Revista Iberoamericana de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad - CTS (Ibero-American Science, Technology and Society Journal)

Reviewers of this Issue

Editorial Secretariat — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The following experts reviewed the articles published in this issue of Revista Iberoamericana de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad —CTS.

Technofeudalism

Juan Sebastián Fernández Prados — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Yanis Varoufakis

Publisher: Ariel

Place of publication: Barcelona

Year: 2024

Pages: 264

Editorial

Ana Cuevas — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In this issue of Revista Iberoamericana de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad -CTS we are pleased to publish a dossier on the state of the art of engaging technologies, a concept of long academic scope conceived by Miguel Ángel Quintanilla, prestigious professor at the University of Salamanca and member of the Editorial Board of our publication.

Scientific and Political Agendas on Child Development

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In the last two decades, comprehensive child development as a social problem acquired relevance in the Argentine political agenda. This was manifested in the attachment to specific regional and global agendas that promoted the deployment of local State intervention programs. This period coincides with the development of policies that sought to give science and technology a higher profile -through budget increases and human resource training- and to orient them towards the resolution of social problems. Considering the above, it is of interest to investigate whether scientific agendas reflect political agendas and what factors influence this. This article aims to explore whether the growing public relevance given to child development was accompanied by a quantitative increase in the number of scholarship holders and researchers interested in related topics at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) of Argentina. The results show an increase in relative terms of interest in financing projects related to the problem. The aim is to open a discussion on the relevance given to the financing of such projects, their geographical and disciplinary distribution, and the criteria on the basis of which these decisions are made.

The Trails of Meat

Guilherme Antonio Carneiro de Sant'Ana, Marília Luz David — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article uses the Pecuária Transparente platform, designed by JBS, to outline the main transformations that occurred in the agro-environmental governance of the beef cattle chain in Brazil between 2009 and 2022. Deforestation practices in the Amazon biome linked to its supply chain are put under scrutiny. The notion of agro-environmental governance was used to indicate the constitutive character of non-human entities in the qualification process of the environmental reality forged by agreements in this matter.

Gender Gaps in Academic Trajectories in Uruguay

Tue, 21 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Despite progress in the participation of women in science, gender gaps persist in the advancement of their academic careers. Based on the analysis of gender gaps in academic science in Uruguay, this article problematizes the influence of motherhood on key dimensions such as postgraduate training, access to positions and bibliographic production. A longitudinal database was constructed from various sources of information to show how childcare responsibilities condition women’s academic trajectories throughout their life course. This article highlights the accumulation of gender inequalities throughout academic careers. It finds that gender gaps are almost non-existent at the beginning, increase as women advance in their careers, and deepen when they become mothers. Although motherhood is not the only relevant factor in explaining gender gaps, care responsibilities contribute to the widening and persistence of inequalities in science in Uruguay.

Trajectories of Women in the Software and Information Services Sector (SSI) in an Intermediate City

Jimena Peñarrieta — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As part of a broader research, this article aims to understand how work dispositions are configured for female IT workers in the software and computer services sector (SSI) in the intermediate city of Villa María (Province of Córdoba, Argentina), considering their families of origin and their educational and work trajectories. Through the definition of these categories and a qualitative methodological strategy, it was shown that, throughout their social trajectories, women develop skills that allow them to perform dexterously in their jobs. This article proposes reflections based on four analytical nodes: i) women operate as “self-taught” or “self-employed” in their learning; ii) they carry out feminized activities even when they manage to insert themselves in a masculinized sector; iii) the relationship with their parents, colleagues, friends and bosses does not distance women from the sector, but rather allows them to approach technologies and appropriate them; and iv) women move along a path of demands, efforts and difficulties, generating confidence in themselves and in the activity they carry out.

PRESENTATION: Resonances of Engaging Technologies

Martín Parselis — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This introduction to the dossier on engaging technologies seeks to summarize the authors' contributions and also to highlight the relevance of the model proposed by Miguel Ángel Quintanilla in different fields. In turn, it briefly discusses the place that engaging criteria can occupy outside of traditional regulations, including uncertainty and foresight.

A New Link in the Chain of Technological Development

Diego Lawler, Darío Sandrone — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article addresses the notion of engaging technologies proposed by Miguel Ángel Quintanilla, placing it in the context of this author’s elaborations on technological development. Specifically, we argue that the concept of engaging technologies introduces a novel normative framework that aims to foster a holistic and, simultaneously, alternative approach to technological development as it currently exists. Moreover, this notion serves as a conceptual lens through which the very idea of technological development can be critically examined. We also delineate certain characteristics of this concept by employing examples derived from the realm of artificial intelligence. In doing so, we illustrate how the principles of engaging technologies can be applied to contemporary technological advancements. Furthermore, we assert that Quintanilla’s proposal inherently embodies a political and ethical perspective on present and future societies that entails commitments to specific ends in the design and production of artificial worlds, aligning itself with a vision of what constitutes a life worth living.

Alienation, Politics and Engaging Technologies

Leandro Giri — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article analyzes the issue of technological alienation from the point of view of Miguel Ángel Quintanilla’s systemic philosophy of technology, and particularly from his notion of engaging technologies. To this end, we start from Langdon Winner’s classic proposal on the policity of artifacts to point out different ways in which they generate estrangements with collective and political consequence, and from there we point out the different arenas of struggle where tactical actions must be developed in order to achieve engagement in artifacts, for the sake of a more democratic (and consequently less alienating) supernature.

Robert Maynard Pirsig, a Forerunner of Engaging Technologies?

Héctor Gustavo Giuliano — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article proposes a reading of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig, taking as an interpretative key the theoretical framework of Miguel Ángel Quintanilla’s theory of engaging technologies. In this sense, resonances are sought that allow linking the concept of technological estrangement with that of Quality -in capital letters- present in the book written by the North American writer.

The Entrails of Artificial Intelligence and the Engaging Nature of its Use

Fernando Broncano — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines two questions. The first is whether modern generative and general-purpose artificial intelligences can be considered engaging technologies; the answer is ambivalent, as it depends on how they will be embedded in the lives of users. The second question is whether the promise of singularity, which would lead to the impossibility of their being engaging technologies, can be realized or not: the answer is negative for several arguments that are put forward and affect both the generality of their purpose and their artificiality. The conclusion is that we should consider them as tools in a framework of hybrid agency.

School of Educators and Engaging Technologies

Hernán Miguel — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The set of actions and elements that are put into play in the training of educators can be seen as a technical system, specifically designed for purposes that are part of the result upon graduation. The profile achieved in this training becomes relevant as a set of skills and characteristics of the new cohort of teachers who will go on to work in the educational system for citizenship training. Thus, this training can be seen as a system that prepares agents who will intervene in another system to achieve objectives in that second stage. Following the theoretical framework proposed by Miguel Ángel Quintanilla, we analyze this concatenation to visualize the importance of a shared representation of both systems by the different types of agents involved in it.