This article introduces the concept of “deeper frames” to expand how Science and Technology Studies (STS) historicizes public participation with technoscience. While STS has called for sociological and historical “opening up” of technoscientific practices, its engagements with democratic participation remain historically thin and geographically Global North-centric. Drawing on Latin American participation traditions, particularly in Chile, this article reveals how participation practices are layered sedimentations of historical, geopolitical, and institutional framings, what I term deeper frames. By unpeeling these layers across three political periods, the article shows how radical participatory imaginaries from the twentieth century have been systematically depoliticized, not through epistemic failure, but through authoritarian interventions and neoliberal governance. Deeper frames thus serve both as a methodological lens to historicize participation design and as a critical resource to reclaim more emancipatory democratic imaginaries. The article concludes by outlining how STS can leverage deeper frames for a participatory return.
This article examines what it means to speak for nature in the Anthropocene, a moment in which the Earth's agencies increasingly reshape political, epistemic, and institutional arrangements. The Anthropocene is approached as a challenge to inherited modes of representation, raising questions about how beings whose agencies circulate across heterogeneous networks become encounterable, articulable, and capable of participating in collective life. The article brings Bruno Latour's principle of irreduction into dialogue with his demogenetic proposal, a term used to designate a new process of engendering peoples through which heterogeneous beings are composed and granted a voice in common affairs. The analysis develops through an interplay of philosophical, anthropological, and geoliterary materials. Latour's reworking of Gaia provides a conceptual framework for engaging these intersections, presenting the Earth as a constellation of actants whose reactions and demands exceed the categories of nature, object, or environment. Through this lens, the article examines the shifting conditions under which beings become perceptible and representable within shared processes of world-making. The article concludes by outlining the conceptual, institutional, and situated arrangements through which nature may appear as a participant in collective life. Rather than seeking unified voices or stable representational forms, it highlights the practices and procedures that sustain encounters with heterogeneous agencies, contributing to ongoing debates in the environmental humanities and critical social sciences on agency, representation and the composition of collectives.
This article introduces the “tero science” hypothesis to analyze the dynamics of knowledge production between the Global South and the Global North. The tero, a small South American bird, sings away from its nest to distract predators and protect its young. Using this analogy, we examine how collaborative research agendas – which supposedly aim to solve “urgent local problems of the periphery” – ultimately serve the regulatory and economic interests of central institutions. As a case study, we delve into the history of research on Magellanic penguins (1982–present), initiated by the Wildlife Conservation Society on the Patagonian coast of Argentina. Although the stated goal was to conserve the penguins that nest in the region, the knowledge produced in situ was crucial for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in the United States to develop new regulations and standards to ensure the health and reproduction of their ex situ penguin populations. We observe that the urgency for conservation transformed penguin colonies into “laboratories” to find cognitive solutions for the regulatory problems of US zoos.
New methodological approaches to the datafication of reality have emerged in recent years from fields such as Critical Data Studies and Digital Humanities. However, quantitative perspectives remain the default methodological approach for data analysis. At the same time, in countries like Mexico and Colombia, the datafication of reality includes records of serious human rights violations, which play a significant role in institutional legitimacy and in the construction of collective memory regarding violence. This article explores alternative symbolic infrastructures for developing digital methods to analyze these types of records. By identifying epistemological assumptions, methodological biases, and political implications of data processing, it establishes a dialogue with non-Western perspectives on the relationship between subject, environment, and technology, in order to advance a proposal for the critical datafication of violence that begins with the “cooling” of data for the development of digital methods.
The televisual history of Colombian public television remains unevenly accessible due to financial and technological barriers in formal governmental archiving, forcing interested parties to rely on YouTube as a de-facto archive. This paper assesses the limitations of existing public platforms and regional broadcasters’ websites as official sources of audiovisual memory. Using the series Dejémonos de Vainas (1984–1998) as a case study, we critically explore YouTube's role, noting issues with copyright and insufficient metadata, while highlighting its potential for analyzing audience consumption via commentary. To combat metadata scarcity, a pilot application using a Large Language Model (LLM) demonstrated its efficiency in reconstructing the 1980s programming grid and incorporating rich metadata, such as production credits and contemporary commentary. We conclude by emphasizing the challenge posed by the dearth of proper metadata and limited archive access, underscoring the opportunity for creative digital methods and LLMs to reconstruct and ensure access to the Colombian audiovisual archive.
