The fire debris analyst is often faced with the complex problem of identifying ignitable liquid residues in the presence of products produced from pyrolysis and incomplete combustion of common building and furnishing materials. The purpose of this research is to investigate a modified destructive distillation methodology provided by the Florida Bureau of Forensic Fire and Explosive Analysis to produce interfering product chromatographic patterns similar to those observed in fire debris case work. The volatile products generated during heating of substrate materials are extracted from the fire debris by passive headspace adsorption and subsequently analyzed by GC-MS. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) is utilized to optimize the modified destructive distillation method to produce the interfering products commonly seen in fire debris. The substrates examined in this research include flooring and construction materials along with a variety of materials commonly analyzed by fire debris analysts. These substrates are also burned in the presence of a variety of ignitable liquids. Comparisons of ignitable liquids, pyrolysis products, and products from pyrolysis in the presence of an ignitable liquid are performed by comparing the summed ion spectra from the GC-MS data. Pearson correlation was used to determine if substrates could be discriminated from one another. A pyrolysis products database and GC-MS database software based on comparison of summed ion spectra are shown to be useful tools for the evaluation of fire debris.

Discovering, screening, and associating changes in DNA sequence are important to a broad range of disciplines and play a central role in Forensic Science. The typical types of changes include sequence variations [single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP)] and length variations [short tandem repeats (STR)]. The steps for forensic DNA sample processing are similar for both types of changes but diverge at the point of detection. A number of approaches are being explored for SNP genotyping while STR analysis primarily consists of size-based analysis by capillary electrophoresis. Limitations exist for all current detection methods that pose significant impacts to forensic analysis. Bi-allelic SNPs result in three possible genotypes with a minimal amount of information generated per marker. Limitations for SNP analysis are due to the inability to amplify a suitable number of SNP markers from low DNA content samples to provide an appropriate level of discrimination. Multi-allelic STR markers are currently the marker of choice for forensic typing but a variety of experimental artifacts are possible that consist of either biology or technology related causes. Molecular genotyping methods developed across other disciplines have potential to alleviate some of these shortcomings but no current approach is capable of genotyping both SNP and STR loci with a single chemistry. The need for a more effective, efficient, and generalized approach led to development of a unique method called Dye Probe Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (dpFRET) and determination of its suitability for forensic analysis. The development phase of the research consisted of synthetic testing to establish proof of concept for the chemistry followed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based assays to demonstrate real world applications. Following successful development, the boundaries and limitations for the technology were established (sensitivity, allelic dropout, mixed samples) and efforts were made to improve the approach. In the process, parallel testing for other fields including molecular pathology and conservation biology were incorporated to explore potential widespread application of this new approach. The overall goal of this project was to develop and explore the limitations for a unique approach to genotyping both SNPs and STRs. A majority of the work involved development of the method itself with the ultimate objective of application for forensic science. The focus of this project was to address and alleviate some of the shortcomings of current approaches that result in potential limitations for forensic analysis. It is expected that future applications of this technology might impact a wide range of disciplines to aid in discovery, screening and association of changes in DNA sequence.

Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP) is a primary high explosive that can be synthesized using commercially available starting materials and has grown in use among terrorists over the past several years. Additives present in the precursors were investigated to see if they carry through the TATP synthesis and can be detected in the final product potentially aiding in the identification of the source. Additives identified in the acetones were also identified in pre-blast and in some post-blast samples. However, these additives are present in trace quantities relative to the TATP, which coupled with the volatility and short lifetimes of some of the additives in TATP samples limit their detection in pre-blast and post-blast material. TATP prepared with different acids in the laboratory could generally be discriminated by observing the change in composition of the headspace of the samples upon heating and by IMS analysis of the crystals. The analysis of TATP synthesized on a larger scale was compared to the laboratory results of pre-blast material and post-blast debris. As in the laboratory samples, organic additives were also detected in the large-scale pre-blast samples and the identification of the additives in post-blast debris was consistent with the results obtained in the laboratory detonations.

