Since the early 1990s, maritime routes are the primary method used by Colombian smugglers to transport illicit drugs to consumer or transshipment countries. Smugglers have developed their kind of artifacts, the narcosubs. The Colombian Navy has adopted several strategies and adapted several technologies in their attempt to control the flows of illicit drugs. In the so-called War on Drugs (WoD), law enforcement, military, and drug smugglers have engaged in the production, modification, and maintenance of technological artifacts. Based on documentary material, observations and interviews I present the process of innovation by antagonism in the War on Drugs in Colombia. I present an overview of the co-evolution of drug trafficking technologies and the techniques and technologies used by the Colombian Navy to counter the activities of drug smugglers. I emphasize on the process of self-building artifacts by smugglers, explained as a bricolage of local knowledge of traditional boat building with off-the-shelf technologies and in the localized character of the responses by the Navy personnel. Explanations aiming to account for the process of innovation in outlaw contexts in which antagonistic relationships shape the actions of players must take into account the paradoxical and symbiotic relationship between players in the two sides
The study of conspiracy theories has often taken a normative perspective. Recently, sociology and cultural studies have argued for a neutral view of conspiracy theories, urging for a nuanced understanding of conspiracy theories. Building on a growing body of scholarship addressing conspiracy theories in relational terms, this article considers the advantages of analyzing conspiracy theories as controversies or issues, as formulated in Science and Technology Studies. Our primary focus is on the political uses of castrochavismo and how the digital objects are shared and reconfigured, shaping the dynamics of the issue. The core conceptual premise is that conspiracy theories are formed as particular cases of controversies, where the factions in dispute deploy repertories, and we identify the empiricist and ironizing ones. Drawing on a data collection from Twitter, we present the case of study of castrochavismo, with a particular focus in the Colombian electoral cycle. The case highlights the importance and challenges when analyzing a conspiracy theory from the lens of controversy studies, promoting a symetrical, non-normative, research of the topic.
tierra de contrastes y cercanías, de pueblos con historias particulares y conjuntas, con reivindicaciones desde finales del siglo XIX de poseer una identidad compartida. Región que ha sido marcada por sus procesos sociopolíticos, por sus períodos de violencia y sus búsquedas de paz, por sus lenguas, por sus literaturas, y, también, por sus ciencias y tecnologías. En efecto, los proyectos nacionales de los países han movilizado ideas de modernidad e imaginarios donde la ciencia y tecnología han dado o buscan dar forma a determinadas visiones de futuro. Estas últimas han jugado un papel importante en el desarrollo de las identidades nacionales. ¿Desde qué campo teórico analítico podemos comprender estas trayectorias? En las últimas cinco décadas, diversos pensadores han reflexionado sobre estas relaciones, que podemos definir de forma amplia como ciencia, tecnología y sociedad (CTS) o estudios sociales de la ciencia y la tecnología
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