PRESENTATION

Social studies of science and technology (STS) is configured as a field of research which covers a wide range of topics and even theoretical positions. The discussions that comprise this field are collected annually in the events organized by the Society for Social Studies of Science, known as the 4S, and in the ESOCITE biannual meetings. These events bring together Latin American researchers which are interested in understanding and questioning the place which scientific and technological knowledge (in its own diversity) have in shaping our societies, as well as its opposite, that is the ways in which this institutionalized knowledge is being socially constructed.

Some of these discussions are collected by long-standing Anglo-Saxon journals such as Science, Technology and Human Values, Science as Culture or Social Studies of Science. Although the production on this field in Latin America is growing, there are still few serial publications that focus on providing a platform for the circulation of such discussions. An example of this effort is the work of journals such as Redes and Revista CTS. Similarly and more recently, special issues on the topic have emerged in Colombia in journals such as Revista Colombiana de Sociología, Nómadas (No. 28, 2008 and No. 36, 2012), and Revista CS (No. 6, 2010).

It is in this context that the journal Universitas Humanística presents its special issue No. 76, which was edited along with Professor Maria Fernanda Olarte Sierra. This special edition weaves together contributions from different parts of Latin America and other hemispheres. On this occassion we have articles submitted from Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Canada, Switzerland and Colombia.

The 18 articles that constitute our No. 76 gather critical reflections on the role of scientific and technological knowledge from situated and geopolitical dimensions. Between other topics we present research that contribute to think and problematize, as much as to build, the place that science and technology have on the generation of certain cartographies of inclusion and exclusion. We include here papers that critically are asking about the construction of disability by the so-called Social Technologies by science and technology, as well as knowledge constructed by gender and by reflections which question the ways in which these cartographies configure meanings of nation.

As always, this editorial effort is now in your hands, we hope that you enjoy it, take advantage of it, discuss it and share it.

Tania Pérez-Bustos
Editor