This paper examines the phenomenon known as Havana Syndrome, first reported by United States embassy staff in Cuba in 2016, as a case study of how collective anxiety and geopolitical tension can produce embodied experiences of harm. Rather than seeking to identify a definitive biomedical cause for the reported symptoms, such as headaches, dizziness, and cognitive disturbances, the authors situate the Havana Syndrome within a broader socio-political and affective context. They argue that the emergence and persistence of the syndrome reflect an atmosphere of heightened vigilance and mistrust, shaped by post, Cold War imaginaries, security anxieties, and fraught US–Cuba relations. Drawing on historical, political, and media narratives, the paper explores how uncertainty about the syndrome’s origins – ranging from sonic weapons to psychogenic responses – reveals the deep entanglement of perception, politics, and embodiment. Ten years after the initial reports, the syndrome remains unresolved, its meaning shifting between science, suspicion, and sensation. Ultimately, the authors contend that the Havana Syndrome exposes how state relations and ideological tensions can generate an atmosphere of anxiety in which imagined threats acquire material and bodily form, demonstrating the power of geopolitical affect in shaping both experience and knowledge of illness.
In this article, I explore what “counts” as reliable data in Nahua science by examining how Nahuas systematically perceive and interpret phenomena across earthly and celestial realms. Using sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Nahuatl and Spanish sources, I trace how Nahuas identify signs on the ground and in the sky to diagnose instability and guide collective action. Far from superstition, these interpretive practices form a rigorous analytical tradition based on patterned inference and community consensus. Viewed through Indigenous science frameworks, Nahuas demonstrate a relational way of reading (in the broadest sense) and engaging with the world. Focusing on Nahua methods broadens the understanding of what counts as reliable data, ultimately challenging Eurocentric knowledge hierarchies and promoting a more inclusive view of scientific inquiry.
This article analyzes Artificial Intelligence (AI) research conducted at a Mexican university center as a situated dynamic of co-production, enabled by data-based associations between AI specialists and external actors. Based on sixteen semi-structured interviews with researchers affiliated with the center, we identify a distinctive mode of collaboration - data-enabled co-production - in which specialists rely on non-specialists who possess or mediate access to the data required to develop or adapt algorithms. These data holders often act as coauthors, evaluators, and potential beneficiaries of the resulting technologies, while researchers can test their developments in real environments. This dynamic anchors AI research in local contexts and may contribute to reconfiguring the relationships between technoscience and society. However, it rarely generates applicable knowledge despite sustaining academic production, reflecting a regional pattern of science that is applicable but not applied. We argue that this configuration constitutes a form of halfway technoscience, socially embedded yet constrained by academic evaluation systems and weak institutional linkages. Finally, the article outlines directions for more situated and context-sensitive science policies. Este artigo analisa a pesquisa em Intelig & ecirc;ncia Artificial (IA) desenvolvida em um centro universit & aacute;rio mexicano como uma din & acirc;mica situada de coprodu & ccedil;& atilde;o, possibilitada por associa & ccedil;& otilde;es baseadas em dados entre especialistas em IA e atores externos. Com base em dezesseis entrevistas semiestruturadas com pesquisadores vinculados ao centro, identificamos um modo distintivo de colabora & ccedil;& atilde;o - a coprodu & ccedil;& atilde;o habilitada por dados - no qual os especialistas dependem de n & atilde;o especialistas que possuem ou intermediam o acesso aos dados necess & aacute;rios para desenvolver ou adaptar algoritmos. Esses detentores de dados costumam atuar como coautores, avaliadores e potenciais benefici & aacute;rios das tecnologias resultantes, enquanto os pesquisadores podem testar