Dynamics of cooperation and appropriation of knowledge. Sociotechnical analysis of public research agendas for Food Sovereignty in Argentina and Mexico

Abstract

The main objective for this paper is to analyze, from a socio-technical perspective, the processes of research agenda building, especially, those agendas which are aimed to solve food production issues in Latin America. The analysis is focused on two case studies: the Mexican development of a genetically modified Maradol papaya variety –designed to resist the papaya ring spot virus disease–, and the retrieval in Argentina of an “ancestral” crop, the quinoa. In both cases, the strategies of knowledge production of public r&d agencies –which were linked to international cooperation policies– sought to promote social inclusion dynamics, mostly among family farmers. However, both processes ultimately exhibits the ways in which the locally generated s&t knowledge is appropriated instead by a group of private actors who weren’t the intended primary recipients of the research effort.

The guiding questions for the analysis are how the public strategies of local techno-cognitive production became well working ones (or they didn’t) and who considers them to be well working (and who don’t). In order to answer these questions, we employ a set of analytical tools drawn from the Social Studies of Technology field, combined with elements of Policy Analysis to reconstruct the dynamics of adequacy of the research agendas and their results in terms of inclusion/exclusion dynamics. Finally, we pose some thoughts about the way to improve s&t policies on agriculture in terms of sustainable inclusive development