Understanding scientific research on the periphery: towards a new sociological approach?
The central question addressed by this paper is how to explain scientific practices performed by actors within the framework of peripheral societies. By peripheral societies is meant those where science has developed at a later date and in conditions specific to the most dynamic institutional contexts, particularly in western Europe and the United States. To this end, I shall analyse briefly the principal problems deriving from the conception of science as an international activity, and more specifically the play of elements present in the contexts of the emergence of local scientific communities. I shall then go on to analyse the consequences of the trends in the sociology of science which have emerged over the last twenty years and, finally, by way of illustration, I shall analyse one particular case history in one molecular biology laboratory in Argentina, which exemplifies a phenomenon that I refer to as subordinated integration .
The universal and the local: some classical approaches There has appeared in recent years a certain body of literature in the sociology (and, of course, the history) of science, which from various standpoints has brought up the problem of the national and international range of scientific practices. The problem is, incidentally, not a new one: the universal nature (and validity) of science are topics which has been recognised for many decades. There are, however, more recent currents of thought which may reverse the terms of the debate. I am referring to the theoretical and methodological contributions made by the various trends which have been emerging and developing since the 1970s and which have in fact meant the break-up of the Mertonian paradigm in the sociology of science.
Indeed, for the classical canon of the sociology of science, the universal nature of scientific practices worked as a general postulate, an apriorism which needed no questioning and was verified by means of the well-known rule of universalism characteristic of the ethos of science. Neither can the problem apparently be solved in authors who, like Ben-David, have effectively taken into account certain local dimensions in studying scientific communities and their roles in different types of societies. Their analysis, which is distinctly mechanistic, puts the emphasis on the presence or absence of the objective conditions deemed necessary for the development of a so-called modern scientific profession.
More recently, Lewis Pyenson s well-known books, devoted to understanding the spread of the major trends in certain disciplines (in particular those of physics and astronomy) centred particularly on Germany and France, propose an analysis of the relationships between the knowledge production in the metropolises and the slower-developing societies which work as recipients of this knowledge.2 Thus, for example, Pyenson partially criticises the approach of dependence theory outlined by Thornton3 according to which the people in a dominated culture are disposed to accept that their vision is inferior, and to accept the culture of the conqueror . On the other hand, he says that German physicists and astronomers do not fit comfortably into dependence theory since, according to him, the German scientists who laid the foundations of scientific knowledge were dominated by a horror of mediocrity .4 Pyenson adds that many scientists felt frustrated in the 1920s by material and human shortcomings which hampered their work in peripheral societies: the equipment would not arrive on time or was unusable; scientific literature was in short supply or impossible to obtain; assistants were difficult to train and, when trained, were difficult to maintain.
Nevertheless, Pyenson, who was writing from the perspective of an analytical model which focused on the spread of knowledge from the metropolises, seems not to be aware of the potential and characteristics which the construction of true research traditions acquire in the societies he analyses. These inseparably socio-cognitive traditions are of necessity articulated over several generations and include, though not as an exclusive resource, the performance of scientists from the metropolises. The implied relationships are, in fact, more complex than the model furnished by Pyenson.
What has allowed these problems to be posed from a perspective undoubtedly more appropriate for understanding scientific practices in general, has been the large number of studies of an empirical nature which have developed over the last few decades. These trends rejected the postulate of the universality of classical sociology on the basis two suppositions. The first of these is that science is not an autonomous sphere of intellectual operations. In constructivist sociology (a term which embraces most of the trends to have emerged since the end of the 1970s) science is presented as something which is no different from (or is reducible to) other alternative forms of cognitive and social effort. In short, science described and understood totally as a socially determined activity. The second of these suppositions which has distanced it from classical analyses has been its concern with the essence of laboratory practices. Thus, sociologists analyse the strengths present in the statement and general acceptance of specific scientific formulations, and aim directly at the content of the investigation.5
There are therefore two basic points of tension which I am proposing in order to come to grips with science and scientific practices within the framework of societies normally defined as peripheral, particularly as regards the patterns of modernisation implied in the processes of industrialisation and, more recently, of what are referred to as post-industrial societies. The first trade-off refers us to a certain dynamic peculiar to science on the international stage, as against the constellation of factors prevailing in the local contexts in which scientific practices develop.
