Sociomaterial conditions in knowledge production and the reconfiguration of skills in three laboratories at Universidad del Atlantico

This article intends to study the sociomaterial conditions for doing science at the University of the Atlantic (Colombia). This means paying attention more to everyday research practices than to the structural aspects that promote or hinder research. Through direct observation of three laboratories, we describe, first, how students and professors introduce their research sites, and, second, we reflect on the configuration of these researchers' skills while working under the specific conditions of knowledge production of this public institution. We consider two issues central to social studies of science in Latin America: is it possible to study scientific practices in relatively marginal settings like the city of Barranquilla?; and, if the laboratories under study have not produced new facts or innovations, what is it that is reconfigured inside them? The concepts of ciencia cordial (Cukierman and Teixera, 2008), ciencia flexible, ciencia suave and ciencia periferica (Kreimer, 2006) that have been produced under the global division of scientific labor, help us to illustrate the debates around our two questions. The repertoire of Actor Network Theory (Latour, 2005, 2006) and the concept of reconfiguracion (Vinck and Zarama, 2007) help us to produce the descriptive register of the small-scale laboratory. In sum, our examination would have been of the production of novel scientific facts if there had been any during our period of observation. We conclude that, in spite of frustrations, laboratories at this university are experimental devices that create behaviors, ways of understanding scientific work, and a hope for a better future.