seus desenvolvimentos em ambientes reais. Essa din & acirc;mica ancora a pesquisa em IA em contextos locais com o potencial de reconfigurar as rela & ccedil;& otilde;es entre tecnoci & ecirc;ncia e sociedade. No entanto, embora sustente a produ & ccedil;& atilde;o acad & ecirc;mica, raramente gera conhecimento aplic & aacute;vel, refletindo um padr & atilde;o regional de ci & ecirc;ncia aplic & aacute;vel, mas n & atilde;o aplicada. Argumenta-se que essa configura & ccedil;& atilde;o constitui uma forma de tecnoci & ecirc;ncia intermedi & aacute;ria, socialmente ancorada, por & eacute;m limitada pelos sistemas de avalia & ccedil;& atilde;o acad & ecirc;mica e pelos fr & aacute;geis v & iacute;nculos institucionais. A partir desse cen & aacute;rio, delineiam-se orienta & ccedil;& otilde;es para pol & iacute;ticas cient & iacute;ficas mais situadas e contextualizadas. Este art & iacute;culo analiza la investigaci & oacute;n en Inteligencia Artificial (IA) desarrollada en un centro universitario mexicano como una din & aacute;mica situada de coproducci & oacute;n, posibilitada por asociaciones basadas en datos entre especialistas en IA y actores externos. A partir de diecis & eacute;is entrevistas semiestructuradas con investigadores del centro, identificamos un modo distintivo de colaboraci & oacute;n - la coproducci & oacute;n habilitada por datos - en el cual los especialistas dependen de no especialistas que poseen o median el acceso a los datos necesarios para desarrollar o adaptar algoritmos. Estos poseedores de datos suelen actuar como coautores, evaluadores y beneficiarios potenciales de las tecnolog & iacute;as resultantes, mientras que los investigadores pueden probar sus desarrollos en entornos reales. Esta din & aacute;mica ancla la investigaci & oacute;n en IA en contextos locales con el potencial de reconfigurar las relaciones entre tecnociencia y sociedad. Sin embargo, aunque sostiene la producci & oacute;n acad & eacute;mica, rara vez genera conocimiento aplicable, reflejando un patr & oacute;n regional de ciencia aplicable pero no aplicada. Se argumenta que esta configuraci & oacute;n constituye una forma de tecnociencia intermedia, socialmente anclada pero limitada por los sistemas de evaluaci & oacute;n acad & eacute;mica y los d & eacute;biles v & iacute;nculos institucionales. A partir de este escenario se delinean orientaciones para pol & iacute;ticas cient & iacute;ficas situadas y contextualizadas.
This article examines how, in post-revolutionary Mexico, the technical infrastructure and administrative procedures of the National Statistics Department made it possible to transform scattered records into standardized, legitimate data. Drawing on documentary sources from 1921 to 1933, the process of “data concentration” is analyzed as a key operation in which Powers electromechanical devices, official nomenclatures, and coordinated workflows produced statistical objectivity. It is argued that this objectivity results from historically situated socio-technical assemblages. This study contributes to social and historical studies of quantification by showing how technical standardization was part of the construction of a modern state capable of governing by numbers.
In this article, I focus on how the members of a Peruvian NGO - specializing in the implementation of fog catchers - mobilized the notion of "the project" to pursue their goals. While the fog catchers were presented by the NGO workers as a water supply system for vulnerable populations on the urban periphery, they were often redirected by their beneficiaries as tools for informal urbanization. The fog catchers captured not only fog, but also property ownership and state infrastructure, among other things. Within this context, the NGO members created and sustained an ecology of "non-projects" - an ever-proliferating number of projects that seemed to exist but actually did not. By describing how my interlocutors went about doing this, the article argues that ethnographers should attend to how contemporary influence and ubiquity of the project form may reside not only in its role as an organizing force, but likewise in its aesthetics and status as a sign. From this perspective, a key aspect for the study of projects is people's capacity to mimic their form, exploit their aesthetic appeal, and, in doing so, circumvent their structuring effects.