This trade-off, which has frequently been approached from the perspective of centre-periphery relationships, involves two specific areas which must be looked at more closely in several ways: in the first place, the very concept of a centre is questionable. Insofar as it is understood in an acritical way (more often than not the case), it refers vaguely to a diffuse grouping of institutions, actors, practices and cognitive contents (collectively referred to under the heading of the mainstream of international science), which are usually very heterogeneous and having notable differences between countries, disciplines and institutions.6 Otherwise, not all of these elements belonging to the institutions of the centre are equally relevant when it comes to analysing the development of scientific practices taking place in a peripheral context. It is in this single sense that works such as Pyenson s may be relevant, insofar as they have shown the way in which historically determined research groups in some peripheral societies have organised themselves, although his analysis, as I have already pointed out, is orientated above all around showing the influence of particular individuals from specific social and cognitive areas of the various different metropolises . Finally, it is necessary to ask whether it is sufficient that a certain group be found in some of the countries or institutes of greatest relevance in the consideration of the majority of the actors in a given discipline in order for it to be automatically tagged as group belonging to the mainstream.7 Plentiful examples give evidence to the contrary, and analyses such as those proposed by Harry Collins for the identification of what this author denominates the core-sets in the study of the controversies may very well be suitable for identifying the most dynamic groups within each particular discipline.8
Secondly, on the other hand, the scientific communities in the peripheral countries do not constitute homogeneous spaces either, beyond the sociological implications that the term community would seem to imply (and indeed did imply for much of classical sociology). Thus, the research groups, institutions and practices present by analogy substantive differences for example in each of the institutional and disciplinary fields. In this sense, the identification of the different traditions which gradually developed within particular scientific fields, turns out to be a basic task for the analysis of this point of tension. Indeed, very often the different traditions are to be distinguished amongst by a first broad line drawn between these groups and individuals who are more integrated with groups located in institutions and research groups of the centre , and other groups who have not yet displayed these forms of relationship. Bringing this aspect into perspective will surely show us a local scientific community which, contrary to a certain idealised vision, is deeply segmented with what are often deep hiatuses. In the last part of this work I shall attempt to illustrate this.
Thirdly, once it has been possible to think of the centre-periphery relationships in more complex terms than I have proposed, it is effectively necessary to think of the problem from a dynamic and relational perspective. In other words, if it is possible to identify the weft of international relationships displayed by certain research groups in the framework of a local society, this perspective should not then be abandoned in order to deepen an internal analysis of these groups dynamics, leaving aside this character, especially when the external links with certain groups, located in central centres and institutes are particularly relevant to an understanding of the make-up of the local traditions implied.
Towards a new approach
The second point of tension which it is necessary to bring out, refers to the means of approach through which practices within the framework of a peripheral context will have to be studied. I have already highlighted the limitations which classical sociology of science presented, in order to develop these studies further, and which derived from its incapacity to link the social context of emerging scientific practices to the internal relationships in the production (some might say manufacture ) of knowledge, as well as to the contents of that knowledge. The emergence of new trends, which generically I shall call constructivist , has made possible two movements: the first has been the change of object; that is to say, the possibility of establishing some explanatory hypotheses between these three levels of analysis which classical sociology left on one side. Thus, even if at times a slant has predominated which excessively addressed itself to the social and political factors involved, the processes of knowledge production were placed in a space of determinations which caused the dynamics present in local societies to cross the field of scientific work in the same way they crossed any other space of social, symbolic and material interaction. Hence notions arise such as interests , allies , transepistemic arenas of research and resource relationships , to name but a few.9
Secondly, this new way of carrying out research necessarily implied entering into the spaces where knowledge is produced (as well as negotiated, certified and validated), since this was the only way possible to identify the actors, the content of their practices and the resources they mobilise.
Within the last ten years a new generation of the sociology of science has been evolving, partly in parallel with and partly against the constructivist sociology of knowledge. This new generation may be referred to as neo-institutional . This sociology takes into account the role of restrictions in scientific practice, and describes scientific research along two lines of thought: cognitive conditioning that is associated with the achievement of the intellectual career (conditioning in the forms of reasoning, work practices, tests, evaluation and publication criteria); and socio-strategic conditioning which is associated with the maintenance of or growth in professional reputation. This two-pronged analytical framework permits the analysis of economic, political and positional factors on a par with intellectual factors, such as the selection of topics for investigation, instrumentation, reasoning processes and evaluation criteria. This approach makes constant reference to scientific institutions, their supposed operating rules, aspirations and professional realities, and to the history and traditions of science. In this sociological trend, all of these elements go to make up a weft which guides and limits the actions of its practitioners. The observations of scientists on the subject of the physical environment are examined according to the meanings which their actors give them. This treatment of scientific results contrasts with the constructivist interpretation, in which the findings of the research and the physical environment are simply subordinated to the role of resources, mobilised by practitioners in their attempts to ascend in the social, political economic or professional environment.10
The analysis of the problem of peripherality , when analysing it from this new perspective, may illuminate aspects which remain hidden (in classical sociology), or which have been presented in such a way that they are merely the result of the practitioners skill in mobilising resources which impose their point of view on the other actors (constructivist sociology). Here, on the contrary, these resources are analysed as components in a field of dynamic interactions, where the prevalence of any one of these components is not supposed a priori.
