Dissertation Research: Ethnographic Research at the Alcantara Launching Center: An Inquiry into the Politics of Space, Race, Technology and Nation in Brazil

这是一项科学与技术研究论文改进基金。这位研究人员将以阿尔坎塔拉发射中心(CLA)为研究对象，调查巴西当代大科学、发展和差异的政治。阿尔坎塔拉发射中心(CLA)是一个雄心勃勃的政府项目，旨在帮助巴西在20世纪80年代初建立时赢得“技术独立”。这笔赠款的资金将支持前往巴西的旅行，以及国内的食宿和旅行。到2000年，巴西还没有从中央情报局基地成功发射一颗卫星，巴西国内普遍反对外国政府计划使用这颗卫星。为流离失所的非裔巴西人社区开垦土地的运动得到了突出的支持。CLA所在的贫穷渔区阿尔坎塔拉成为关于巴西作为一个多种族和技术发展中的民族国家的特征和未来的辩论的导火索。通过对阿尔坎塔拉命运冲突的人种学研究，并在四个月的初步人种学研究的基础上，这位研究人员将使用人种学和档案方法来研究三个群体：1)参与CLA冲突的非政府组织和政治组织；2)在基地或与基地有关的问题上工作的科学家和其他人；3)受基地影响或流离失所的社区。通过在相对技术劣势和长期技术雄心的背景下研究一个四面楚歌的大科学项目的政治，该项目有望提供关于当代巴西面临的一些最具争议的变化的文化特殊性和活生生的影响的民族志优势--这些变化与许多发展中国家面临的变化相似。

This is a Science and Technology Studies dissertation improvement grant. The researcher will investigate contemporary politics of big science, development and difference in Brazil using as an object of study the Alcantara Launching Center (CLA), an ambitious government project that was intended to help Brazil win "technological independence" when it was built in the early 1980s. Funds from the grant will support travel to Brazil, as well as room, board, and travel within the country. By 2000, Brazil had not successfully launched a satellite from the base of CLA, and there was widespread opposition in Brazil to its planned use by foreign governments. A movement to reclaim the land for displaced Afro-Brazilian communities had gained prominent support. Alcantara, the poor fishing region where the CLA is located, became a flashpoint for debates about the character and future of Brazil as a multi-ethnic and technologically developing nation-state. Through ethnographic research into the conflicts over Alcantara's fate, and building on four months of preliminary ethnographic research, this researcher will use ethnographic and archival methods to examine three groups: 1) NGOs and political organizations involved in the conflicts over the CLA; 2) scientists and others working in or on issues relating to the base; 3) and communities affected or displaced by the base. By investigating the politics of an embattled big science project in a context of relative technological disadvantage and longstanding technological ambition, this project is expected to offer an ethnographic vantage on the cultural specificities and lived- effects of some of the most contentious changes facing contemporary Brazil--changes that are similar to those faced in much of the developing world.