Introduction: Beyond Imported Magic

Medina, Edén; Marques, Ivan da Costa; Holmes, Christina

doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262027458.003.0001

Cited by 42 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…As postcolonial STS authors would argue, such partnerships can operate on the basis of the diffusionist paradigm according to which discoveries and technologies are developed in the West and then unproblematically implemented elsewhere, an account that ignores the series of local translations required to make such discoveries and technologies work elsewhere (Anderson, 2002). This way of thinking persists in Latin America to this day, presenting the region as a mere consumer of 'imported magic' (Medina et al, 2014) and favouring a distribution of scientific labour in which parties from the region tend to adopt a subordinate role (Kreimer, 2006). Similar dynamics have also permeated Chilean academia, where the neoliberal reforms introduced in the 1980s during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship continue to engender dependency on North American and European research centres after thirty years of democracy (Gibert, 2016, p. 15).…”

Section: Data Collaborations In An Asymmetrical Planetary Ordermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The choice of astronomy is particularly helpful in this regard since this discipline is at the forefront of the development of methods that are currently being implemented in a broad range of areas, such as businesses, border control and the welfare state (Ministry of the Economy, 2019, p. 5). From a decolonial lens, the sphere of science and technology is also worthy of analysis in and of itself inasmuch as it has been singled out for decades by Latin American critical thinkers as a crucial site of the reproduction of colonial dynamics (Medina et al, 2014).…”

Section: Data Collaborations In An Asymmetrical Planetary Ordermentioning

confidence: 99%

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The coloniality of collaboration: sources of epistemic obedience in data-intensive astronomy in Chile

Lehuedé

2021

Information, Communication & Society

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Data collaborations have gained currency over the last decade as a means for data-and skills-poor actors to thrive as a fourth paradigm takes hold in the sciences. Against this backdrop, this article traces the emergence of a collaborative subject position that strives to establish reciprocal and technical-oriented collaborations so as to catch up with the ongoing changes in research. Combining insights from the modernity/coloniality group, political theory and science and technology studies, the article argues that this positionality engenders epistemic obedience by bracketing off critical questions regarding with whom and for whom knowledge is generated. In particular, a dis-embedding of the data producers, the erosion of local ties, and a data conformism are identified as fresh sources of obedience impinging upon the capacity to conduct research attuned to the needs and visions of the local context. A discursive-material analysis of interviews and field notes stemming from the case of astronomy data in Chile is conducted, examining the vision of local actors aiming to gain proximity to the mega observatories producing vast volumes of data in the Atacama Desert. Given that these observatories are predominantly under the control of organisations from the United States and Europe, the adoption of a collaborative stance is now seen as the best means to ensure skills and technology transfer to local research teams. Delving into the epistemological dimension of data colonialism, this article warns that an increased emphasis on collaboration runs the risk of reproducing planetary hierarchies in times of data-intensive research.

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Section: Data Collaborations In An Asymmetrical Planetary Ordermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Collaborations In An Asymmetrical Planetary Ordermentioning

confidence: 99%

The coloniality of collaboration: sources of epistemic obedience in data-intensive astronomy in Chile

Lehuedé

2021

Information, Communication & Society

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“…| Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience Issue 6 (Vol 2) Héctor Beltrán, 2020 This has become important in México, as government programs (and many times academic work) frequently frame technology experts as passive recipients or followers, perpetually dependent on foreign "cultures of innovation" (Medina et al, 2014). In short, the liberatory potential of the technologies, for advocates of these hackathons, rested on the premise that users could now become producers.…”

Section: Stacking Expertise and Coding Femininitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The First Latina Hackathon

Beltrán

2020

Catalyst

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An event advertised as the first all-women’s hackathon in Latin America was held in México in 2015. Highly ephemeral but also highly visible, the hackathon functions as a critical site to examine how communities crystallize and evaporate, and how participants actively negotiate their hacker identities and practices across boundaries of nation, gender, race, and ethnicity. Popular discourse poses inclusivity within maker/hacker groups by proposing ways to get different or “diverse” participants to join events aimed at empowering their communities. I explore how members of marked groups are called upon to construct and manage these differences themselves within hacker spaces and “maker” formations. I first highlight how participants at the women’s hackathon aligned themselves with structures of expertise as they negotiated normative constructions of gender and femininity. Hackers continue these negotiations when they get caught up in Mexican nationalist pushes for productivity. In the final section, I unpack a surprise visit by abuelitas (grandmothers), who taught everyone a lesson on the invisibilized labor that supports communities of hackers. In a space usually reserved for young makers who understand “new” technologies, they claimed their space within “progress” and reasserted undervalued domestic work as foundational for other type of work. By weaving these three threads together ethnographically, I suggest the ways in which differences become important as Latina hackers differentially position themselves, but also align themselves, with the contradictions of treating code work as coded labor.

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“…First, in addition to economic growth, development implies social transformations achieved through scientific and technological advancements. As with the example Bolivian satellite technology, for many Third World nations scientific and technological achievements have long-been a coveted means towards global parity (Hecht, 2012;Medina, da Costa Marques, & Holmes, 2014). Indeed, technological determinism, or the belief that technologies develop independently of society and drive social change, has often been at the heart of development projects (Cherlet, 2014).…”

Section: Imaginaries Of Mining and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lithium and development imaginaries in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia

Barandiarán

2019

World Development

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The world's largest deposits of lithium lie in brines found underneath salt flats in the desert between Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. Globally, lithium may reduce fossil fuel use by making batteries for cars and renewable energy storage more affordable. This article analyzes ongoing debates about lithium in these three countries to identify what hopes, fears and expectations different stakeholders are bringing to debates about lithium. My approach builds on the idea of resource imaginaries, particularly the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries that highlights the importance of science and technology to projections of desirable futures. I analyze the tensions, visions and metaphors used by different stakeholders, including activists, the media, and state and industry officials, to imagine and thus legitimate lithium extraction. This study finds three co-existing positions in these debates: lithium as a commodity, as a strategic resource or as the subject of a sociotechnical imaginary. Chile, Argentina and Bolivia are converging on the last of these, best described as a reimagining of the relationship between mining and development in which lithium, through innovation and industry, will redefine the relationship between Latin American economies and global markets. This imaginary projects a binary between raw and industrial materials and deterministically assumes that science and technology will transform the former into the latter. Disagreements and challenges notwithstanding, the article argues that this imaginary is evidence of a crisis of confidence in development that is creating space for a more dynamic debate about the social value of mining and the proper role of the state in development. This convergence will have also implications for how sustainable, equitable and reliable lithium production will be.

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Introduction: Beyond Imported Magic

Cited by 42 publications

References 0 publications

The coloniality of collaboration: sources of epistemic obedience in data-intensive astronomy in Chile

The coloniality of collaboration: sources of epistemic obedience in data-intensive astronomy in Chile

The First Latina Hackathon

Lithium and development imaginaries in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia

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