Tecnology of Social Inclusivity as decolonizing practice

Abstract

The concept of Technology for Social Inclusion or Social Technology (ST) is a very recent theoretical and epistemological construction. The creation of categories and methodologies to study the Social Technology was proposed at the beginning of this century, based on an important bibliographical revision of Criticisms of Appropriate Technologies, the contributions of the Philosophy of Technology, the economics and sociology of innovation and from the critique of Latin American Science and Technology Policy. The Social Technology discourse, however, has been circulating since 2001 by society, in the institutions and in the work of certain academics, especially in the Brazilian context, based on the definition proposed by the Foundation of the Bank of Brazil (FBB). Social Technology practices, for their part, are not new. Communities have developed ways of relating to their environment long before they were conceptualized as such. The discrepancy between purely discursive theory and the theory imbued with practices has generated interest in understanding how categories are trigger in different contexts and actors. For this purpose, the FBB Social Technology discourse will be analyzed and contrast with a non-institutional ST experience, with very strong emancipatory potential, to arrive at an understanding of how theories and practices complement each other in the production of knowledge