for Chagas disease, human African trypanosomiasis and
leishmaniasis, World Health Organization technical report series, Geneva, Switzerland:
World Health Organization. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
23484340.
Zabala, J. P. (2010) La enfermedad de Chagas en la Argentina. Investigación científica, proble-
mas sociales y políticas sanitarias (Bernal: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes).

Rodriguez Medina - Ferpozzi - Kreimer

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Rodriguez Medina - Ferpozzi - Kreimer

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Science as Culture

ISSN: 0950-5431 (Print) 1470-1189 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csac20

International Ties at Peripheral Sites: Co-producing

Leandro Rodriguez-Medina, Hugo Ferpozzi, Juan Layna, Emiliano Martin

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2019.1629409

View supplementary material

Published online: 13 Jun 2019.

Submit your article to this journal

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

International Ties at Peripheral Sites: Co-producing Social

CONTACT Hugo Ferpozzi hugo.ferpozzi@gmail.com Centro de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad, Hidalgo

To show these processes empirically, we analyze four previous case studies

We understand from Jasanoﬀ that the processes of co-production between the

in the process of institutionalizing larger social issues in their respective contexts.

on technical reports about water safety, court rulings, public allocutions,

Chagas disease is endemic in Latin America, where it currently aﬀects nearly

jurisdictions, negotiating the prevailing legislation, conducting reliable clinical

Cyanide Spills in Jáchal: Socio-Technical Dispute

Endangered Jaguars: Participatory Research Networks

South–North Migrations in Mexico: Development of Social Science

In the case of participatory strategies in environmental conservation, the

You might also like