Redes. Journal of Social Studies of Science and Technology

What happened with the technological promise? Contemporary sociotechnical problems.

Fernando Tula Molina — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

In this paper I establish a critical counterpoint between “technological consumerism” and “technological maturity”. I focus in this last concept in order to reflect about what happened with the technological promise. In particular, I ask with Francis Layard why when societies became richer, its members do not get happier. And, with Hartmut Rosa, I wonder why technology does not liberate our lifetime as promised.

To this end I introduce philosophical, political and micropolitical argument, starting with the “device paradigm” of Albert Borgmann. This starting point allows to connect with the political ecology of André Gorz, and the “micropolitics of desire” developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.

The framework suggested for this reflection is the “philosophy of the care” and a “post-development” politics. In the terms of the “hermeneutic of the subject”, pointed by the last Michell Foucault we need to care of ourselves and the others. In relation to the philosophy of technology, I point out that Gilbert Simondon’s approach –centered in a respectful technological design and gesture–, and Gregory Bateson’s scheme of learning levels, offer relevant and clever clues to our problem.

TECHNOLOGY – POLITICS – SOCIETY – ACELERATION

“Leave it hidden”. perception and technical choices in the construction of artisanal objects and tourist services in Chaco, Argentina.

Myriam Fernanda Perret — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

The perception of objects as autonomous things loses sight of the process of form generation. In this work we analyze the relationship between perception and technical choices in the construction of a selection of objects (crafts and a musical instrument) and a tourist service. Within the framework of an ethnographic research initiated in 2012, the guiding thread is the perspective of a renowned artisan, sculptor, and cultural manager from Chaco, of Moqoit (Guaicurú linguistic family) and Creole-Spanish descent. The form of the objects loses clarity when attention is paid to the landscape or background. The human and non-human traces in the work appear to perception when the work is recovered in a new way. Thus, aspects of reality, alternatively recovered through observation, can coexist in layers rather than in conflict.

Science evaluation. Trends and heterogeneities in the Argentine university system

Fabiana Bekerman, Carolina Monti — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

There is a broad consensus in the literature about the predominance of an evaluation model characterized by a universalist conception of the notion of academic excellence, associated with a productivism measured by the quantity of papers published in high-impact journals, mainly in English. Numerous authors warn that this evaluation paradigm has negative consequences, especially for Latin America, and has been strongly questioned both regionally and globally. Given this scenario, we ask ourselves how the evaluative practice is developed in Argentine national universities, which elements of the international hegemonic model are reproduced, and what particularities it presents. We focus our attention on the evaluation of research projects or proposals across the set of publicly managed national universities based on a national study whose methodology included the application of a survey and interviews with officials responsible for the universities' research areas. Among the findings, we highlight the broad diversity of the university system and the strong role played by institutional autonomy in the definitions of quality and excellence, as well as in the modalities of research evaluation.

The Persistent Problem of Genetic Fetishism: Ontological and Epistemological Reflections on The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

Ana Mines Cuenya — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

The aim of this article is to reflect on the problems associated with genetic fetishism, based on some of the postulates of Richard Dawkins' popular work, The Selfish Gene. Genetic fetishism refers to an imprecise and widespread understanding that genes are something in themselves, in other words, entities whose existence is independent, relatively autonomous and determinant with respect to what living beings are. To carry out the analysis, I will focus on three dimensions of The Selfish Gene: 1) the definition of gene and its relation to biological evolution, 2) the understanding of individuals (and their bodies), and; 3) the ways in which the relations between genes and individuals with the environment are defined. Dawkins' definitions are then discussed in terms of three strategic arguments: 1) the use of metaphors in the approach to genetics, 2) the idea of genes as autonomous entities, and 3) the assumptions underlying the notions of conservation/variation in the debates on biological evolution and natural selection.

Introduction to the Dossier.

Ana Padawer, Soledad Lemmi — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

The aim of this Dossier is to move beyond the dichotomous perspectives that have dominated the field: on the one hand, the idea that farmers are merely recipients of modern technologies; on the other, the notion that they are simply bearers of immutable traditional knowledge. Although opposed, both positions share a limited conception of knowledge as the replacement of previous practices, thereby obscuring its dynamic and situated character.

