This quotation is taken from the opening of a television program that was broadcasted in the United States in 2008, entitled The Power of Small: Nanotechnology. The objective of this series was to analyze the implications of nanotechnology for the country’s environment, health, and security. The phrase “the power of small” refers to nanotechnology and aptly captures some characteristics commonly attributed to this type of technology—namely, that it can enhance the properties of materials in a space where the imagined breadth of its technoscientific powers appears to be unlimited.
Nanotechnology , defined as the ability to measure, manipulate, control, and organize matter at the nanometer scale, meaning at the level of atoms and molecules, has been perceived as the leading force of the next industrial revolution but has also been attributed as being a disruptive technology. Some scholars have even envisioned that with the aid of nanotechnology, we will be able to move away from the materials and industrial processes that we have been using, even to the point of creating nanodevices that will monitor the behavior of human beings (Drexler et al 1991; Drexler 1986).
Nanotechnology’s various promises have led to a global reconfiguration of the instruments of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (STIP), postgraduate educational programs, and infrastructures, defining concrete practices and scientific discourses by which power and scientific agency are manifested. The “power of small”, then, lays in future representations regarding the control of matter, its discursive power as a promising technology for solving social problems, and its imaginary applications and technological developments (Åm 2011; Kaiser et al. 2010; Nordmann 2008; Kearnes and Wynne 2007).
Although nanodiscourses often make the assertion of being globally applicable, it is nonetheless important to analyze their performativities in specific contexts. In the Global South, nanoimaginaries are being constructed, exaggerated, and taken to the limit, thus generating a form of power that is difficult to question. The relevant actors in promoting nanotechnology activities are not only governments, pursuing their interests on a large scale, but also scientists organized in networks, moving between different arenas and connecting spaces between the local and the global. The small yet seemingly unlimited technological space with which they engage brings with it new ways of networking, exercising power and agency by non-state actors, which deserve more attention. Mexico is particularly suitable for studying these processes and performativities. Historically, the connections, movements, and constant tensions related to the geopolitics of knowledge between the Global South and North have had strong effects here. This has been the result of the country’s shared border with the United States, which contributed to the development of cross-border cooperation and initiatives related to nanotechnology. Yet, equally important in defining Mexico’s role in these interactions between the Global South and North have been the asymmetries of science and technology activities within the country itself. The asymmetrical construction of scientific and technological capabilities here have influenced the reception and appropriation of circulating discourses about nanotechnology, and therefore, need to be considered from a local perspective in the network. On the other hand, the same discourses have promoted global networks, making analysis of knowledge networks in Mexico particularly relevant, as it has not been sufficiently addressed by studies devoted to the subject.
This book has the objective of analyzing the role of non-state actors—particularly scientists—in the governance of nanotechnology and the dynamics of knowledge networks in Mexico . The book builds on current efforts to decenter the focus on economic incentives in STIP and argues that in the governance of nanotechnology, symbolic and material incentives render visible the scientific agency and strategies performed by non-state actors. The book claims that knowledge networks in nanotechnology are made of dynamic power nodes and asymmetries of knowledge. The movements of power and the (re)production of asymmetries in networks appear to be related to the appropriation of global discourses and imaginaries associated with the promises of nanotechnology, the creation of dynamic scientific authorities, and the development of strategies to become part of global networks, as well as tensions that have emerged from the specific policy instruments and incentives promoted by non-state actors. Therefore, there are asymmetries in knowledge networks, but these are also dynamic and constantly shifting. The asymmetry category makes visible the constant movement of power.
The book will draw on three theoretical strands of literature: (a) actor-network theory (Passoth and Rowland 2010; Latour 2003), which will allow me to explore assemblages of power, agency, and knowledge, and make visible the role of non-state actors-networks in shaping the governance of nanotechnology; (b) feminist technoscience studies (Coole and Frost 2010; Mayra 2009; Barad 2007; Haraway 2004) that will aid in analyzing the evidence from a situated knowledge perspective regarding production and local tensions that give shape to the global asymmetries of power. It will also enhance my analysis of the material beyond common divisions such as developed/developing, south/north, science/technology, structure/agency, and matter/discourse; and (c) sociologies of the south (Vessuri 2015; Costa 2014; Rodriguez 2014) that will help in problematizing the global and local connections of networks and analyzing the existence of asymmetric mechanisms in the politics of knowledge between the Global North and South. I will connect these three bodies of literature with current conceptions of governance networks (Voss and Freeman 2016; Kaiser et al. 2010; Sorensen and Torfing 2007; Hajer and Wagenaar 2003). Working from this theoretical basis will make visible the connections, tensions, continuities, movements, and asymmetries in knowledge networks.
The methodological approach employed involves a case study of knowledge networks at the Research Center for Advanced Materials (CIMAV ). The CIMAV was created in 1994 and is part of the 27 public research centers supported by the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT), the main Mexican agency promoting science, technology, and innovation. The center is located in the Chihuahua Industrial Complex Park (Chihuahua , Mexico ), together with numerous firms. The CIMAV also has an auxiliary branch that is located at the Research and Technological Innovation Park in Monterrey (Nuevo Leon , Mexico ), which was created in 2008. Both centers are located in the northern part of Mexico . Chihuahua and Nuevo Leon border New Mexico and Texas , respectively. This public research center is the leader in the governance of nanotechnology in Mexico and has appropriated global discourses and promoted local ones materialized in the Nanotechnology Institutional Program. This involved the formation of knowledge networks in nanotechnology at different spatial scales (transnational, transregional, and translocal). CIMAV -Monterrey developed and concentrated the interaction of the translocal network and reinforced the transregional network through greater interaction with other universities and public research centers within Mexico .
Through the case study, I have been able to analyze the CIMAV’s strategy regarding nanotechnology, with a specific emphasis on discourses , imaginaries , practices, sti...