Peripheral science or science in the peripheral countries? Hebe Vessuri, in one of the first works, which, in the framework of Latin America, was an attempt at understanding the peripheral nature of scientific knowledge and of the effect of the socio-cultural context on the latter, has distinguished three levels of analysis: the scientific concepts, research subjects and institutions.
About the first of these, Vessuri states that conceptual development has less chance of success in Latin America due to the risks which the creation of genuinely new knowledge presupposes both in terms of its financial and intellectual cost. The scientific communities of the periphery are more conservative than those of the centre and work almost exclusively within the parameters of normal science, in the search for solutions to puzzles whose basic ideas have been conceived elsewhere. 11
At the level of research subjects this author states that in the basic disciplines, the contributions that scientists are in a position to make from the periphery, especially in mature disciplines resides more in the application of a science governed by social needs, than in a truly pure science which is perceived as being more scientific . The most significant case here would be that of medicine.
The level of scientific institutions is to be found in the consideration of its relationships with society, and implies the way power relationships come into play between men, determining work methods, modes of transference and the diffusion of information. According to Papon (1978), they are the concrete expression of the structures and social mentalities which largely shape the mode of oduction of scientific knowledge.
From this perspective, the socio-cultural contexts situated on the periphery would seem to operate as a basic restriction on the consolidation of successful research teams in terms of the evaluation of their peers in the international scientific community .
The Peruvian historian Marcos Cueto (1989) prefers to point up the distinction between peripheral science and what he calls science on the periphery. He considers that the latter of these terms is the more appropriate, since to speak of a peripheral science implies that the science of the slower-developing countries is of marginal importance to the heritage of knowledge in terms of resources, number of researchers and quality of subjects under study. Against this, he proposes the terms science on the periphery and scientific excellence on the periphery to highlight the fact that the scientific work in these countries has its own rules which must be understood not as symptoms of backwardness or modernity, but rather as a part of their own culture and interactions with international science.12 The question that Cueto formulates is relevant, and refers to the tension which I mentioned before: how to understand the combination of creative, modern work in a cultural context which is supposedly traditional and peripheral to the centres of world science. Cueto introduces an important historical contextuation when he states that it is necessary to remember that the current distance which separates the science done by developed countries and that done by underdeveloped ones was not so wide in the past, and that this distance has rather tended to increase over the last forty years.
In a recent work, Cueto (1997) emphasises this tendency, by enquiring after the elements which played a significant role in successful operations in the construction of institutions under adverse conditions. He distinguishes five topics which read something like an agenda of problems: 1) concentration (as against the dispersion of resources and personnel); 2) utilitarianism: the survival of scientific assignments under adverse conditions demands that its practitioners proclaim a certain degree of public utility for their work ; 3) nationalism, which may affect the selection of topics and eventually the content of science; 4) technology: this refers to the difficulties in obtaining equipment and materials, which has lead some researchers to make the equation between resources and products more efficient; and 5) networks: refers to how national and international networks or, more specifically, how the scientists of Latin America (or the periphery) are recruited in long-established networks.13
Cueto’s reflections on the distinction of scientific excellence in peripheral countries are of interest, since they bring out the heterogeneous character of local scientific communities which the concept of peripheral science tends to blur and seems not only to erase the differences within particular scientific communities, but also between various scientific communities located in clearly differentiated contexts. Cueto s attribute of excellence is however more open to debate. True it is that he analyses some groups which have been widely recognised by the international community at large (the most representative being without doubt the Nobel Prize winner Bernardo Houssay in Argentina), but to consider this recognition, based incidentally on the assessment of contributions made by these groups, as the basis for distinction of a successful or modern task and as being less peripheral as a result, may lead to a skewed interpretation. If, as Cueto says, the distance between the science produced in certain countries and the international mainstream was not so wide in the past, there is no reason not to investigate the possible reasons for the widening of the current gap, together with the five topics he mentions and the characteristics of these successful groups.
