Políticas epistêmicas

Abstract

This article consists of an analysis of the legislation which instituted the Sectoral Funds Programme in the 1990s and 2000s. The objective is to characterize the initial components and strategies of the programme, as well as its role in the context of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policies at the time. It should be said that I will not look at this legislation as a jurist or public policy analyst, who would see it as a structure of normative acts or an instrument of state governance. As an anthropologist, I will seek in this legal structure a discourse, that is, the defence of a certain conception of science. I am interested in the fact that such  legislation registers and, at the same time, arranges the construction of an episteme, that is, a new view on science, knowledge and the arrangements necessary to connect them with society. The theoretical debate underlying this article derives from the anthropology of science, which offers us an insight into science and epistemes that is needed for the continuity of analyses.