In contrast, it is argued that knowledge in family farming has a social genesis, constructed through the active participation of individuals in communities of practice. In this process, learning does not involve the simple transmission of knowledge, but rather an active appropriation of cultural resources in interaction with the environment. In this way, farmers develop a “know-how” that integrates practical, cognitive, and embodied dimensions, in constant relation with a changing environment.

The concept of environment occupies a central place: it is not a static context, but a dynamic setting that evolves alongside the experiences of individuals. From this perspective, technical skills emerge through practical engagement with the world, in a process where mind and body are inseparable. Likewise, knowledge traditions are neither homogeneous nor stable, but rather historical configurations in continuous transformation, shaped by social relations, power positions, and struggles over legitimacy.

In order to challenge the opposition between technique and technology based on the tradition/modernity dichotomy, agricultural practices are understood as heterogeneous assemblages in which multiple forms of knowledge coexist and are articulated. In this sense, notions such as technodiversity and cosmotechnics are useful for accounting for the plurality of relationships between technology, society, and environment, which are particularly relevant in the context of the contemporary ecological crisis.

Finally, the dossier is organized around three axes: technical processes in institutional settings, historical continuities and discontinuities, and learning processes and technical choices. Taken together, these contributions show that agricultural knowledge is produced within complex networks that articulate human and non-human actors, institutions, public policies, and everyday practices. In sum, family farming emerges as a privileged space for rethinking the production of knowledge beyond simplifying dichotomies, highlighting its relational, situated, and constantly evolving character.

Humans, Machines, and Plants: Toward a Political Ontology of Education.

Alessandro Roberto de Oliveira — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

The article explores an anthropological approach to education with an emphasis on the material dimension, combining recent propositions from political ecology, the anthropology of technology, and learning studies to advance the ecological perspective of the educational process toward a political ontology of education. Based on an ethnography of processes of co-creation of appropriate technologies conducted by a network of social organizations in the Federal District of Brazil, it argues that sociotechnical spaces for the creation and improvement of machines constitute “learning environments” that destabilize the teaching–learning binary. The analysis highlights how technicity can serve as a guiding thread for understanding learning as a situated ontogenetic practice.

"Paradigm effects" in rural development policies: Analysis of a quinoa strengthening programme in Jujuy

Jorge Luis Cladera — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

I study an inter-institutional articulation programme aimed at promoting quinoa production in northwestern Argentina (especially in the province of Jujuy), consolidated in 2008 with the aim of improving the incomes of family farmers in the Andean regions of Puna and Quebrada. Ten years later, this technical programme has been diluted without the established indicators of success having been able to take off, resulting in the subsequent and recurrent institutional frustrations.
Far from dwelling on criteria of success or failure, I am interested in analysing this case as an example of certain unconscious mechanisms used by the institutional programmes themselves to define a target audience, a problem to be solved and a course of action to achieve it. Through a process of exegesis of the institutional documents produced along the course of the experience, I will try to identify certain visibility devices (such as: number of producers; yield per surface area; total area planted) which, by forcing the social target reality to be legible (Scott, 1995) by criteria alien to the local ones, act as 'paradigm effects', thus rendering incomprehensible the reasons why these indicators fail to show coherence.

The Performative Power of Bioinputs in Argentina: Technological Disputes, Institutional Stabilization, and Regional Circulation

Andrés Oscar Pedro Mondaini — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article analyzes the process of construction, legitimation, and institutionalization of the concept of bioinputs in Argentina from a sociotechnical and performative perspective. Based on a qualitative approach that combines semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and public policy review, the study examines how the Argentine state promoted this category as part of its bioeconomy strategy. The analysis focuses on the role of the Advisory Committee on Agricultural Bioinputs (CABUA), the Bioeconomy Promotion Program (PROFOBIO), and the regional expansion of the concept. It is argued that bioinputs operated as a performative category, reconfiguring institutional priorities, enabling new forms of state intervention, and contributing to the creation of an emerging market. However, their definition and appropriation gave rise to tensions among actors, production models, and regulatory approaches, which persist in their regional circulation. The Argentine case offers insights into how public policies not only regulate existing technologies but also produce new technological and economic categories, providing valuable lessons for rethinking other sociotechnical transitions toward sustainability.

