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102 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

established regional scientific communities respond to the need to do socially relevant
in Colima (1982), Torreón (1999), Sinaloa science. Both are innovating ways of creating
(2001), Puebla (2001) and one is in the process knowledge. Research Agendas are born
of creation (in 2005) in Nayarit (2005). within the bounds of official science, as an
Recently, a new scientific community initiative of CONICIT, whereas Regional
(CEJUS, 2004) was initiated in the Justo Scientific Communities are a ‘grass-roots’
Sierra Study Center (‘Centro de Estudios initiative, arising as a private concern of
Justo Sierra, CEJUS’) in Surutato, an isolated established academics coming mostly from
village located in the mountains of the north- public universities, as a response to felt needs
western state of Sinaloa (Jiménez and of individuals and groups in rural communi-
Ramón, 1989; Jiménez, 1992; Jiménez and ties. Both could serve as examples of Mode 2
Escalante, 1999). CEJUS is a unique educa- research, however the property of ‘social
tional experience based on the same educa- accountability’whose presence is a debatable
tional and humanistic principles advocated by aspect in Mode 2, is of the foremost impor-
CIDE. It was created in 1978 by the family tance in these new forms of doing science in
heads of Surutato to improve the quality of Venezuela and Mexico. Indeed, we are in the
education their children were receiving from presence of a different mode of doing sci-
the government, and to prepare them with ence, ‘Mode 3,’ whose salient property is the
working skills appropriate to the labor needs genuine response to social needs, missing in
of the region. After a long period of struggle Mode 2.
and confrontation, the Surutato community The research agendas of Venezuela and the
was able to mold the official education insti- regional scientific communities of Mexico
tutions according to their needs. Parents par- are only two Latin American examples of
ticipate by donating labor and materials for new forms of doing research with emphasis
the creation and maintenance of their educa- in social responsibility. Vessuri (2003: 270)
tional center. The federal government con- reports two additional Latin American exam-
tributes with salaries for the teachers and ples: one in Brazil involving a number of
scholarships for the students (for more details scientists as well as producers who have
see Jiménez and Escalante, 1999). managed to produce soil fertility in the
The scientific community initially offers Brazilian cerrados to achieve an efficient and
undergraduate studies in various professional productive agriculture. The other one, in
careers related to the sustainable exploitation Costa Rica on specific poisons of Central
of the region’s natural resources, namely, the American snakes, is benefiting the whole
water, the land, the forest, and the weather. region with antidotes, developing ‘under-
CEJUS is the meeting point for ‘socializa- graduate and graduate education, and a broad
tion’ of results of CIDE’s students spread in social intervention to establish training
the northwestern region of the country, in the programs for prevention and handling of
states of Sinaloa, Nayarit, Sonora, and ophidian accidents’ (Vessuri, 2003: 270). In
Durango. With time, CEJUS will become a France, new ways of interacting between sci-
research center similar to the CIDE centers ence, technology, and society have been
already in existence. developed, in which lay people work along
with scientists to produce and diffuse knowl-
edge. The term ‘research in the wild’ has
been coined to refer to this new phenomenon
MODE 3: A NEW WAY OF DOING (Callon and Rabeharisoa, 2003). An example
SCIENCE is the organization of families of patients
with muscular dystrophy to collect informa-
Both the Venezuelan ‘Research Agendas’ and tion about the generation and development
Mexico’s ‘Regional Scientific Communities’ of this terrible illness. They discuss it with