The Independence of Brazilian Culture

Oil is the basis of development for the entire world. Even though it must imported and supplies are limited, nearly all energy is produced from fossil fuels. The oil crisis of the 1970s brought these facts to the everyday lives of citizens around the world. While other nations forgot these lessons within a decade, Brazil drove the movement to rely on their own means of production, in this case sugar-cane derived Ethanol. Over the following decades, Brazil turned this specialized knowledge and local commodity into an engineering and economic boon. It is now the world's most efficient producer of ethanol and produces much of its electricity through sugarcane biomass generation. Why did Brazil choose to embrace this technology at a time when no other nation did? What circumstances were unique to Brazil to make the ethanol industry successful where others failed? The answer lies in Brazil's history of colonization and slave labor, its abundance of fertile land to grow sugar cane, and government commitment to the success of the nation's ethanol program.

When the Portuguese arrived in Brazil in 1500, the population of indigenous peoples was approximately three million; more than Portugal itself. Accounts tell of indigenous tribes being curious and open to trade with the new arrivals. Initially, the Portuguese bartered with the natives to bring brazilwood and other forest items to the coast. However, when the natives had accumulated all the tools and pots that they needed, they showed a lack of interest in continuing the arrangement. Consequently, the Portuguese turned to violent persuasion. The enslavement of the natives shaped much of the history of Brazil that would follow.

How did the country of Portugal, with a population of around one million, conquer a country with over 3 million? There were many tribes, nearly all with different languages and some with histories of war and distrust. The Europeans took advantage of the cultural differences among the Indian peoples to pit one against the other. They used historical vendettas to keep the Indians from uniting against them and subsequently to obtain slaves. The conquest of Brazil was not a simple toppling of an organized empire, but a drawn out process that spread slowly over huge distances, different peoples, and centuries.

Since the arrival of the Portuguese, sugar has been the most important commodity of Brazil.

They realized that some of the most moist and fertile soil in the world is located on the seaboard of what is now the State of Pernambuco. It's climate is very suitable for growing sugar and it is also conveniently located as a port of call for sailing ships traveling from Portugal to West Africa and the Orient. A triangular trade soon flourished, in which slave labor was imported from West Africa to work on sugar plantations. The sugar was exported to markets in Europe where rising demand was beginning to outrun supplies.

While a desire to stay independent of the need to import oil and the abundance of sugar cane make for a great start to ethanol production, the government's commitment to the program is what advanced it to a global powerhouse. First, the government offered credit guarantees and low-interest loans for construction of new refineries. Second, a state trading enterprise began purchasing ethanol at favorable prices. Third, gasoline prices were set to give ethanol a competitive advantage. Fourth, a marketing program was launched, with the slogan “Let’s unite, make alcohol.” Finally, the state-owned oil company, Petrobras, began making investments for distribution of ethanol throughout the country. Without these measures the oil industry might have been able to muscle ethanol out of the market.

Brazil is leading the world in efficient ethanol production because of their history of oppression, their subsequent desire for independence, their bounty of sugar cane, and the support of the government. Lessons can be learned from analyzing how Brazil became successful. While it might not be able to be translated to every country, some might have the opportunity to become more energy independent thanks to the pioneering steps taken by Brazil.

References: 1. Sandalow, David. (2006) ETHANOL: LESSONS FROM BRAZIL

2. Country Studies. Brazil. The Indigenous Population. http://countrystudies.us/brazil/4.htm

Call for Papers: Five Sessions with a Latin American Emphasis / Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S)

Five Sessions with a Latin American Emphasis

Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)Annual Meeting.

November 2-5, 2011, Cleveland, Ohio USA.

http://www.4sonline.org/meeting

This year the 4S gathers in Cleveland, Ohio.  The issues dominating the news continue to be the global economic crisis, human rights (freedom, education, health), energy constraints, climate change, sustainable development, and global terror.  These inter-dependent challenges inspire much popular and scholarly attention, while advances in science and technology over the past century are often framed as both the culprit and panacea in discussions of how we arrived in these troubled global waters and how we might navigate our way out of them.

As has been noted in past STS work, the manner in which science and technology are produced or translated and then employed to address challenges depends greatly on historical and national contexts.  The production of knowledge about the interactions of science, technology and society is not exempt from this contextualization.  Yet much like the production of tehno-scientific knowledge, STS knowledge production remains primarily EuroAmerican despite the field's attempts to broaden its conceptual perspectives.

The 4S has committed to reducing the geographical and intellectual barriers that have divided and at times isolated global STS communities.  To this end, the 2014 4S meeting is scheduled for Buenos Aires, Argentina in conjunction with the annual meeting of its Latin American counterpart ESOCITE.  To continue the dialogue on Latin American STS (that stretches back to the 2004 Paris 4S joint meeting with EASST), the 4S Latin American section is proposing five thematic sessions for this year’s conference in Cleveland, Ohio.

The general goal of these five sessions is three-fold:

(1)  To explore the contributions to thinking about science, technology and society by scholars in Latin America: past and present.

(2)  To provide scholars from around the world working on Latin American STS issues a space to showcase their investigation and findings.

