Health, Science, and Technology

Health, Science, Technology Section – Report 2024

1. Summary of the business meeting

Nine people attended our business meeting, held in Bogotá, Colombia on June 13, 2024. All attendees were in-person (not online). Reception followed (co-sponsored with Environment section) at a local Bogotá restaurant.

We currently have 38 enrolled section members and 37 lapsed members.

These were the major items for discussion:

• Increasing membership. The section needs to increase membership to 50 by May 1, 2025, or be eliminated. These are the main strategies suggested to increase membership: (a) improving communications (e.g. via social media); (b) organizing or sponsoring more activities, during the Congress and between Congresses (see below); (c) contacting lapsed members to offer section memberships for one year, sponsored by the section.
• Budget. Details on budget shared with members present.
• New activities for next year, including plans for LASA Congress in San Francisco 2025 (see below).
• Possibility of renaming the "Health and Wellbeing" conference track to "Health, Science, and Technology," in part to identify with the science and technology studies (STS) contingent within LASA (see below).

2. The results of the section’s elections

The officers who continue their terms must also be listed with their corresponding email and term.

Section leaders:

• Eric D. Carter, Macalester College, Co-Chair
• Camila Gianella Malca, PUCP, Co-Chair 
• Jadwiga Pieper-Mooney, University of Arizona, Past Chair

Carter will continue his 2-year term (ends on June 1, 2025)

Gianella begins her 2-year term (ends on June 1, 2026)

3. A review of the activities and plans for the coming term

• Recruit new members. Chairs will reach out to lapsed members and to non-section-members whose work presented at LASA 2024 fits within the HST section mission, to offer subsidized section memberships for the next year.
• Improve social media outreach. Chairs will work with volunteers from the membership to keep social media channels active. Based on follow-up after meeting with Ghisselle Blanco, chairs understand that a webpage, Facebook account, and Twitter account for the section already exist, and we will get the credentials needed to run these accounts. We may also create a new Instagram and/or LinkedIn account for the section.
• Improve networking with other organizations. Chairs will work with volunteers from the membership to connect to other organizations in the Latin American Studies of Health, Science, and Technology space. This would include, for example, research consortia (like Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, CHSTM) and journals (like Rev. de Salud Pública Chilena).
• Offer travel grants for LASA 2025. Chairs will work with volunteers from the membership to create and publicize travel grants for LASA 2025. Priority will be given to students traveling to the US from abroad, then to other students, then to other scholars from abroad. Grant size will vary somewhat depending on need, but will be around $500. We plan to offer 4 such grants, depending on available budget.
• Plan Covid+5 event at LASA 2025. Chairs will work with volunteers from the membership to plan an event that offers a retrospective on the Covid-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean, five years after it first affected the region in 2020, for the LASA 2025 Congress. Major themes to be explored include: (a) Covid through the lens of the history of pandemics; (b) impact of the Covid pandemic on health systems in the region; (c) technological innovations in response to the pandemic; and (d) political changes sparked by the pandemic and government responses to it. Although the HST section is no longer guaranteed a session at the LASA Congress due to low membership, we will engage conference organizers to plan for this special set of sessions. We also hope to include public health experts (not necessarily Latin Americanists) from the SF Bay Area as special guests for these sessions at LASA 2025.
• Plan online workshops on a regular basis between congresses. Chairs will work with volunteers from the membership to plan online workshops every 1-2 months between conferences. For late August, it would be good to hold an online meeting to discuss concepts for the LASA 2025 Congress, given that registration for the meeting will take place in September. Other possibilities include a book launch talk in October.
• Create section prizes. While the subject has been discussed in previous HST section business meetings, the section has never offered prizes for scholarship. We decided to prioritize offering three types of prizes: (a) best article award, (b) best graduate student paper award, (c) best non-traditional project (including outreach, extension, or artistic work). Chairs will work with volunteers from the membership to develop descriptions and criteria for the prizes, to publicize them, and to organize an awards committee.
• Renaming of conference track. Chairs will reach out to LASA executive council to discuss the possibility of renaming the "Health and Wellbeing" conference track to "Health, Science, and Technology," in order to increase visibility of the section, decrease confusion, and to make a home for papers in STS (science and technology studies).
• Fill all section leadership roles. According to LASA section by-laws, sections should have a chair, vice-chair, secretary-treasurer, and two council members. For next year, we hope to have all these roles filled, as a side-effect of increased activity.

4. The names of the section’s awardees

We had no awardees this year, but plan to offer awards next year.

Health, Science, Technology Section – Report 2021

1. Summary of the business meeting

Only 3 people attended our business meeting.

This was due to technical difficulties and communication problems.

We currently have 48 enrolled section members. We spent the meeting planning the activities for the next year – and thought about strategies to create a sense of collective discussion and action even in the midst of Covid.

The possibilities we plan to develop include:

* Create a study meeting, virtual. (bringing a speaker)

* Announce Awards to be given during next meeting: one Book Award, one Thesis Award, and one Award for best Article in the fields of Health, Science, and Technology.

* Promote more events and connect to universities/study groups /calls from our Section

2. The results of the section’s elections

The officers who continue their terms must also be listed with their corresponding email and term.