To consider the three levels of analysis put forward by Vessuri is instructive here, since her first two pose the peripheral problem in relational terms, which Cueto acknowledges and emphasises, and her third level concentrates on the difficulties and restrictions peculiar to the local (institutional) context, which Cueto also acknowledges. Nevertheless, for a comprehensive analysis of this issue, Cueto considers it necessary to add some analytical dimensions a few of which I shall state briefly: a) In the analysis of Cueto s five dimensions, it is necessary to add what Shinn and others (1996) have underlined as the role epistemology plays in creating new categories of knowledge, and in consolidating and institutionalising them. The presence of epistemological variables must be evaluated according to particular disciplines, lines and subjects of research as well as the way in which the contents are effectively built up by their actors. b) The historical dimension and the establishment of specific traditions have already been mentioned. However, scientific traditions must be understood as something more than Petitjean, for example, describes. He points out that the establishment of scientific traditions is the result of the fact that national public policies took science under their wing, as well as the occasional synthesis of elements from different cultures.14 I suggest instead that we consider the articulation of scientific traditions as the establishment of more complex socio-cognitive spaces, as areas of cultural, political, cognitive and institutional identification, which are structured historically through inter-generational relationships, in the workplace and in the various different areas of institutional performance. c) Most of the dimensions which Cueto points out as explanations of the successful career, in particular utilitarianism, nationalism and technology , must be given more scope for explanation. This leads us to the wider problem of the existence of a sort of contract between science and society and, related to this, between science and State.15 In short, as has been demonstrated by numerous authors, this is a matter of understanding that the relatively late development of scientific research in most peripheral societies responded rather to a double movement of imitation of so-called western science closely tied up with the ideal of modernisation on the one hand, and the widely held belief that scientific research was a fundamental element in the socio-economic processes linked to development on the other. This belief, which was associated with the idea of a linear model of innovation which began in basic science and ended in technological development and innovation, presupposed the need to generate a stock of knowledge available to be taken advantage of by the productive fabric.16
Indeed, in many countries knowledge was produced (of variable quality, certainly) which was put at the disposal of society at large. Nevertheless, over many decades and even today, the general problem of science in most countries of the periphery has stemmed from the rare or non-existent appropriation of locally produced knowledge by various social actors; I am referring to actors who are representative of the productive fabric as well as to any other actors in society.
The description of the constellation of factors which have operated in what is effectively a lack of appropriation of locally produced knowledge is a topic which has not yet been sufficiently researched. Naturally amongst these factors, can be mentioned elements peculiar to the logic of local scientific actors, such as the race to publish on the international stage, and consequently to define subjects and lines of enquiry which may fit in with these requirements better than they do with the potential needs of local societies or the content of public policies which in many cases have long emphasised the autonomy of the scientific sphere; as they also fit in with the dynamic of the actors external to knowledge production, in other words companies who, with the odd exception, have tended to underestimate or ignore locally produced knowledge. The same could be said of the use made of locally produced knowledge by the State itself to solve problems in each particular society, although, as Cueto rightly points out, there are some significant exceptions in the area of medical research.17
Perhaps by turning the argument around, one could say that the production of non-appropriated knowledge and, in many cases non appropriable by most societies on the periphery, is in itself one of the few general traits which describe the role of scientific investigation in this type of society. Indeed, many of the commonly described problems such as lack of resources, critical masses , institutional stability and so on, are related to the lack of legitimacy which, over time, scientific practices acquire in these societies. As a consequence of this, most actors see grave difficulties in the usefulness of financing a set of social practices whose benefits beyond the community are at best intangible and at worst non- existent. d) In order to analyse the role of scientific practices within the communities of the periphery, it is not enough simply to identify the existence (or conditions for existence) and the trajectory of the predominant scientific traditions. Furthermore, it is necessary to perform two fundamental, complementary operations: on the one hand to analyse the interaction of those groups most representative of the traditions with their complex weft of social relations in the sense in which I explained it in the previous section (by putting the sort of contract made with civil society and with the State under the microscope.)
On the other hand, an investigation is essential which aims towards the interior of the traditions themselves. In this sense, it is necessary to penetrate beyond the walls of the laboratories in order to establish how a set of sociological parametres, essential for the understanding of the topics which have so far been discussed, operate and are articulated: such as the kind of cognitive conditioning associated with the success of the intellectual career (conditioning in forms of reasoning, working practices, tests, evaluation and publication criteria); and the socio-strategic conditioning associated with the maintenance or growth of professional reputation, strategies, limitations, networks, and so on. With this analytical arsenal deployed for the study of the scientific practices, we are in a position to suggest comprehensive, relational, contextualised explanations of the development of these practices within societies on the periphery.
