Sheila Jasanoff: localizing the global

Abstract

At a time when all knowledge is 'situated' and no longer 'universal' or 'neutral', the translation of Sheila Jasanoff's reflections about how we should deploy for the good our profoundly human ingenuity raises a question for Brazilian academia: how to 'situate' this reflection? If times are changing for the imperial West, it is plausible to take advantage of this time to problematize 'the proper building blocks' of public reason in Brazil. And there is no reason why we should not consider the indications coming from Harvard. They are no longer to be taken as privileged authorized sources of knowledge, moreover unacceptable in a world that deems itself 'deplatonized', but rather as propositions to be 'situated' in processes of choice and transformation.