Como um laboratório forma cientistas? uma investigação pautada na perspectiva ator-rede

Abstract

This thesis presents an ethnographic study conducted during the training process of a doctoral student in a laboratory. The objective of the research was to understand how this space educates and what researchers need to learn to graduate as scientists. To this end, we perceived the actions that are engendered in the sociotechnical practices that produce the subject and the laboratory itself. The approach to the analysis context will be based on a Latourian reading, in particular, the systematization of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT). To investigate the training process of this scientist within the laboratory, we focused on her learning from an affectation perspective (LATOUR, 2008). We sought to use ethnographic research and writings from Latourian science studies to investigate the laboratory located in a large university in southeastern Brazil. This laboratory belongs to the Parasitology Department of the Biological Sciences course, where research is carried out regarding the approach for Diagnosis of infectious and parasitic diseases. The empirical research was carried out from June 2021 to June 2022, and throughout this period, the ethnographer followed the training process of a doctoral student investigating the diagnosis of diseases caused by the Ascaris suum parasite, in this laboratory. Record collection and data production were developed based on the following procedures: monitoring of experiments carried out in the laboratory, oral reports collected remotely, via WhatsApp and videocalls via Google Meet. In our analyses, when describing the ethnographic fields, potential information is highlighted about how the laboratory contributes to the training of scientists. It is indicated that the materiality of the space, such as drawers and cabinets, brings elements of belonging and the professional career of the scientists. Furthermore, the budding scientist’s own object of study, the ascaris, participates in a division between the world inside and outside the laboratory. Also, during the research, when I came across two incidents, a common action emerged: the use of resources that generate costs for the laboratory. Both reveal how the doctoral student is affected by the experience (LATOUR, 2008), therefore, being trained by learning from these incidents. In the dynamics of the functioning of this space, the very maintenance of the circulation of science in its practice shows that there are “gaps” that are part of the “structure” of this network itself, which influences the maintenance of a modus operandi that makes the training process prone to frustrations. Besides, it was noticed, in behaviors and conversations throughout the ethnographic monitoring, situations such as handling mice, which required the researchers to have skills that are developed throughout the learning process. In working with these non-humans, the doctoral student needed to prepare her psychological state for animal handling activities, which led us to the discussion that the association between researcher+non-human, performed by both, makes these mice the object of the doctoral student’s research. Finally, in this research we bring answers about how this network in which the laboratory and our research partner are inserted forms scientists, and how scientists in training are required to know how to interact in the networks that are built in the laboratory. This means being sensitive to the actors who inhabit this space in order to be able to negotiate your research objectives with those of others.