Peripheral modernity : An example of hypernormal integration
The following example is taken from an empirical investigation carried out some time ago on three molecular biology laboratories in England, France and Argentina. I am referring here to certain aspects which emerge from the analysis of the Argentinean case in particular.18 In the early 1980s, the director of one of the laboratory groups studied, was at the University of Cambridge, England, as a part of his post-doctorate studies. He had arrived there a while before on the recommendation of an old professor of his who had had to go into exile as a consequence of the military coup in Argentina in 1976.19 Whilst he was working in this laboratory, the Argentinean researcher played an important part in the discovery of the fibronectine gene. This gene was especially interesting, since it showed a phenomenon unknown until then (and moreover anomalous). This phenomenon was what is now known as alternative splicing : the form this gene expresses in more than one protein. The significance this process has acquired stems from the fact that it seems to contradict (which was indeed duly demonstrated) the central dogma of molecular biology stated for the first time by Francis Crick. The dogma said that there was a one-way flow of information as a co-linearity between DNA and proteins is produced: In biological systems the genetic information always flows from the genes towards the message-carrying ribonucleic acids, and from the RNA to the proteins. This rapidly took the form of a DNA § RNA§ PROTEIN model in which, by the principle of co-linearity, a particular protein always corresponded to a particular gene. 20
In the research carried out in Cambridge it was discovered that the fibronectine gene expressed in more than one protein, as I have already said. This was particularly relevant for the discipline and the articles published by the English group with the Argentinean researcher s participation had great repercussions, and immediately started being quoted in a good deal of articles written by other researchers belonging to the core-set of the discipline, and in particular, those who were studying the regulation of genetic expression.
When, in the mid 1980s, the researcher in question returned to Argentina and joined the laboratory that we were studying, he organised a work team with young researchers and doctorate students in order to continue researching the different peculiarities of the fibronectine gene. Meanwhile however, a handful of genes with the same capacity to express themselves in more than one protein had already been discovered in the English laboratory. Thus, the researchers in the laboratory in Argentina managed to gather an enormous amount of information on the different forms which the phenomenon took in each of the genes studied, by building a database which allowed them to investigate in depth the fundamental conceptual (theoretical) problem, which was alternative splicing .
Meanwhile in the Buenos Aires laboratory, the research was being directed more and more towards deepening the knowledge of one gene in particular, and therefore losing sight of the conceptual phenomenon as a whole. This is a process which Lemaine (1980) has called hypernormal science , or the fact of researching the smallest details of a certain phenomenon without being able to make (usually) any substantial contribution. This, however, brings to life Kuhn s statement about penetrating into all the cracks and crevices left open by the rule of a paradigm. Lemaine, who has researched this attitude in central countries, attributes to it the character of a conservative strategy on the part of the researchers.21 The necessary corrections should be made, since this phenomenon in a peripheral context may turn out rather to be a substantial knowledge advance strategy insofar as the alternative strategy, which Lemaine would suggest is riskier, is quite simply impossible to put into practice owing to the lack of equipment; sufficiently well-trained researchers; a tradition that produces a sufficient quantity of young researchers for the reproduction of the model itself; more vigorous institutional incentives and, in most cases, an almost total indifference on the part of the private sector in the production of goods and services (especially inasmuch as the research in question shows no signs of having any immediate application to the system of production.)
One of the consequences of what has just been said is that the research group in Buenos Aires remains in contact with other international groups working in the same area (particularly with the British team) by offering information on the headway it is making in the hyperspecification of its line of research. And this has come about because, for the other groups involved, this specification is crucial to the completion of the on-board bulletin of the overall theoretical problem, and to pushing forward their own research. Indeed, an Italian team is playing a similar role to the Argentinean team in its relationship with the Cambridge laboratory.
Another consequence also emerges for the study of science in peripheral countries: just as the relationship of the Argentinean team with their English peers could be thought of in terms of a subordinated integration , still I must bring out the phenomenon of integration itself, since thanks to this the Argentinean scientist can count on a considerable amount of information and can constantly discuss the progress of all the research on this subject. This suggests some difference with regard to other groups (the majority) in Argentina where, as there are no mechanisms of integration, find themselves isolated or at best manage to reproduce the relationships of subordinated integration. But within their own borders.
