Nanotechnology, Governance, and Knowledge Networks in the Global South

The seemingly unlimited technological potential of nanotechnology brings with it new practices of governance, networking, and exercising power and agency. Focusing on scholars in the Global South, this text covers nanotechnology discourses, imaginaries, and materialities as they circulate and interact within governance knowledge networks. Rather than adapt their actions to existing governance mechanisms and science, technology, and innovation policy, scientists use the imaginary of nanotechnology to create new symbolic and material incentives, thus shaping its governance. By tracing the constantly shifting asymmetries of knowledge and power, the book offers fresh insights into the dynamics of knowledge networks.

Attempts to go beyond taking a neutral focus on knowledge networks by proposing a new perspective to analyze them as being dynamic Highlights the agency and dynamic capacity of non-state actors and the ways in which they affect networks Analyzes the different sources of power shaping nanotechnology, reveals the tensions and asymmetries in transnational nanotechnology networks, and presents evidence of shifting power in nanotechnology networks

Autorentext

Marcela Suárez Estrada is a research fellow and lecturer at the Lateinamerika-Institut at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

Inhalt

1. Introduction: "The Power of Small".- 2. Assembling Power, Agencies, and Governance in Nanotechnology Networks.- 3. Imagining a Better Future for Mexico through Nanodiscourses.- 4. Liking Governance, Agencies, and Knowledge Networks at CIMAV.- 5. CIMAV and the Weaving of Transnational Knowledge Networks.- 6.Conclusion.