La informática argentina como campo tecnocientífico en la periferia durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX

Abstract

The aim of this short paper is to propose a theoretical framework to approach Argentine computer science in the second half of the twentieth century as a technoscientific field. A technoscientific field is not a separate activity, with its own rules and languages, anchored in specific institutions, but by definition it is hybridized in practices, in the interrelations between technical innovations, worldviews linked to the economy and, of course, politics. A technoscientific field is, in other words, a child of controversies. A technoscientific field, such as informatics, points to a new image of science and technology: science cannot be reduced to scientists nor technology to technologists, but both are part of complex networks together with other symbolic, material, social, economic and political agents and environments. This paper seeks to show, from primary and secondary sources, the complex interactions between science, technology, society and politics in the construction of informatics as a technoscientific field from a peripheral country: Argentina.