Is There a New PLACTS Wave? Towards a Stocktaking of Current Latin American (STS) Thought

Abstract

Ongoing “Trumpatization” of politics in the continent asks for the renewal of the foundations of Latin American STS thought (PLACTS). Specifically, the problem of life on earth at risk as a sociopolitical issue and not a physical one. This is pressing in times where social fascism is closer than it appears.

This panel aims at building on a stocktaking of Latin American thought, by understanding and developing transformative theoretical elements out of the various thought streams to be found in the subcontinent. We acknowledge recent topics and approaches, but there is also a variety of “old” critical Latin-American streams that could be operationalized in high-impact STI research, policy-making and collective-action.

We seek to profit and extend a long discussion about STS’ roles in Latin America. It was after the publication of “Models of Doom: A Critique of the Limits to Growth” (Cole et.al, 1973) that, given some understanding between Bariloche Foundation with SPRU, Catastrophe or New Society? A Latin American World Model (1976, IDRC) was published. It was a criticism to the neo-Malthusian world-model exposed by Meadows and others from MIT in 1972. This critic posed that growth versus not-growth debate is a sterile one because the problem of survival of humankind and earth in the long-term is not a physic-limits issue but a sociopolitical one. 70’s PLACTS arose then as a concern about national projects and STI policy, building mainly on the bases of dependence-theory. Constructivism since 80’s professionalization of the field; the main STS-knowledge-infrastructure in Latin America (ESOCITE since 1995); and environmental, feminist and postcolonial approaches since 2000’s have kept the critical spirit of the field in the region. What are (and could be) its current means and bets?

Chairs

• Ernesto Andrade-Sastoque, University of Twente

• Rodolfo Andres Hernandez, Universidad de Cundinamarca

Discussants

• Tania Pérez-Bustos, National University of Colombia

• Gonzalo Ordonez-Matamoros, Universidad Externado de Colombia

Individual Presentations

• Is There a New PLACTS Wave? - Renato Dagnino, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, UNICAMP

• Identities of Latin American STS Scholarship: Towards a Conceptual Framework - Nicolas Aguilar Forero, Universidad de Los Andes; Alejandro Balanzó, Universidad Externado de Colombia

• The Daily, and Uncertain, Forecasting of the Future: An STS Approach to the Production of Environmental Performance Tools - José Antonio Ballesteros Figueroa, University of Edinburgh

Session Organizers

• Alejandro Balanzó, Universidad Externado de Colombia

• Ernesto Andrade-Sastoque, University of Twente

• Nicolas Aguilar Forero, Universidad de Los Andes

• Rodolfo Andres Hernandez, Universidad de Cundinamarca