Abstract

Recently there has appeared an explosion of writings in English focused on perspectives on science, technology and society from Latin America. These have met with varied responses from Northern ‘international’ history, philosophy and social studies of science and technology. Here I suggest that many of the most positive and welcoming such responses nevertheless tend to replicate the now long discredited Unit of Science program. They do so insofar as they propose, often enthusiastically, to include the Latin American issues and arguments into their existing conceptual frameworks for the history, philosophy or social studies of science. Yet many of the Latin American accounts overtly resist such inclusion. Rather they insist on foregrounding the different worlds assumed by such Latin American work, and, consequently, what they regard as valuably persisting conflicts and tensions between these worlds. They advocate for parochializing Northern history, philosophy and social studies of science, and thus for ontological as well as epistemological pluralism in these fields.