This ethnographic dissertation project is an applied philosophical project that takes an ontological and critical phenomenological approach to the enactment of carceral bodies. This dissertation set out to answer two central questions. First, how do jail intake processes enact carceral bodies (analog and digital) and what are the ontological implications? Second, how are jail intake processes reflective of the values and logics of a carceral society? The process of answering these questions offers an early attempt at empirical abolitionist science and technology studies research as it offers an intervention in the essentializing biomedical and criminological understandings of "the criminal." This is achieved by tracing the enactment pf carceral bodies across the domains of datafication, space, and time. First, with the advent of digital technologies, the science and technology of criminality continues to be informed by the desire to use metrics to identify and define criminal man. Like their precursors, however; when taken together these quantified characteristics contribute to the production of a body predisposed not to crime but to incarceration. This predisposition arises out of datafication and algorithmic characterization. The data comprising the raw material of this assignation pulls together the digitization of one's race, ethnicity, school (reflective of the school-to-prison-pipeline), address, sex, socio-economic status, disability status, mental health status, etc. Carceral algorithms, and the structures they arise out of, inform one's incarcerability. The carceral body of data and its risks are multiple and are represented in a number of ways, just as it is experienced variously. There are infinite permutations of the intake process across which categories come to stand in for human suffering, for risk, for job performance, etc. The data generated and its infrastructures are reflective of the broader political and socioeconomic context. The role of data collection, management, and analysis surrounding the intake process makes visible the politics and stakes of the carceral bodies enacted. The two primary epistemologies and attendant professions brought to bear upon the carceral body are medicine and criminology. These epistemologies rely upon quantification, categorization, and calculations of risk to generate data from which carceral knowledge is made (and in turn makes). This project characterizes the data infrastructures of the jails as socio-technical objects, practices, and architectures that are multiple and complex. It is through this lens that managerialism, algorithms, and knowledge production are characterized. Together, these facets provide insight into the making of carceral bodies of data and the logics and mechanisms of the carceral-data-industrial-complex. Second, this project addresses the spatialities that carceral bodies are generative of and situated in. The spaces of intake are suffused with values, politics, and epistemologies that play out in a number of ways. In order draw out these facets, the ontological approach was integrated with carceral geography. This approach elevates micro-scales of space and time, placing the personal and particular beside within the broader social and political contexts. This shift in scale has important implications for the study of correctional facilities as it is from this scale that the complexities, relationalities, materialities, contradictions, and multiplicities are visible. This approach relates to Foucault's carceral archipelago, which conveys the complexities of carceral spaces, surveillances, and their leakiness. Carceral geography's reading of Foucault requires an engagement across carceral societies that incorporates the body as a prime site from which to understand complex dynamics of control. Carceral geography offers a helpful approach drawing out spatialities enacted through performances and experiences, making concertina wire fences permeable and ever-mutable. The carceral body carries carceral spaces within it and beyond it that arise out of epistemes, policies, and practices that are mutually reinforcing and enmeshed. These embodied spaces include emotions and mental self-scapes alongside digitally recorded diagnoses and correctional designations. When considering how security infrastructures permeate society, well beyond correctional facility gates, this has important implications for this carceral society. The buildings and physical spaces of incarceration are read as reflective of the values and logics of the state, this brings into view the extra-penological function of incarceration, in which specific populations are disproportionately removed and disciplined/ punished by the state even before they are determined to be guilty or not guilty by a court. This hyper-incarceration of certain populations underlines the spatial logics of carceral networks that reflect the machinations of a neoliberal state that disappears those who have been Othered via carceral networks. This takes on even more problematic hues when considering the torturous conditions unsuitable for any creature, including humans. Third, despite Western constructs of linear or absolute time, the study of the carceral temporal body demonstrates the relativities, multiplicities, and disjunctures that challenge the notion of a universal clock. This dissertation tells of carceral bodies made into and across multiple time points. Bodies become metaphoric timeclocks through managerial oversight processes in which they are assigned varying times across different electronic record systems, with these different from their time of arrest and remand. In this space, the temporal jurisdictions diverge, giving rise to frictions and conflict. Further, these assigned temporalities differ greatly from the ways time is experienced across embodied states (e.g. experiencing acute withdrawal symptoms). The theoretical frameworks employed to understand carceral time are designed to address how carceral bodies come to be anticipated. In