Social appropriation of science and technology in the area of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Palmor y Río Piedras, Magdalena, Colombia)

Abstract

The Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta (SNSM) is an area of great socio-cultural and biophysical complexity, which can be seen in its concrete agricultural practices, such as coffee growing.  These are a product of socio-political processes, transnational economies, and technoscientific interventions.  In this article, the sociomaterial relations that are found between different human and non-human actors that participate in the processes of technological transfer for the production of coffee that was made possible by the National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers and the coffee growers of the SNSM of the Palmor and Rio Piedras areas of Magdalena, Colombia was studied. Connections formed due to cultural, social, agricultural, political technoscientific and economic relationships that constantly reconfigure the production of coffee and the coffee farm were documented. The focus guiding this article is framed in social and cultural studies of science and technology in which the social appropriation of science and technology (SAS&T) can be understood as a process of meeting, dialogue, negotiation and reconfiguration of knowledge and practices of coffee growing in which a heterogenous group of human and non-human actors, as well as sociotechnical processes and devices play important roles.  A methodology including ethnography and document review was used that permitted the exploration of aspects of the history of the conformation of these areas since the 19th century, the production of coffee, and the ways in which coffee growers have negotiated and appropriated knowledge and practices that are important for coffee growing.  As a result, it has become apparent that in the processes of transfer of new technologies, there are many human (coffee growers, extension workers) and non-human actors (seeds, plants, tools, soil analysis) that participate.  This implies that there are diverse negotiation processes that are expressed in the plurality of ways that technology is appropriated on the part of the coffee growers with respect to political (internal conflicts), economic (crisis), and ecological (environmental alteration) aspects.  In conclusion, it is proposed that transfer and appropriation should not be understood in terms of the generation of final products that are adopted by non-experts users, but rather as elements and dialogue spaces for the negotiation of reality in socially and politically heterogenous contexts.  Likewise, SAS&T is not the ultimate goal of scientific development, but rather a strategy that can be used with the different actors to evaluate the implications of assuming techno-scientific knowledge and technologies, as well as to avoid epistemic homogenization by highlighting the diverse conditions and histories that characterize coffee growing and its actors.