Bioinputs have gained prominence in agricultural policy debates in Latin America as part of broader bioeconomy agendas. In Argentina, they have been promoted as environmentally friendly alternatives to synthetic agrochemicals, yet their institutionalization unfolded within a highly entrenched agrochemical regime. This article analyzes how bioinputs emerged and stabilized as a policy category, and what this process reveals about socio-technical transitions in agro-export-oriented economies. Drawing on socio-technical transitions scholarship and Science and Technology Studies (STS), the article conceptualizes bioinputs as a performative socio-technical category the meaning of which is actively constructed through policy instruments, advisory arenas, and actor coalitions. The analysis is based on semi-structured interviews and documentary research covering the period 2012-2024. The findings show that bioinputs were institutionalized through mechanisms of incremental stabilization, selective accommodation, and discursive reframing rather than through disruptive technological substitution. While these processes rendered bioinputs visible and governable, they also constrained their transformative potential. The article argues that sustainability transitions in agro-export economies may advance less through regime displacement than through the institutionalization of flexible categories that enable coexistence and partial change within dominant regimes.
This article examines the emergence of reborn motherhood in Latin America, a digital phenomenon in which women perform maternal practices with hyperrealistic dolls. Drawing on digital ethnography and media analysis of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, alongside journalistic sources from Brazil and Mexico, we show how reborn care practices operate as gendered projects of neoliberal self-making, shaped by enduring colonial hierarchies of gender, class, and race. Reborn dolls circulate within technological assemblages that span global infant markets and digitally mediated care spaces. Our analysis unfolds along three axes. First, reborn mothering generates normative feminine subjectivities, shaping ideals of care and conduct through digital regimes of affective governance. Second, grief, therapy, and play are reconfigured as commodified displays, repositioning loss and affect within neoliberal circuits of consumption. Third, the industry mobilizes racialized imaginaries, positioning the reborn baby as both a technology of motherhood and of whiteness and ableism. The reborn industry naturalizes a neoliberal discourse of care that obscures structural inequities linked to race, ability, and reproductive health. We argue that seeing reborn mothers as abnormal risks overlooking how neoliberal femininity operates subtly within affective governance, reinforcing the erosion of gendered social reproduction amid the rise of right-wing politics.
The rise of regional integration and South-South cooperation as an imperative in international relations and trade has been widely discussed, especially with the strengthening of BRICS+ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), and Pan-African movements. The idea of a world with multiple powers giving rise to diverse social and economic imperatives for technoscientific innovation is finding traction among scholars, including researchers in science and technology studies (STS), who hope this new order can challenge entrenched liberal epistemological and infrastructural hegemony, even though skepticism remains about actual challenges to asymmetries in global science and technology circulation. This paper offers an empirical contribution to the issues of South-South cooperation and multipolarity in the context of regional integration by examining artificial intelligence (AI) policy developments in Latin America. Analyzing the national AI strategies of seven Latin American countries, and engaging with contributions from dependency theorists, the research reveals how aspirations for Latin America to lead in AI innovation often replicate technology policy imperatives from the Global North. This contradictory dynamic perpetuates dependent development models and reinforces Latin America’s peripheral role in technological systems. The paper advocates for increased attention in STS research regarding the contradictions of South-South cooperation and multipolarity, particularly in contexts of economic and technological dependency.
Undone science refers to missing areas of scientific knowledge needed for decision-making or public policy. Though the term has become ubiquitous in STS research, it is hard to distinguish undone science from other possibilities like uncertainty, secrecy, or even unknowability. This paper advances a framework for distinguishing undone science from these other scenarios and applies it to the case of glacier management in Chile. Drawing on observations of glaciology science and regulatory documents, the authors compare how glacier science informed decisions on two Environmental Impact Assessments about new mines, nearly 20 years apart: Pascua Lama and Los Bronces, approved respectively in 2006 and 2023. The comparison shows a shift in Chilean glacier management, from a classic case of “undone science,” defined as that needed by specific mobilized or marginalized groups to advance their cause, to one of scientific controversy. In this second moment, contests over uncertainty or what counts as good or bad science dominate, creating a risk of leaving new areas of research undone. The analytical framework helps identify contests over scientific autonomy, validation, and pluralism and advances a clearer picture of how power is exercised, who holds it, and what science is (and is not) useful for.
