https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2908-0492
Abordagens em Ciência, Tecnologia e Sociedade (English title: Approaches to Science and Technology Studies) is an anthology published by the Universidade Federal do ABC. The title appropriately summarizes its contents: texts that debate different topics in STS through different theoretical approaches. The texts include theoretical and descriptive case studies, but are not sectioned by themes or types. This choice enhances an interdisciplinary outlook, and suggests a reading of how interdisciplinarity can work in STS. It also brings cohesion to the book, as some of the authors work with the same theoretical approaches, e.g. Actor-Network Theory (ANT), but through different lenses and critiques. So, the reader is not overburdened with new concepts, or is lost in too-detailed, repetitive case studies.
Case study papers are focused on a variety of scientific topics, such as the development of research agendas and science-research-industry relationships (Dias and Serafim). An interesting aspect of the case studies is the wide range of theoretical approaches covered, from the most classical ones to more field-theme specific ones such as the discussion on cyberpolitics (Silveira). This variety allows the reader to understand how interdisciplinarity can be approached in STS, but may also leave less experienced readers with the sensation of a field that deals only with narrowly focused topics.
For example, Barbosa and Gitahy's chapter presents us with a network of actors involved in a Greening controversy (HLB, also known as greening, is a disease that reduces the production of orange trees). Dias and Serafim focus their chapter on discussing the Brazilian science and technology policy from the 2000s and its relationship with the business agenda, noticing that there is a tension among the actors who are involved in policy making and impact evaluation. Lorenzi and Andrade aim their chapter to analyze the social and political dimensions of Brazilian researches on hydrogen fuel cells. Silveira argues over the need to develop methods that allow a better understanding of non-academic technology development, focused on the software industry. Finally, Velho and Ramos focus their chapter on discussing the role of internationalization of science in Brazil. The anthology covers a wide range of topics, yet these case studies focus mostly on the Brazilian experiences allowing the reader to better understand how science research works in Brazil. Rather than a limitation, the regional focus is a much-needed resource for scholars in Latin America to understand how STS can deal with local cultural nuances in science, technology, and culture.
The more theoretical chapters vary from carefully constructed literature reviews to texts that provide the reader with original theoretical approaches. All of them provide the reader with tools to guide actual STS research, including texts that are accessible for undergraduate students such as ethnographic reflections in STS and sociotechnical adaptations focused on population needs. Six chapters can be considered as purely theoretical approaches, with five of them being literature reviews. Dagnino's chapter presents an STS framework which is likely unfamiliar to Anglophone STS, but has been highly influential in regional scholarship. In his discussion of Latin America's use of science and technology for development (Adequação Sociotécnica com o Povo, or Popular Sociotechnical Adaptation), Dagnino argues in favor of a science and a technology that are specifically developed to better attend people's needs by relying on thoroughly Latin American perspectives on science, technology, and innovation.
Regarding the rest of the literature reviews, Leonel da Silva and Conceição da Costa show document STS tools to analyze research agendas and their construction. Monteiro discusses how ethnography should be applied in STS, focusing his argument on how technoscience should be applied in practice. Rigolin presents a literature review on public participation in social evaluation of science and technology, while Marques uses the concept of lab directory to discuss knowledge construction. Finally, Guimarães and Hayashi discuss the history of scientific knowledge production and ethics of science. These texts deal with a wide perspective such as Kuhn's discussions on scientific revolutions, Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto, and Callon's ethnographic methods. The presentation is clear and syntactic, providing the reader with a clear understanding and a point of departure to further explore the theoretical connections each author presents. The book's structure also allows a fluid reading of the entire anthology, as it does not overwhelm the reader with new concepts that will only be “applied” hundreds of pages later.
The lack of chapters that deal with technology may disappoint some readers. The literature reviews nevertheless more than make up for this limitation and can be highly recommended as a starting point for STS. The anthology succeeds in presenting STS to a regional audience that rarely has access to any translated readings in the field, restricting the amount of prospective grad students in STS. Additionally, existing anthologies published in Brazilian Portuguese focus on only one author, such as Andrew Feenberg's Racionalização democrática, poder e tecnologia (2010, English: Andrew Feenberg: Democratic rationalization, power, and technology), Amilcar Herrera: um Intelectual Latino-Americano (2015, English: Amilcar Herrera: a Latin-American intellectual), and Tecnologia Social: contribuições conceituais e metodológicas (2010, English: Social Technology: conceptual and methodological contributions).