ABSTRACT
This chapter presents and explains an emerging model that can be called the “new international division of scientific work” and its consequences for more advanced Latin American countries. In the first part, a historical outline of the internationalization of sciences in Latin America is provided in order to show that since the last quarter of twentieth century, we are facing a new configuration. This new scene implies that if until the last two decades the relationships among “central” research groups and those located in “peripheral” contexts left to the latter a little marge de maneuver, these relations have taken from then on the form of a closed or “take-it-or-leave-it” approach, marked by the emergence of “mega-networks”. Thus, elite researchers from nonhegemonic countries are increasingly invited to take part in international research consortia, but the conditions to access are even more strict and the room for negotiations tends to be minimal. To illustrate this configuration two particular cases are presented: environmental research in the Patagonian area and plasma physics on the “periphery of the periphery”. These subjects have been chosen—among many others—because they are considered “hot” in the current international science and thereby give several keys to understanding the new trends.