(3)  To further contextualize how science and technology innovation, diffusion and adaptation in Latin America are antecedents for, and perhaps solutions of, global and local challenges in this region.

Papers are invited to contribute to the following five thematic sessions:

1. In search of “lines of flights” in Latin America

Session Organizer:

Ivan da Costa Marques [imarques@nce.ufrj.br]

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

Session Description:

Reliable knowledge today is strongly identified with scientific knowledge.  The overwhelming majority of scientific facts and artifacts, however, are produced in the North and arrive in their stable forms (as ready objects) in Latin America, where they enjoy the attributes of universality and neutrality (in spite of STS results).  In these terms it is possible to say that modern sciences from the West provide a cage that confines the space available for Latin Americans to search for solutions of their practical problems, since it would make no sense “to do” spaces and times or propose objects outside universal and neutral knowledge – they would be “simply wrong” since Latin Americans usually lack the resources to build counter-laboratories.  As an example, in the name of science the Brazilian Association of Nutritionists oppose local habits of nutrition that are found effective by large parts of the Brazilian population to nourish their children.  This session indicates a special welcome to papers about programs and/or controversies involving conflicts between Western scientific knowledge and local practical knowledge.

2. Technologies of Health Care in Latin America

Session Organizer:

Maria Olarte Sierra [olarteSierra@gamil.com]

University of Manchester

Session Description:

Given that the STS work on Latin American’s appropriation and transformation of technologies is increasing in numbers and relevance, we propose a panel that explores STS on health care technologies in Latin America.  The panel has three objectives.

(1)  To present the diverse academic interest and scientific productions from people working on medical technologies in Latin American realities

(2)  To give room to discussing the theoretical and methodological contribution that such scholars are making to the broader field of STS studies.

(3)  To enable a network of scholars, with similar interest, in the area of STS and medical technologies working in and on Latin America.

Papers are invited to address issues such as: Approaches at studying specific medical technologies; studies addressing medical technologies in relation with social processes; and studies on power/knowledge struggles over medical or technological authority

3. Bio-technologies: Policy, Practice, & Scientific Change in Latin America

Session Organizer:

Christina Holmes [christinapholmes@gmail.com]

EHESS-CNRS, Paris, France

Session Description:

Biotechnology represents an important 'growth' area, in terms of scientific knowledge and publication possibilities, as well as presenting potentially applied uses.  It has been suggested as an important way of improving agricultural cultivars; as a way of mapping, managing, and profiting from biodiversity; as a way of protecting a country's genetic patrimony; and as a way of creating new industrial and medical applications.

This panel aims to foster discussion about biotechnology and Latin America by asking the following three questions:

(1)  How has Latin America interacted with biotechnology?

(2)  How have the policies and practices surrounding biotechnology in Latin America compared to wider, global trends?

(3)   How are biotechnologies part of wider processes of scientific change?

4. The Global South and the Global Cyberspace

Session Organizer:

Yuri Takhteyev [yuri.takhteyev at utoronto.ca]

University of Toronto

Fifteen years ago an American poet living in California proclaimed the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, a world “both everywhere and  nowhere,” foretelling the coming obsolescence of the “Governments of the  Industrial World” from China to the United States, thanks to the rise of  the new digital information and communication technologies.  In the  following years, those technologies have played a key role in the  visions of the coming globalized world.  At the same time, the Cyberspace has for the most part been a “northern” domain.

This panel will explore the place of the Global South in the Global Cyberspace, as well as more broadly the relationship between ICTs and globalization in southern contexts.   We welcome papers looking at how ICTs are used by different actors as tools in their own globalization projects, as well as papers looking at the increasing globalization of the development of ICTs.  The latter could include the more recent outsourcing of what used to be considered “northern” high-tech work to the south, the increased role of the distributed communities of software developers (including those working on free / open source software), as the well as the more mundane importation of “northern” ICTs into the southern contexts.

The papers should focus on the Global South, including in particular Latin America, considering either the south-north ties or the lateral ties between southern regions. Historical perspectives on the relationship between ICT and globalization would be highly welcome, including those looking back to the days before the 1990s.

5. Environment, Technology and Society Interactions in Latin America

Session Organizer:

Rick B. Duque [rick.duque@univie.ac.at]

University of Vienna

Session Description:

This panel converges upon research focused on both the natural and anthropogenic risks inherent when communities and environments collide.  The impact and aftermaths of tragic tsunamis/floods in Indonesia, the US gulf coast, and Pakistan and recent earthquakes in Italy, China, Haiti, and Chile reminds us that both resource poor and rich communities are at risk of extreme natural forces, technological failures, bureaucratic mismanagement and root social asymmetries.  In resource-poor regions, environmental and technological risks are often magnified and the resilience of marginalized communities and indigenous peoples tested often beyond their limits.  To address sub-regional distinctions and offer solutions, this session invites comparative and case study papers that delve into historical and contextual accounts of colonial and post-colonial environmental and technological dialogues in Latin America. 

