Abstract

This article emerged in the framework of the joint work of the Global History Network of Microbiology in Latin America, composed of professionals from microbiology, history, and sociologists of science interested in building a historical reflection on microbiology. In our task, we face the conceptual challenge of how to delimit that object in empirical and theoretical terms. Because of this concern, we propose a reflection on some of the conceptual and methodological axes that, from the Social Studies of Science and Technology (SSST), allow us to build a historical perspective of the development of microbiology in the Latin American context. These have outlined different issues such as organizational aspects, interactions between actors or social networks formed around microbiological practice. Secondly, the great diversity of practices, knowledge, institutions, interests (economic, social, professional), and political processes –both local and international– that influenced the reception of microbiology in Latin America. In the last sections, we discuss two perspectives for the construction of microbiology as a research object: on one hand, the study of institutions, and, on the other hand, the analysis of the emergence of diseases and the political processes associated with them.

Keywords Microbiology; Sociology; History; Social Studies of Science and Technology