Reproduction techniques: creating colonies on the fiscal lands of Misiones (Argentina)

Gabriela Schiavoni — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This paper problematizes the notion of reproductive techniques as a mechanism of replication, focusing on the description of the unplanned domestic multiplication of agricultural settlements in the pioneer fronts of the northeast of the province of Misiones (Argentina). Successive generations of settlement do not replicate the experience of the previous ones but rather create supplementary realities, stabilizing supra-family configurations that act as mediating structures. To clarify the operations at play, the vegetal analogy is used, resuming the discussion about the relational nature of vegetative multiplication. The conclusions emphasize that in both cases, multiplication is not the result of the application of a mould but rather the outcome of a modulation process.

What state research and innovation capabilities are required for sustainable inclusive development? Socio-technical analysis of technological policies for family farming in Argentina (INTA, 1956-2023)

Paula Juarez — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article asks: what state capabilities for innovation and development does sustainable inclusive development require? In contrast to approaches that conceive of the state as an entrepreneurial or mission-oriented actor focused on its capability to create and shape markets (Mazzucato, 2022), this work inquires into what happens when the challenge is not to create markets, but to reorient historically consolidated socio-technical trajectories toward socio-environmental inclusion. To answer this question, the socio-technical trajectory of science and technology policies for family farming at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA, Argentina) between 1956 and 2023 is analytically reconstructed.

Drawing on the socio-technical analysis approach (Thomas, 2008; Juarez, 2018; Thomas et al., 2019) and engaging with contributions from policy analysis and debates within the field of Technologies for Sustainable Inclusive Development (TSID), this work conceptualizes the State as a heterogeneous assemblage of relevant social groups, knowledge and expertise, artifacts, ideologies, regulations, institutions, economic resources, and organizational mechanisms whose articulation conditions the functioning of technology policies in terms of socio-environmental inclusion or exclusion. Likewise, the shifts in the definitions of the “predominant problem-solution relationships” of policies and technologies for family farming are reconstructed, identifying different socio-technical styles of intervention —from transfer-oriented approaches oriented towards productive modernization to participatory modalities, appropriate technologies, and other TSID-oriented approaches— and the disputes that accompanied these changes (Becerra et al., 2014; Juarez, 2018).

In critical dialogue with classic literature on state capabilities (Skocpol, 1985; Evans, 1992; Mann, 1984), this article argues that state capability cannot be reduced to bureaucratic autonomy, infrastructural power, or administrative resources, but must be understood as socio-technical capabilities: the ability to build, sustain, and reconfigure heterogeneous socio-technical alliances that enable the operation of technologies and socio-technical systems oriented toward socio-environmental inclusion.

Finally, this work contributes to debates on state capability and TSID by proposing a conceptualization grounded in the Global South. From this perspective, the state appears not as a pre-existing, coherent actor, but as a field of disputes whose effectiveness depends on its capability to transform historically sedimented trajectories through processes of socio-technical strategic planning oriented toward inclusive and sustainable development.

“Making the Soil Beautiful”: Savoir-faire Surrounding Manuring Practices in Peasant Agriculture in the High Valleys (Belen, Catamarca)

María Laura Taddei Salinas — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

In the Andean world, fertilizing the land goes beyond an agronomic purpose. “Making the soil beautiful” involves adorning, healing, and honoring it within a context of mutual nurturing, where humans, non-humans, and diverse materialities are intertwined. This article examines these practices and their variations in small-scale farming in the high valleys of Catamarca, through an approach that combines the anthropology of technique, the anthropology of education, and new materialisms. Fertilizing is explored as a tangible illustration of situated knowledge production, where people learn and recreate techniques through daily interactions with the land and materials, within a web of interconnected knowledge.

Virosis and socio-technical assemblies: learning trajectories and technical reconfiguration in citrus farming in Misiones.

