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Dilemmas of science in developing countries on the road to the Knowledge Society. Hebe Vessuri IVIC, Venezuela. “Knowledge Economy” and “Knowledge Society”.
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Dilemmas of science in developing countrieson the road to the Knowledge Society Hebe Vessuri IVIC, Venezuela
“Knowledge Economy” and “Knowledge Society” • “Knowledge Economy” and “Knowledge Society” are concepts that reflect the growing importance of knowledge in our contemporary world. They both underscore that whether we speak of the economy, or indeed society as a whole, the knowledge component is so crucial that it can be used to characterize both of them. • In this general statement most people, not least academics, usually take satisfaction. • After all, knowledge is almost universally considered to be a public good, and something that must be supported.
As knowledge becomes a key defining aspect of contemporary societies , it also becomes an increasingly politically-laden concept, and one on which a range of social interests make a claim. This is also why we have experienced, in the past decade or more, an increasingly tense, divisive, yet rich and creative, debate on the conditions of knowledge production, dissemination, and absorption. It is no longer enough to leave these issues with the academic community. They are becoming increasingly important to larger groups, rapidly expanding beyond the OECD, their classical core nations, to embrace the better part of the worlds’ two hundred nations. Knowledge as a defining aspect of contemporary societies
Democratic deficit • Knowledge-based economies are growing all around us, they are market driven and perform according to a market ideology, without always acknowledging the democratic, ethical, and normative dimensions of science and scientific institutions. • The knowledge economies we live in suffer from a democratic deficit. • This does not mean to say that they have to be overturned or rolled back —that opportunity may not even exist. But what seems clear is that the democratic deficit needs to be addressed if science, academic life and culture should survive in this era of fierce global competition.
Transformation of higher education and research • Worldwide, the landscape of higher education, research and knowledge production are undergoing profound transformation in the wake of the liberalization of economies. • Unprecedented global social and economic forces like the global mobility of citizens, capital resources and knowledge; and the increasing demand of skilled labor, exert enormous pressure upon higher education and research systems and structures.
Dilemma(s) of Science in Poor Countries • These processes of change are embedded in an extremely complex reality, in which no self-evident choices are available and where actions have multiple effects in a dynamically interdependent environment. • Trapped between changing policies and inconsistent budgets, between the pursuit of economic development and international recognition, science in the poor countries has been marginal but seems to be on the verge of being deeply touched.
Problems of identity for science in the poor countries • Since colonial times, science and technology have been associated with the various modernization projects. • But even now most of humanity still lives on the sidelines of modern techno-science and its related networks. • Today as in the past an issue about science in poor countries concerns questions such as: • To be or not to be…what? • Added complexity to the instability of the identity of contemporary science… • What science? • Science for what? • Whom does it benefit?
Fractures in the social order: manifestations Information / Disinformation Communications /Incommunication Participation / Exclusion Democracy / Authoritarism Science /Charlatanism Science / Magic Science / Religion Science / Politics Science / Business
Invisibility • Science in poor countries has been doubly invisible: internally and externally (or domestically and internationally). • National society (the scientist’s fatherland) knows little and is even less interested in what its scientists do. • Thus it does not pose “scientific” demands to them. Science is assumed to be carried out elsewhere, where the sources of technology and wealth are supposed to lie.
The international mirrors • Coverage of developing countries research by the international data bases is scandalously inadequate and insufficient. • The stratification of the international system and its rules of the game prevent a healthier visibility and therefore a greater participation of scientific groups from developing countries in international collaboration.
Visibility strategies of scientists from poor countries • Ceasing to be a scientist and becoming a university rector, member of parliament, president of the republic, businessman, and a number of other jobs more visible and better remunerated. • Emigrating to pursue a research career in a laboratory or research centre in an advanced country. • Networkingwith other groups outside his own country that have more visibility, have greater chances of getting research funds and may carry him on to the wagon of the train in which they travel.
The international professional • The widely held notion that knowledge is created and transmitted through “networks” is obviously linked to the inroads made by information technologies, but its implications are more far reaching. • Today’s networks are made possible by the existence of standard-setting systems in science, which since the nineteenth century have produced an “international professional”, as a single model of mutually recognized qualifications across national and cultural frontiers.
When scientists “travel”, physically or virtually, the basic assumption is that they move in an “epistemologically shared universe” where the “internationally qualified” professional copes satisfactorily in “internationally standardized” conditions. Through common standards and the mutual recognition of qualifications by means of the localization of higher and postgraduate education in the most diverse countries, even those countries without a scientific tradition may set the surmounting of national and ethnic cultural barriers as one of their main objectives. An epistemologically shared universe
Knowledge networks • The new ways and means of conducting research and teaching people how to do so emphasize the exploration, understanding and optimization of the socio-technical arteries and networks through which products, services, knowledge and information circulate. • Objects and practices adapt and are reconfigured as they travel. • Whereas the structural characteristics of a network are quite easy to distinguish, it is often difficult to determine not only the social and cultural but also the political relations generated through it.
The place of networks in the contemporary knowledge dynamics • It is important to try to discover how science travels as much as trying to determine whether it belongs to a given culture. • In the process, the distinctions between global and local and issues about networks being between equals or unequals would very likely be modified and blurred. • More richly textured responses are required for many of the questions raised by knowledge networks.
How does techno-science travel • Science today travels along set paths and channels which manifestly are not the most adequate, mechanisms for bringing about a world with less inequality and for satisfying social needs in very different situations. • Indeed, science has sometimes led in the developing countries to the consolidation of social sectors that have held back or even prevented broader social participation, thereby obstructing democratic modernity.
The unequalled import of education and science • For the world to meet the challenges of the future, to ease political tension and improve the possibilities for economic and social development, it is mandatory that higher education and science become more evenly distributed around the world. • Education and science are a point of departure. Knowledge and skills are at least as important for the future of the developing world in this century as it used to be for the developed and industrialised countries in the past.
The only notion of engagement that makes sense in the complex landscape of higher education and research in different parts of the world is a multidimensional one whose internal tensions and often unpredictable consequences require deft steering and constant negotiation. We may wonder whether this view is sustainable for universities in poor countries, acutely constrained in their engagement choices by local socio-economic and political impediments, and by the disadvantaged positioning of their countries and regions within the global asymmetries of power. Multidimensional engagement All this makes them more vulnerable to certain types of ‘reformist’ discourses that relate to economic liberalization.
The ideal of the “Knowledge society” • Social engagement must encompass and advance values and goals that relate to the many dimensions of human development. • For this to happen, the notion of the ‘knowledge society’ will have to unshackle itself from the monopolistic demands of the market, and be re-conceptualized to include political, social and ethical considerations that currently are absent, only weakly gestured to or hinted at.
