In March 2014 a group of early career researchers and academics from São Paulo state and from the UK met at the University of Campinas to participate in a workshop on 'Responsible

This paper analyzes how scientists working in a multidisciplinary team produce scientific evidence through building and manipulating scientific visualizations. The research is based on ethnographic observations of scientists' weekly work meetings and the observation of videotapes of these meetings. The scientists observed work with advanced imaging technologies to produce a 4D computer model of heat transfer in human prostate tissues. The idea of 'digital objects' is proposed in order to conceptually locate their 'materiality', observed in the practices of producing evidence through the handling of three-dimensional renderings of data. The manipulation of digital objects seeks to establish meaningful differences between parameters of interest, both when building and when analyzing them. These digital objects are dealt with as part of the empirical evidence used in the course of practices of visualizing and modeling natural phenomena. This process, which can be contextualized historically in terms of the development of imaging technologies, becomes crucial in understanding what counts as empirical evidence in current scientific work.

This paper examines how scientists deal with tensions emerging from their role as providers of objective knowledge and as citizens concerned with how their research influences policy and politics in Brazil. This is accomplished through an ethnographic account of scientists using remote sensing technology, of their knowledge-making activities and of the broader socio-political controversies that permeate the detection of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Strategies for mitigating uncertainty are central aspects of the knowledge practices analyzed, bringing controversies 'external' to the laboratory 'into' the lab, making these boundaries conceptually problematic. In particular, the anticipation of alternative interpretations of rainforest cover is a crucial way that scientists bring the world into the lab, helping to shed light on how scientists, usually seen and analyzed as isolated, are in fact often in constant dialogue with the broader political controversies related to their work. These insights help question the idea that the monitoring of deforestation through remote sensing is a form of secluded research, drawing a more complex picture of the dual role of scientists as knowledge producers and concerned citizens.

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) has affirmed the value of 'inclusion' and 'responsiveness' as institutional virtues necessary to ensure that reflexivity towards the social priorities behind innovation processes is made possible. It is argued that this affirmation links RRI to knowledge politics in other domains (e.g. environmental justice and the politics of development). It is suggested that lessons regarding inclusion and responsiveness can be drawn from these domains, focusing on the ways in which marginalised perspectives on need and vulnerability, once articulated, can help reconstitute the public sphere in which social priorities are defined. Three case studies are used to explore how entanglements of needs, vulnerabilities, identity and agency are vital to understanding the impacts of innovation and change more generally. It is argued that social science methodologies sensitised to such entanglements are necessary to help constitute a space of inclusion and responsiveness characterised, not by assumptions about idealised rational forms of deliberation, but by styles of communication that recognise vulnerability. ARTICLE HISTORY

This article reviews literature on the science and politics of deforestation in the Amazon from 1970 until today, focusing on their shifting meanings and the increasing relevance of climate change knowledge to their understanding and management. Since large‐scale colonization of the region began in the 1970s, the debate on deforestation has been crucial in disputes involving science, development, and the environment. In the last decade, the issue of climate change has become more present in the science, politics, and policies related to deforestation in the Amazon. This debate has helped shift discussions on both the environmental and the development agenda for the region. Although there is a broad agreement that the Amazon is being increasingly integrated into global fluxes of knowledge, goods, and people, not all view this process under the same light. The review concludes that scientific views help condition the development of changing policy arrangements aimed at curbing deforestation, and the incorporation of climate change knowledge is an important aspect of the dynamics of environmental policies in the region. WIREs Clim Change 2014, 5:689–701. doi: 10.1002/wcc.298 This article is categorized under: Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and Practice

No abstract

No abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss how digital objects interactively par ticipate in knowledge production in science. Data collected suggests that while scientific visualizations are employed with the aim to 'simplify' the apprehension of complex sets of data, there is much interpretive work that occurs before the group arrives at shared meanings concerning such im ages, which are in turn essential in establishing the truth of the mathemati cal models analyzed through such visual means. Shared understandings are achieved through oral communication and embodied interaction with visual objects, complementing the meanings which images and words pur port to convey on their own.