part, this is enacted through professional and bureaucratic routines that are often protracted and repetitive. These routines give rise to waiting and urgency. This empirical engagement with carceral temporalities draws out epistemic and experiential forces. Ultimately, this dissertation suggests that drawing out the ontological multiplicities of mass incarceration can countermand its fixities and generate abolitionist epistemologies. Abolition has generative potentials that coalesce with science and technology studies' investment in the otherwise. Over time carceral abolition has come to refer to a wide range of social movements, theoretical frameworks, and activism. The various approaches to abolition share a sense of urgency and resistance to gradual or eventual change, as this has historically led to the perpetuation and maintenance of racialized criminal justice systems and mass incarceration. Carceral epistemologies (e.g. penology, criminology, biomedicine, public health) are steeped in racisms and classisms, which inform broader imaginaries of crime and criminality. As political discourse has been reduced to simplistic chants and pithy soundbites, the aim of this dissertation has been to "complicate the discourse" surrounding the carceral-industrial-complex and the carceral body in particular. Understanding the carceral body through its ontological multiplicities serves as the grounds from which resistances to the status quo can be formulated. This is vitally important in light of the diffuse assemblages detailed in this project and the pervasiveness of carceral logics. In sum, this dissertation has demonstrated that carceral bodies are made and not born. It points to the difficult work still needed and the utility of ethnography in eliciting the multiplicities of practices and materialities in carceral settings. The abolitionist dreams arising from this project demand the embrace of ontological multiplicities as new logics and imaginaries unweave the criminal justice system. While it does not fall within the purview of this project to delineate a specific set of directives, it does suggest that abolitionist dis-epistemology requires logics and tactics equally as multifaceted and nuanced as the criminal justice system itself. / Doctor of Philosophy / This is an applied philosophy project based on ethnographic research in the New York City jails. It provides insight into the practices of jail intake as a way to draw out the ways in which carceral bodies come to be enacted. The project grows out of feminist science studies. The two central questions are 1) how do jail intake processes produce carceral bodies (analog and digital) and what are the implications? 2) how are jail intake processes reflective of the values and logics of a carceral society? These questions are addressed through the domains of data, space, and time, which serve as the organizing framework of this project. The focus on intake enactments draws out the multiplicities of carceral realities, which has the potential to resist essentializing conceptualizations of the criminal. In doing so, this dissertation project demonstrates the potential for abolitionist science and technology studies to disrupt the criminal justice status quo.

In this dissertation, I tell the story of midcentury attempts to establish, develop, and study bibliotherapy in the US. I follow three groups-hospital librarians, psychologists and psychiatrists, and language arts educators-from the 1930s to the 1960s, when each in its own ways expressed belief in the therapeutic power of reading and set out to enact that belief as a legitimate practice in the evolving contexts of its profession and in the broader culture. These professionals tried to learn what happened within people during and after reading, and they attempted to use what they learned to apply reading toward healthy ends. Today, therapeutic reading has become commonplace to the extent that it seems natural. In this dissertation, I aim to recover and explore the midcentury processes by which therapeutic reading came to seem at once natural, medical, and scientific. I argue that midcentury bibliotherapy functioned in concert with an evolving cultural narrative that I call "reading for health." The reading for health narrative gathers up into a coherent story various and deep beliefs and commonplaces about the power of books over our minds and our bodies. In midcentury bibliotherapy, reading for health was reinvigorated as a story about the marriage of science and culture, a unity narrative that claimed the iconic book-capable of swaying minds and societies alike, and burnished with all that western civilization signified-for the professions that applied reading toward their healthy ends. As I demonstrate, however, these narratives were not confined to discrete professions, but functioned as a part of a larger cultural movement set upon the shifting fault lines of the humanities and science. Each of the groups I follow took an avid interest in what I have called the embodied reader. Rather than viewing reading as an act of a disembodied mind, they understood the practice as a psychosomatic experience in which mind and body could not be disconnected. Moreover, they believed that reading could capitalize on the embodied nature of thought and affect, and engender healthy effects. In this way, the embodied reader was constructed as a new, modern locus of both the literary experience and the therapeutic ethos. By valuing above all else how reading could be used to achieve health, advocates of bibliotherapy fashioned a form of applied humanities, one that defined the meaning and judged the value of books in terms of their utility and efficacy. In so doing, they contributed to the development of a form of the medicalized humanities that now resonates in three contemporary sites: (1.) the study and use of bibliotherapy in clinical psychology; (2.) the dominant and naturalized approach to books known as therapeutic reading; and (3.) the medical humanities. / Ph. D.

