Colombia, World Power of Life
On Sunday, August 7, Gustavo Petro will take office as president and Francia Márquez Mina as vice president at the Casa de Nariño in the Colombian capital. Environmental protection and science will be key priorities for their administration, as they have emphasized since the beginning of the election campaign. In this vein, a draft document from the Historical Pact, titled “ National System of Science, Technology, and Innovation for a Good Life, a Delicious Life, and the Effective Exercise of a Multi-Family Democracy ” [1], began circulating last May as a framework for the future Ministry of Science. This document outlines the need to change the hegemonic science and technology model, which has caused “great harm to nature and societies,” and to open a debate on the production and distribution of knowledge, and the use of science, technology, and innovation for the majority of the population, not just for a privileged few.
It also proposes that basic and applied research be financed by the State and that the National System of Science, Technology and Innovation be the instrument to achieve local and regional articulation between universities, businesses, communities and public entities, in addition to proposing the creation of a mission for "the recognition of our natural, cultural, territorial diversity, which articulates the sciences and diverse knowledge to support a Colombia World Power of Life".
Where should science go? This is a question we at the Latin American Council of Social Sciences have been raising and exploring since its founding in 1967. Therefore, we believe that the debate currently underway in Colombia will contribute substantially to understanding the differences between hegemonic policies and emerging alternatives that are defining new contours within a horizon of progress, diversity, and respect for life in all its forms.
“Whenever there are significant changes in a country’s science policy, dissenting positions arise and a national debate erupts,” argues the Portuguese intellectual Boaventura de Sousa Santos [2], echoing the strong rejection by status quo sectors of the plans of the incoming Colombian government. This is how he begins his response to an article published on July 15 by Colombian researcher Moisés Wasserman in El Tiempo of Bogotá [3] , which criticizes the Historical Pact document. According to Wasserman, “science does not progress through a power struggle, but rather through the challenges of reality and experimentation. The hegemony of a science is nothing more than the measure of its success in coming as close as possible to true descriptions of reality.”
Among the various reactions generated by the article, the Colombian anthropologist Arturo Escobar [4] emphasized that “Professor Wasserman does not report that the document he criticizes recommends relying on the Mission of Wise Men [5] (of which Professor Wasserman himself has been a member), strengthening the existing research system and its network of universities, supporting the construction of productive economies for well-being, and seeking the best conditions for environmental sustainability and the food and energy transitions, among many other widely accepted goals in the face of the current crisis.” And he adds: “The Historical Pact proposes to build a science and technology for the 21st Century, which subordinates science, technology and the economy to the defense of life and the Good Living of all and not to accumulation, as has always been the case (…) We are witnessing a broad process of civilizational challenges that seek to go beyond the dominance of the Western model, without ignoring its most important achievements, but reorienting them to the service of life and the Earth and with priority for the groups that have suffered the most from the consequences of the model: the nobodies.”
The Colombian educator and social researcher Alejandro Mantilla Quijano [6] argues that “Wasserman defends an understanding of scientific work in which good reasons always prevail, good research always wins, and intellectual virtues have no social limits. However, this is not the reality of actual scientific research, nor does it reflect the typical cases of knowledge production in societies marked by inequality. Disconnecting scientific work from the social context in which it occurs can not only lead to a flawed, reified understanding of knowledge production, but can also mislead the public policy on science and technology that Colombia needs.”
Coincidentally, for Boaventura de Sousa Santos , “Professor Wasserman defends the conventional position that was hegemonic until the 1960s, when the social studies of science and the epistemological conceptions that developed from them emerged.” He later adds: “Science progresses not only through scientific curiosity and experimentation (problematic in itself) but above all through strong economic (and military) interests that guide the paths of science through the funding they control. (…) The hegemonic science that Professor Wasserman speaks of, certainly in good faith, is the science that has not yet grasped the real scientific context in which it operates and continues to imagine itself protected from political, cultural, and social influences within its ivory tower. This illusion of autonomy stems from the unquestioned routine of funding criteria.”
He then adds that “the indigenous and Afro-descendant movement of the continent played an important role in showing that there were Afro-Indigenous philosophies that started from a conception of nature different from that which underlies modern science (…) While for modern science nature belongs to us, for Afro-Indian philosophies we belong to nature.”
Alejandro Mantilla Quijano, in turn, understands that “in societies marked by inequality, racism, or patriarchy, it is common for people who exhibit intellectual virtues and belong to discriminated groups not to succeed, for their knowledge not to be validated, or for their findings to be met with contempt. That is what the question of epistemic injustice is about.”
“What is ultimately at stake,” Arturo Escobar understands , “ is a necessary reinvention of humanity and the meaning of life.”
“In light of all this, it is important to formulate and discuss science policy assuming that what is proper to humans is not the truth, but rather the search for the truth,” Boaventura de Sousa Santos concluded.
From CLACSO we contribute to this debate by sharing the texts of these intellectuals, who will surely be joined by many others who express multiple voices and those other ways of producing science for the good life, the tasty life and the effective exercise of a plural and multicolored democracy.
[1] https://es.scribd.com/document/582145175/SISTEMA-NACIONAL-DE-CIENCIA-TECNOLOGIA-E-INNOVACION-SNCTI-PARA-EL-BUEN-VIVIR-EL-VIVIR-SABROSO-Y-EL-EJERCICIO-EFECTIVO-DE-UNA-DEMOCRACIA-MULTICOLOR
[2] https://www.clacso.org/la-politica-cientifica-en-discusion/
[3] “Hegemonic Science” and “Epistemic Justice”, El Tiempo, July 15, 2022
[4] https://www.clacso.org/breve-respuesta-al-profesor-moises-wasserman/
[5] The Mission of Wise Men is a group of experts that began operating in 2019, covering different areas of knowledge, with the objective of “contributing to the construction and implementation of the public policy of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation and the strategies that Colombia must build in the long term, to respond to productive and social challenges in a scalable, replicable and sustainable way.”
[6] https://www.clacso.org/el-conocimiento-la-politica-publica-y-la-injusticia-epistemica-una-respuesta-a-moises-wasserman/
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