Yanina Tetzlaff — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article analyses the transformation of citrus production in the province of Misiones based on the impact of viruses as disruptive events that reconfigured technical knowledge and agricultural practices. Through an ethnographic approach and from the perspective of the anthropology of technology and social studies of science and technology, it reconstructs how these non-human agents (viruses) triggered processes of technical innovation, institutional negotiations and situated learning. Within this framework, the emergence of new objects and procedures—such as the certification of plant materials, the use of micrografting, and thermotherapy—is examined, which introduced more standardised and centralised forms of control over plant life. Within these transformations, rootstocks became established as a particularly relevant technical object, as they articulate laboratory practices, regulatory frameworks, agronomic knowledge and farmers' experiences, becoming a privileged point of observation of the tensions between local autonomy and global demands.

Based on this process, the article discusses the dichotomies between technical knowledge and local agricultural knowledge, showing how citrus farming practices develop in networks of knowledge co-production, in environments structured by technical traditions, ecological contingencies and institutional frameworks in tension. In this context, it is argued that viruses should not only be understood as phytosanitary threats, but also as catalysts for a broader reconfiguration of the technical, productive and social order of citrus farming in Misiones.

Construction of technical knowledge in agroecological transitions: experiences in family flori-horticulture in La Plata

Nuria Caimmi, Martin Nicolas Sotiru — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article examines the construction of agroecological knowledge in the floricultural-horticultural belt of La Plata (Argentina) based on two case studies: the agroecology area of the Federación Rural para la Producción y el Arraigo (FRPA) and the Consultorio Técnico Popular en Agroecología (Co.Te.Po). It is based on the concept of agroecological transition, understood as a complex and multidimensional process to analyse the forms that agroecological trajectories take in La Plata. The qualitative research was based on interviews and participant observation with families moving towards agroecology in a territory historically dominated by intensive flori-horticulture known as conventional. In the agroecology area of the FRPA, the consolidation of the transition was based on dialogue between militant technicians and producers, training workshops, visits to farms and links with public institutions. In Co.Te.Po, on the other hand, agroecological practices were expanded through networks of kinship, neighbourhoods and countrymen and women, in coordination with state and university technicians who accompanied the process of organisational formation. The results show that agroecological transitions acquire a rhizomatic logic, sustained by social and organisational networks that allow them to face productive uncertainty. It is concluded that the transitions contain within them a diversity of instances and articulations that are necessary to face the uncertainty of production. In these transitions, agroecological knowledge is collectively constructed in a situated network, where inter-actor and inter-institutional articulations are combined in creative ways, in which diverse agroecological trajectories are expressed.

Young people and practical knowledge about the environment: making models for the Agroinnovation Educational Competition (Misiones, 2023)

María Mercedes Hirsch, Carla Golé — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article is part of an ethnographic fieldwork project that seeks to understand how educational, territorial, and productive processes intertwine in the formative experiences of young people attending rural schools in the central region of Misiones Province. In previous research, we have investigated the future projects constructed by young people and their place in family reproduction strategies and local roots. We have also investigated the transformations related to the know-how involved in productive activities linked to the recreation of ñande reko, that is, the “Mbya way of being.”

The schools where we conducted fieldwork share a common foundation in the pedagogy of alternation, which is why both institutions articulate their schooling with local productive environments. The San Wendelino EFA has a predominantly colonial enrollment, and the Tajy Poty Bilingual Intercultural Institute has a majority of Mbya-Guarani students. In this article, we analyze the participation of students from both schools in the design of an agroecological project, an audiovisual presentation, and a model of “the farm of the future” within the framework of the “Educational Agroinnovation Competition.”

Based on our shared fieldwork, we argue that productive activities, both within the context of colonial, Creole, and Mbya production, are related to disputes over environmental control conditioned by production models geared toward agroindustry and agroecology. Likewise, youth participation in the production of knowledge about the environment is influenced by intergenerational disputes over the ways of creating and inhabiting productive spaces.

Observing the aforementioned experience, along with our research background, led us to investigate youth participation and the learning involved in the design and representation of space in the activities proposed by the competition, within the framework of the intersections between educational and productive policies.