I must add that the kind of strategy which I have labelled subordinated integration nevertheless makes it possible for groups such as the one studied to have the chance of gaining access to financing from abroad which they would otherwise find difficult to lay their hands on. From the point of view of the researchers who make up the Argentinean research group (and this point of view seems to be a common denominator in this mode of integration) everyday practice is perceived almost as a heroic activity which strives to produce knowledge at a level of excellence, despite the adverse conditions caused by a local context which is seen to be hostile or at least indifferent to the efforts they believe they are making. In this sense, the tradition founded by our illustrious predecessors Houssay and Leloir, who staked their claim on scientific excellence, but developed in Argentina, in Latin America, seems to be functioning at full capacity, despite the fact that conditions are shifting faster than ever.
NOTES
Institute for Social Studies of Science and Technology, National University of Quilmes, Argentina.
I refer specifically to two of Pyenson s works (1985 and 1993).
Archimbal Thornton s Doctrines of Empire, New York, 1965. This approach is not to be confused with the series of statements known as dependence theory (teor¡a de la dependecia) proposed by Latin American authors such as F.H. Cardoso and E. Faletto (1971).
Pyenson (1985) p. 307.
See Kreimer (1998); in particular Terry Shinn s excellent introduction.
Raj (1996) points out quite rightly that …it is common to view Northern science as a homogeneous, undifferentiated whole, which was, or rather not, adequately transmitted to the erstwhile colonised part of the globe. Yet, over the last decade, a growing number of studies have endeavoured to show that scientific practices and contents are different in the different cultures that constitute the North … (p. 285).
Shinn (1983) distinguishes a radical (or global) universality, such as that which has been proposed by the Mertonian school, from a restricted universality: If scientific practice and discourse generally privilege a category of knowledge based on the global traits of the entities and on the conditions of their interaction, independently of the spatial and temporal variations, this expression of universality is not the only form of knowledge to exist. Another universality (equally comprehensible, coherent and rigorous) is addressed instead to the local manifestations of the phenomena; by reflecting the local dimensions of global happenings it puts the emphasis not on an idealised representation but rather on the details, particularisms and anomalies of the objects and actions. This class of universality, i.e. restricted universality, tends to prevail in the community of experimenters, where the object of the research enforces certain social and cognitive restrictions.
See Collins (1981).
To get an idea of how these concepts are utilised, see for example, Latour and Woolgar (1978), Latour (1989), Knorr-Cetina (1981), Barnes (1974 and 1985). The idea of manufacture is well-exposed in Chalmers (1990).
The description of this trend I owe to Terry Shinn, one of its best and brilliant exponents.
Vessuri (1983) p. 17.
Cueto (1988) p. 28.
Cueto (1997) pp. 239-243.
Petitjean (1996) p. 8. My italics. 15. Some of the classical analyses which have pointed out the existence of this sort of contract are Price (1965), Salomon (1970) and Rose and Rose (1972). More recently, Rip and Van der Meulen (1996), Elzinga and Jamison (1995); and Cozens and Gieryn (1990).
For a general analysis, see the collaboration by Salomon, Sagasti and Sachs (1994).
Pyenson, for example, suggests that Europeans at the time thought that the problem lay with an inability of non- Westerners to understand scientific logic. Yet analytical reasoning had little to do with the matter, for in fields of knowledge based on description and classifying pathology, geology and the like Argentines and Chinese had by the 1920s made valuable contributions. At the same time, the mathematical tools of exact sciences did not pose a problem of assimilation, for mathematical manipulation, much like cooking chemicals or collecting butterflies, was a technique that could be mastered. On the contrary, it was the implicit picture of the world firing the imagination of researchers in exact sciences that found so few receptive minds. While technology easily leapt over cultural boundaries, science remained culture-bound. Pyenson (1983) p. 306. I understand that the problem is exactly the inverse; if things were this way round, the production of scientific knowledge in the countries on the periphery would have no trouble responding to the needs of each local society.
18 See Kreimer (1997a)
I have tried to show elsewhere how scientific migrations constitute a basis for the introduction of new subjects and new lines of enquiry into peripheral contexts. See Kreimer (1997b).
See the excellent history written by Fran‡ois Gros (1986) as well as Morange (1994)
21 Lemaine s research on hypernormal science constitutes a sound sample of the heterogeneity of the scientific practices of the centre .
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The author is Professor at the University of Quilmes and Researcher at CONICET, Argentina.
Address: pkreimer@ricyt.edu.ar