Construction of knowledge in Latin America. Regional Space Ontologies

Abstract

The purpose of presentation is to consider the spatial dimensions of the processes of knowledge construction in science and technique in Latin America. For this, the ontologies of the space underlying two fields of studies that address the subject are explained. On the one hand, that of studies on science, technology and society, raised from sociology and sociology of science, which consider space as a context, and that address problems related to academic dependence, exchange networks between central countries and peripherals and social utility of science. On the other, that of socio -spatial studies, which maintain fertile dialogues with the critical geopolitics of knowledge and decolonial thinking, and that consider space as a condition of possibility for the construction and circulation of scientific knowledge. Their interests are focused, among other topics, on the construction of knowledge located from local knowledge, in the critical analysis of the cartographies of scientific and technological developments, and in the privilege of knowledge located to build objectivity in accepted terms by scientific communities. The fact that the notions of space and spatialities are associated with those of territories and borders could promote the analysis on the processes of construction of scientific knowledge based on units of analysis that can operate on different scales and simultaneously, and would allow to review the Formation of the identities of the scientific communities and, ideally, challenge them in the institutionalization of transdisciplinary networks.