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study focuses on tracking the developments accompanying the rise of indigenous knowledge (IK) and its positioning on the science policy and national research agenda in South Africa (SA). The historical occasion, the variety of policy developments in a diverse ‘new’ SA and how IK evolved, presented the impetus and context of the study. The objectives of the study were to consider more closely the roles and actions of the participants in the overall process, how they interacted and to identify broad patterns that occurred. Other areas included positioning IK as strategic science and how it was refracted through the national research system. To achieve these objectives, a significant part of the methodology involved a historical reconstruction of developments in IK. The data obtained from this reconstruction provided the basis for further analysis and closer scrutiny of the issues. Reconstructing the history assisted with providing some answers regarding the sources of concern and motivation which led to formulating policy on IK, the processes that advanced IK to its position in 2002, looking at how the various players in the research system were mobilized and how the prelegislative stage of activity determined the outcome of the IK legislative process. In addition to these questions, there was an opportunity to consider Wally’s Serote’s role as ‘moral entrepreneur and to try to understand both his personal trajectory and the role he played in the system. The historical reconstruction provided a periodization comprising three chronological phases, namely • Genesis (1994 – 1996) • Awareness Creation (1997 – 1998) • Programmes and Implementation (1999 – 2002) New policy directions in SA provided a context for positioning IK within strategic science. The leadership and passion displayed by Serote also required an understanding of his personal trajectory and the role he played in the system. IK as strategic science is positioned within framework of the moral entrepreneur’s cycle in a changing system. The historical reconstruction raised the issue of how easy or difficult it is to embed processes and how these processes co-evolve in the system. It also showed how IK was refracted through the national research system. The broad ‘success’ of the IK initiative is discussed with respect to its legislative and policy journey in SA and its current position in the research system. The ‘lesser successful’ side is also discussed in terms of the intended objectives and the eventual outcomes. Protecting IK, a central issue throughout the process, led to struggles and tensions that required rethinking both the policy and epistemic aspects of both western science and IK. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie fokus daarop om dié ontwikkelinge te volg wat deel was van die opkoms van inheemse kennis (IK) en die posisionering daarvan op die agenda vir wetenskapsbeleid en nasionale navorsing in Suid-Afrika (SA). Die historiese gebeurlikhede, die verskeidenheid in beleidsontwikkelinge in 'n diverse "nuwe" SA en die manier waarop IK ontwikkel het, het die stukrag en die konteks vir hierdie studie verskaf. Die doelwitte van die studie was as volg: om die rolle en die aksies van die deelnemers aan die proses as geheel in meer detail te oorweeg; om hulle interaksie waar te neem en om die breë aksiepatrone te identifiseer. Ander ondersoekareas was om IK as strategiese wetenskap te posisioneer en om vas te stel hoe dit deur middel van die nasionale navorsingstelsel gerefrakteer is. Om hierdie doelwitte te kan bereik, het 'n belangrike deel van die metodologie die historiese rekonstruksie van ontwikkelinge in IK behels. Die data wat deur middel van hierdie rekonstruksie verkry is, het die basis voorsien vir die verdere analise en nadere beskouing van die relevante kwessies. Deur die geskiedenis te rekonstrueer kon sommige van die vrae oor die volgende beantwoord word: die oorsprong van sake wat kommer gewek het en die motivering wat gelei het tot die formulering van beleid oor IK; die prosesse wat IK tot die posisie daarvan in 2002 bevorder het deur te kyk hoe die onderskeie rolspelers in die navorsingstelsel gemobiliseer is; en hoe die pre-wetgewende fase van aktiwiteite die uitkoms van die IK-wetgewende proses bepaal het. Bo en behalwe die beantwoording van hierdie vrae, kon Serote se rol as morele entrepreneur ook ondersoek word om sodoende beide sy persoonlike trajektorie en die rol wat hy in die stelsel gespeel het te probeer verstaan. Die historiese rekonstruksie het 'n periodisering, bestaande uit drie chronologiese fases, verskaf, naamlik 􀂃������� Genesis (1994 – 1996) 􀂃������� Skepping van 'n Bewussyn (1997 – 1998) 􀂃������� Programme en Implementering (1999 – 2002) Nuwe beleidsrigtings in Suid-Afrika het 'n konteks verskaf vir die posisionering van IK binne die strategiese wetenskap. Die leierskap en passie wat Serote geopenbaar het, het ook begrip vir sy persoonlike trajektorie en die rol wat hy in