All current officers will continue their terms.

Section leaders:

• Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney, Associate Professor of History, University of Arizona, Co-Chair
• Maria de Lourdes Beldi de Alcantara, University of São Paulo- Medical Anthropology, Co- chair
• Secretary: Pietra Diwan, Adjunct Professor, U.S. History

3. A review of the activities and plans for the coming term

Possibilities were discussed during our business meeting and reported above.

We also consider more effective alliances with other networks, through Maria de Lourdes Beldi de Alcantara’s work with Harvard University which allows us to combine medical anthropology and human and indigenous rights

4. The names of the section’s awardees

We had no awardees this year but will pick up the awards next year.

Section Annual Report 2019-2020

1. BUSINESS MEETING:

Attendees: 7

2. MATERIAL COVERED:

• Proposal to apply for an NSF grant related to coordinating Latin American focused Science and Technology scholars and organizations under a single umbrella. Drs. Rosemblatt and Julia Rodriguez are leading this effort.

3. ELECTIONS:

There are new section officers:

• CO-CHAIRS:

• Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney

Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Arizona, in Tucson, AZ, USA. She is the author of The Politics of Motherhood: Maternity and Women’s Rights in Twentieth-Century Chile (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009) and has co-edited, with Fabio Lanza, Decentering Cold War History: Local and Global Change (London and New York: Routledge, 2013) and, with Tamara Chaplin, The Global Sixties: Convention, Contest and Counterculture (London and New York: Routledge, 2017). She has written about forced sterilization campaigns and human rights violations in Peru and North Carolina, on exile in the Cold War, on reproductive rights, and on transnational women's activism. She is currently working on a manuscript that uses the biographical lens (the life of medical doctor Benjamin Viel) to explore histories of public health, medicine, and family planning in Chile and the Americas. Her research interests focus on Latin America, and include gender, medicine, and science; feminisms; Cold War competition, and the politics of health and rights.

• Maria de Lourdes Beldi de Alcantara

Bachelor’s degree in Social Science - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo), a master’s degree in Anthropology from Pontificial Catholic University of São Paulo, and a PhD degree-in Sociology from Universidade de São Paulo, Post- PhD in Psychology at University of São Paulo. Currently, she is a researcher and consultant for International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. She is a Coordinator of the Support Group for Indigenous Youth of Mato Grosso do Sul-AJI/GAPK. She is a Professor and person responsible for the discipline of Medical Anthropology of the Medical School in University of São Paulo. She has experience in the area of Anthropology, working mainly with the following themes: gender issues, health, imaginary, culture and memory, cultural diversity, culture, memory and imaginary, culture, imaginary and the catholic religion, and the interdisciplinary. Currently, she is working with medical anthropology and human and indigenous rights. She has a strong activism work with the indigenous youth, as a result she is a head of the NGO – Support Group for Indigenous Youth-GAPK since 2001. At the same time, she is observer at permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues at United Nations-UN and for the Organizations of American States. Most of work is being about indigenous youth and human rights. 

SECRETARY:

• Pietra Diwan

I dedicated my initial studies of graduation to the field of eugenics, in particular from the production of Renato Kehl, the iconic figure from Brazilian eugenics. This research resulted in a Master’s degree, that was published as a book entitled Raça Pura: uma história da eugenia no Brasil e no mundo(Contexto, 2007). Almost ten years later, I returned to the academic research to investigate the relations of eugenics and the transhumanist movement during my Ph.D at Pontificia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. The dissertation entitled Entre Dedalo e Ícaro: cosmismo, eugenia e genética na invenção do transhumanismo norte-americano [Between Dedalos and Icarus: cosmism, eugenics and genetics in the invention of the north-american transhumanism] discussed how science developed after the end of second world war in connection with the mass industry and appropriate speeches of transcendence and enhancement in order to advance an agenda of modernity and progress. During the Covid-19 Pandemic, I was inspired to begin my own podcast "Historicize" in which episodes present a reflection over naturalized historical concepts. Also, with Brazilian colleagues we formed the "Memorial Pandemia", a digital resource for future researchers to safeguard records created during the isolation from the pandemic and represents new practices and ways of living. I’m an Adjunct Professor for U.S. and Latin American History at The Arts Institute of Miami.

4. UPCOMING ACTIVITIES:

NO PRIZE committee functioned this year.

Section Annual Report 2018-2019

   1.  BUSINESS MEETING:

Attendees: 5

    2.  MATERIAL COVERED:

• Proposal to apply for an NSF grant related to coordinating Latin American focused Science and Technology scholars and organizations under a single umbrella. Drs. Rosemblatt and Julia Rodriguez are leading this effort.
• Discussed problem of section participation and Chairs Noy and Ablard are charged w/ peopling prize committees for LASA 2020

    3. ELECTIONS:

No elections held. Noy and Ablard's term last through next year.

    4.   UPCOMING ACTIVITIES:

Working on the NSF grant listed above NO PRIZE committee functioned this year. As mentioned above, those committees are being peopled. The five who attended the business meeting all agreed to participate...