Scientific Knowledge and Technological Change. Cases from Latin American Agrarian Regions.

The aim of the paper is to understand the general process of innovation and technological development on the making of global regions. The premise is that: the development of those regions is linked two major factors: the role of the state, local development and the role of the market with local institutions. By bringing about the cases of these two major regions, we expect to throw light on the general process of social change. As it is well known, the Argentinean Patagonia and the Northeastern San Francisco Valley have some proximities in which refers to climate and physical environment. Hydraulic works and dam construction transformed these semi-arid regions by bringing in technological innovations that allowed for profound changes in land and water use. These actions ensured the irrigation of vast areas of their territories, the increase of local production and, the export of fruits. Critical aspects already seen make known the complexity of the process Therefore, here, I will focus on the technological and educational implications of those macro processes, by bringing about the academic experience developed by a consortium of national and regional universities to contribute to the overall understanding of these developments. It was through bilateral partnership carried out by the Federal Universities of Pernambuco Brazil and the Comahue University that a strong relationship developed among Sociology Graduate Programs and agrarian social studies centers to investigate the whole process. Therefore, a consortium of professors, students and researchers develop comparative research and generate a common knowledge about the regions; and made known in international seminars and made public to international colleagues and other researchers from institutions, such as, Argentinean and Brazilian corporations for Technological Innovation and Agricultural research, INTA and EMBRAPA. These problematic aspects of science and technology relationship are analyzed in this presentation.