die stelsel gespeel het, gevra. IK as 'n strategiese wetenskap is geposisioneer binne-in die raamwerk van die morele entrepreneur se siklus in 'n veranderende stelsel. Die historiese rekonstruksie het die kwessie geopper van hoe maklik of hoe moeilik dit is om prosesse in te bed, en hoe hierdie prosesse saam in die stelsel ontwikkel. Dit het ook gewys hoe IK deur middel van die nasionale navorsingstelsel gerefrakteer is. Die breë "sukses" van die IK-inisiatief word bespreek met betrekking tot die pad wat dit geloop het in die wetgewende en die beleidsvormende proses in Suid-Afrika en die huidige posisie daarvan in die navorsingstelsel. Die "minder suksesvolle" kant word ook bespreek met betrekking tot die vooropgestelde doelwitte en die uiteindelike uitkomste. Die beskerming van IK, 'n sentrale kwessie regdeur die proses, het gelei tot worstelinge en spanninge wat vereis het dat die beleids- én die epistemiese aspekte van beide die westerse wetenskap en IK herbedink moes word.

abstract: Each of the three essays in this dissertation examine an aspect of health or health care in society. Areas explored within this dissertation include health care as a public value, proscriptive genomic policies, and socio-technical futures of the human lifespan. The first essay explores different forms of health care systems and attempts to understand who believes access to health care is a public value. Using a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. citizens, this study presents statistically significant empirical evidence regarding values and other attributes that predict the probability of individuals within age-based cohorts identifying access to health care as a public value. In the second essay, a menu of policy recommendations for federal regulators is proposed in order to address the lack of uniformity in current state laws concerning genetic information. The policy recommendations consider genetic information as property, privacy protections for re-identifying de-identified genomic information, the establishment of guidelines for law enforcement agencies to access nonforensic databases in criminal investigations, and anti-piracy protections for individuals and their genetic information. The third and final essay explores the socio-technical artifacts of the current health care system for documenting both life and death to understand the potential for altering the future of insurance, the health care delivery system, and individual health outcomes. Through the development of a complex scenario, this essay explores the long-term socio-technical futures of implementing a technology that continuously collects and stores genetic, environmental, and social information from life to death of individual participants. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology 2019

Master's paper (MSLS)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001. / Also available in PDF via the World Wide Web.

Esse trabalho tem por objetivo analisar as políticas de ciência e tecnologia, na última década do século XX, no Brasil. Buscou-se, especificamente, verificar potencialidades e limites dessas políticas para a construção de condições de sustentabilidade e para melhorar a posição relativa do país no cenário internacional, caracterizado por economia mundializada, e baseada, nos países centrais, em conhecimento intensivo. Visando identificar impactos das formas de gestão e de fomento de ciência e tecnologia sobre o desenvolvimento e a consolidação da base científica e tecnológica brasileira, na década de 1990, investigou-se a relação entre Estado, sociedade e coletividades científicas, expressa em políticas públicas, pelas quais o Estado, com o apoio parcial da coletividade científica, institui a “excelência” como o centro da re-organização do desenvolvimento científico e tecnológico brasileiro, tomando-a como condição essencial para a obtenção dos níveis de competitividade exigidos para a inserção do País na nova ordem econômica mundial. A investigação foi efetuada a partir da análise, por um lado, das macroestruturas sociais representadas pelo Estado (políticas públicas, agências do Estado) e o Mercado, estruturas essas que afetam e conectam as microssituações; e, por outro lado, sua relação com os microprocessos que envolvem a ação dos atores presentes no setor de ciência e tecnologia e seu papel na manutenção ou transformação das estruturas sociais. O conceito inclusivo de coletividades científicas, no qual as relações macro e microssociais são contempladas demonstrou-se profícuo para a investigação das políticas de ciência e tecnologia no Brasil, notadamente no que se refere à sua peculiaridade, expressa na inclusão dos cientistas como atores privilegiados na formulação e gestão das mesmas. O estudo conclui que as novas formas de gestão de ciência e tecnologia, no Brasil, que deixam de investir na ampliação horizontal da base de pesquisa e no apoio à emergência de grupos, com capacidade de encontrar soluções para problemas econômicos e sociais, nas