Las ciencias y las técnicas han formado parte, desde el principio de la civilización, del desarrollo de la sociedad. Los cambios que han caracterizado las diferentes etapas del pensamiento científico se han producido dentro del marco de determinadas formaciones sociales y en condiciones específicas de producción del conocimiento. En este libro se aborda la manera en que se relacionan ciencia y sociedad: las formas de valorización social de las investigaciones, el sistema de trabajo en el interior de los laboratorios, las razones ideológicas de las teorías científicas, los mecanismos de financiación de la indagaciones científicas, las luchas jerárquicas entre los sabios y académicos, etc. Un conjunto de problemas que están más que nunca implicados en nuestros grandes problemas sociales. La explosión de las nanotecnologías, la controversia sobre los OGM, el cambio climático, etc., tantas temáticas cuya comprensión y control implican también conocer mejor las dinámicas sociales que forman parte de la producción de conocimientos y de las innovaciones. La presente obra, refundición de Sociología de las ciencias, publicada en 1995, muestra un planteamiento completo de todos estos problemas, con numerosos ejemplos y una muy amplia documentación. Presenta las diferentes formas de articulación ciencia/sociedad (emergencia de las ciencias, dinámica de innovación y democracia técnica) y los principales mecanismos sociales que hacen vivir a las ciencias (instituciones, organizaciones, intercambios entre investigadores, elaboración de contenidos, etc.). Este libro permite aprehender tanto la cultura material y cognitiva de un laboratorio como el funcionamiento del mercado de empleo científico. Más allá de la referencia a los grandes autores, corrientes de pensamiento y debates, ayuda a comprender mejor qué la sociedad y aquellas personas que tiene el poder decisorio fuerzan el desarrollo de las ciencias y de las técnicas, y qué los artesanos de estas últimas imponen a cambio sus lógicas propias. Habla así sobre la sociología de "la sociedad de los conocimientos”.

Environmental sustainability efforts require a great deal of engagement and political will, ranging from local communities to state departments. Science diplomats—from experts and scientists to spokespersons and ambassadors—can help facilitate at all levels and yield valued resources from technology sharing, capacity building, and knowledge exchanges. This book explores the importance of sustained international scientific cooperation, building community resilience, and the role of political will in sustainability and diplomacy. It shows how even small diplomatic efforts can influence myriad issues, from overfishing to human rights negotiations to global carbon emission reduction. Features: • Examines various topics such as global climate change, arid environments, water security and governance, trans-boundary conflict and cooperation, urban and rural resilience, and public health. • Presents case studies from various geographic regions through the lens of diplomacy, including the US–Mexico border, the Gulf of California, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and China. • Discusses how building networks of people, organizations, and countries engaged in science diplomacy is crucial for mutual growth and for overcoming conflicting political stances. Sustainable Development for the Americas: Science, Health and Engineering Policy and Diplomacy provides a useful resource for diplomats, policymakers, students, and decision-makers. It provides numerous examples of how using science and technology for policy and diplomacy is essential to finding common ground among nations for a collective global benefit.

How ten making & doing projects expand STS scholarship through a focus on knowledge expression and knowledge travel in addition to knowledge production. Making & doing projects expand STS scholarship to include the trajectories of STS knowledge flow beyond the boundaries of the field by actively interweaving knowledge expression and travel with knowledge production. In this edited volume, contributors from around the world present and critically assess ten empirical making & doing projects. They recount how their projects advance STS, and describe how they themselves learn from their interlocutors and the settings in which they do and share their STS work. A coda explains how the infrastructures of STS scholarship are broadening to include practices of making & doing. The contributors examine and reflect upon their dilemmas, frustrations, and failures, especially when these generate new practices that might not have occurred had their work not taken the form of making and doing scholarship. While each project raises a distinct set of scholarly issues, all of the projects include practices that express STS knowledge through “STS sensibilities” and attach those sensibilities to practices in empirical fields. The ten projects include one each in Argentina, Taiwan, Canada, and Denmark; two in the US; one in Austria, the UK, and multiple countries in Africa and Asia; one in the US and Latin America; one in the Netherlands and Australia; and one in an international network that includes members from Europe, the Americas, and Australia.

Science and Technology Policy theme is a component of Encyclopedia of Technology, Information, and Systems Management Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Science and technology policy covers all the public sector measures designed for the creation, funding, support, and mobilization of scientific and technological resources. The content of the Theme on Science and technology policy provides the essential aspects and a myriad of issues of great relevance to our world such as: Science and Technology Policy; International Dimensions of Science and Technology Policy; The Innovation System; The Policy Making Process in Science and Technology; Regional Perspectives: A New Scenario for Science and Technology Policies in the Developed and Developing World . These two volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs

The social sciences have made fundamental contributions to the understanding of the economic, political and social life of nations in the past century. Social science libraries now have an important role to play in the context of the information society as significant sources of academic and social knowledge. This work provides information on the development and use of digital resources in the social sciences emphasizing best practices; an articulation of some of the problems presented to providing these resources; and a view to the use of these resources to support sustainable development.

Despite having undergone major advances in recent years, the history of technology in Latin America is still an understudied topic. This is the first English-language volume to bring together a variety of critical perspectives on the history of technology in Latin America from the early-19th century through to the present day. This special issue, assembled by guest editor David Pretel, brings together a range of experts to explore a plethora of topics in Latin America's technological history. Papers include a study of rural telephony in in 20th-century Latin America; the rise of the 'Techno-class' in modern Brazil; an analysis of the rise and fall of three Caribbean commodities; the history of educational technology in Latin America, and science and technology in Cold War Chile. Special Issue: Technology in Latin American History Edited by David Pretel (Colegio de Mexico, Mexico) and Helge Wendt (Max Plank Institute for the History of Science, Germany)

Studies challenging the idea that technology and science flow only from global North to South. The essays in this volume study the creation, adaptation, and use of science and technology in Latin America. They challenge the view that scientific ideas and technology travel unchanged from the global North to the global South—the view of technology as “imported magic.” They describe not only alternate pathways for innovation, invention, and discovery but also how ideas and technologies circulate in Latin American contexts and transnationally. The contributors' explorations of these issues, and their examination of specific Latin American experiences with science and technology, offer a broader, more nuanced understanding of how science, technology, politics, and power interact in the past and present. The essays in this book use methods from history and the social sciences to investigate forms of local creation and use of technologies; the circulation of ideas, people, and artifacts in local and global networks; and hybrid technologies and forms of knowledge production. They address such topics as the work of female forensic geneticists in Colombia; the pioneering Argentinean use of fingerprinting technology in the late nineteenth century; the design, use, and meaning of the XO Laptops created and distributed by the One Laptop per Child Program; and the development of nuclear energy in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile. Contributors Pedro Ignacio Alonso, Morgan G. Ames, Javiera Barandiarán, João Biehl, Anita Say Chan, Amy Cox Hall, Henrique Cukierman, Ana Delgado, Rafael Dias, Adriana Díaz del Castillo H., Mariano Fressoli, Jonathan Hagood, Christina Holmes, Matthieu Hubert, Noela Invernizzi, Michael Lemon, Ivan da Costa Marques, Gisela Mateos, Eden Medina, María Fernanda Olarte Sierra, Hugo Palmarola, Tania Pérez-Bustos, Julia Rodriguez, Israel Rodríguez-Giralt, Edna Suárez Díaz, Hernán Thomas, Manuel Tironi, Dominique Vinck