The session is particularly interested in attracting work that compares indigenous and non-indigenous techno-scientific responses to the environmental and social challenges of free-market global development like for example climate change, ozone depletion, water controversies, urban sprawl, waste management, alternative energy sources, disaster preparedness, industrial and natural toxic exposure, and the conservation of indigenous forests, fisheries and sacred artifacts and lands.

Please send an abstract of a paper (minimum 250 words, maximum of 400 words) to the appropriate session organizer above.

Submission deadline: March 7, 2011.

Progress Report 1: The Untold Story of Technology

For my research project, I’d really like to expose the other side of technology and advancements of Western culture. For example, I feel that engineering, being born out of capitalism and modern technology, is a lot history. HIS-story is told, the story of the conqueror and it is the same with technology and engineers who create or implement this technology. We only see benefits and progress come out of it because we are the ones who are benefit from it, but what about the other effects that it has on other communities? What may be progress and advancements to us, may be taking a huge step back for others. It is important I feel to realize different world views and how these world views may affect how we view progress.

One example of where I got this idea is the emergence of a ‘new field’ in which humans study animals and their use of plants as medicine. This has been in existence for thousands of centuries, Native peoples’ have always done this, this has been part of the reason they have been able to gain knowledge of the plants and eco-system. This is exactly what I intend to explore with this research project, how we may feel we are using ‘cutting edge’ technology and ‘progressing’ because we are a superior Western culture, but, what if other countries employ the same methods in different ways, but are ignored simply because they do not compete with the West? What if others have more effective and efficient methods?

I don’t have a specific country that I’d like to look at, but I feel it’d be interesting to look at indigenous cultures and go from there. I plan on going to your office hours for a better discussion on direction I should take this.

I also think it'd be interesting to look more into the Academic Military Industrial Complex and how it affects our education as well as shapes our entire world view as a Western Culture.

Progress Report: Technologies & Indigenous Societies

I like the idea technologies are not just Ipods and GPS. I like that engineering can be craftsmanship on a lego level rather than something futuristic. Having no experience of engineering, I have made it into something much larger and scarier in my mind, something I could never comprehend or lend a hand to. I did not think I could see its real products in my life because I thought it was so abstract that it existed somewhere else, rather than the bridges I walk across or the lamp I turn on. I only saw the manufacturing of it, the workers building the bridges and not beyond it. 

Then going to Cal Poly, where the word engineering carries weight, it MEANS something big and intelligent, that thing became scarier in my mind. As important as engineers are in this world we live in, they are not the only important part, everyone is important. Anything anyone contributes is important. That is not a value equally shared, and a sentiment I do not feel here, especially being an Ethnic Studies student.

For my research, I am excited to pursue the realm of often left out technologies and innovations that are invented by indigenous societies. Indigenous knowledge are important. Along this avenue, it is interesting to see what “the other” has imposed on the "lacking", on those “in need” because their economies are different or their societies are not the same as The West. It is not OK for someone to tell someone else what they need and what will solve all their problems. That is not their right or responsibility.

I understand, however, how the line of overbearing imposition is quite different than helping out a neighbor. It might be the process of introducing a new technology to a “different” society that truly exemplifies the rightness or wrongness. It is also important to understand how a product will affect the land and people, for these very reasons, a technology may not be innovative at all, or helpful in the least.

I would also like to find an invention or tool or piece of technology that does not exist in our “industrialized world”, but one that should be adopted to better our world. Such a thing exists and The West would most certainly benefit from different perspectives and ways of knowing than what has traditionally been done.

My research is in its beginning stages. I have been sifting through various ideas and settled on this topic as something I am extremely interested in.

For instance, I found this great article to work off of: “Designing Agricultural Technology for African Women Farmers: Lessons from 25 Years of Experience” by Cheryl R. Doss. This article clearly identifies the role gender plays in a social organization and how agriculture production is affected by social order. Thus any new technologies greatly affect production practices and culture.

In class, we have thus far reflected on the ways professional engineering has progressed in France and Britain. Reflecting on my own about American engineering, the formation has been crafted by efficiency and uniformity, Saving Money and Time! However, Doss asserts something quite different for Africa that would not fit into the American version of engineering: “Because of the heterogeneity across Africa, it is difficult to prescribe specific universal remedies or even appropriate remedies for a specific region or country . . . the factors that should be taken into consideration when developing technologies,so that women benefit rather than being disadvantaged. Although we cannot simply take lessons from one part of Africa and apply them directly to another place, we can identify the factors that encourage or limit the adoptions of new technology and affect how the benefits and costs will be distributed within households and communities” (2).

I will further be examining the role globalization has played in the process of the production of indigenous knowledge and how they are often shut out. For instance, this research was conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa regarding Rain Water Harvesting and expresses that although rain water harvesting has been around for thousands of years, indigenous knowledge are often disregarded. Potential is recognized but the authors of “Indigenous knowledge as support tool in rainwater harvesting” assert that indigenous knowledge “remains a neglected resource . . . for the lack of guidelines for recording and applying” the knowledge (2).

I am going to further pursue the research I have presented. Although limited, I am going to find ways indigenous societies around the world, most particular in Africa, have created technologies and perhaps some that should be adopted in the United States.