diferentes regiões do país (que apresenta dimensões continentais), podem levar a um agravamento das dificuldades para o rompimento do círculo que mantém o país como periférico, com relação aos centros dinamizadores de conhecimento e, também, reduzir suas chances de um desenvolvimento sustentável, apesar do discurso e, mesmo, de políticas explícitas em ciência e tecnologia, direcionadas para esse tipo de desenvolvimento. / This paper aims at an analysis of the last decade of the twentieth century’s Brazilian policies on science and technology. Specifically, the author tried to verify potentials and limitations of these policies in the construction of conditions for sustainability and improvement of the country’s relative position in an international scene which is characterized by a global economy and, in the central countries, on intensive knowledge. Aiming at identifying the impact of management structures and promotion of science and technology on the development and the consolidation of the Brazilian technological and scientific foundations in the decade of 1990, the paper scrutinizes the relationship between State, society and scientific communities, as expressed in public policies, for which the State, with the partial support of the scientific collective, institutes "excellence" as the center of the reorganization of the Brazilian scientific and technological development, taking it as an essential condition for the attainment of the demanded levels of competitiveness for the insertion of the country in the new world-wide economic order. The investigation was carried out from the analysis, on one hand, of the social macrostructures represented by the State (public policies, State agencies) and the Market, with structures that affect and connect the micro-situations; and on the other hand, their relationship with the micro-processes that involve the action of the actors present in the science and technology sector and their role in maintaining or transforming social structures. The inclusive concept of scientific collectives, which contemplates macro and micro-social relationships, has asserted itself as a fertile terrain for the inquiry into science and technology policies in Brazil, specifically in relation to its peculiarity, which is expressed by the inclusion of the scientists as privileged actors in the creation and management of policies of science and technology. The study concludes that the new forms of management in science and technology in Brazil fail to invest in the horizontal expansion of the bases for research as well as failing to support emergent groups, which are capable of finding solutions for economic and social problems in the different regions of a country as large as Brazil. This failure can make it very difficult to disrupt the circle that keeps the country peripheral with relation to the driving centres of knowledge. Moreover, it reduces the possibilities of a sustainable development, in spite of the official discourse and even the implementation, by the State, of explicit policies in science and technology, intended for this type of development.

Esse trabalho tem por objetivo analisar as políticas de ciência e tecnologia, na última década do século XX, no Brasil. Buscou-se, especificamente, verificar potencialidades e limites dessas políticas para a construção de condições de sustentabilidade e para melhorar a posição relativa do país no cenário internacional, caracterizado por economia mundializada, e baseada, nos países centrais, em conhecimento intensivo. Visando identificar impactos das formas de gestão e de fomento de ciência e tecnologia sobre o desenvolvimento e a consolidação da base científica e tecnológica brasileira, na década de 1990, investigou-se a relação entre Estado, sociedade e coletividades científicas, expressa em políticas públicas, pelas quais o Estado, com o apoio parcial da coletividade científica, institui a “excelência” como o centro da re-organização do desenvolvimento científico e tecnológico brasileiro, tomando-a como condição essencial para a obtenção dos níveis de competitividade exigidos para a inserção do País na nova ordem econômica mundial. A investigação foi efetuada a partir da análise, por um lado, das macroestruturas sociais representadas pelo Estado (políticas públicas, agências do Estado) e o Mercado, estruturas essas que afetam e conectam as microssituações; e, por outro lado, sua relação com os microprocessos que envolvem a ação dos atores presentes no setor de ciência e tecnologia e seu papel na manutenção ou transformação das estruturas sociais. O conceito inclusivo de coletividades científicas, no qual as relações macro e microssociais são contempladas demonstrou-se profícuo para a investigação das políticas de ciência e tecnologia no Brasil, notadamente no que se refere à sua peculiaridade, expressa na inclusão dos cientistas como atores privilegiados na formulação e gestão das mesmas. O estudo conclui que as novas formas de gestão de ciência e tecnologia, no Brasil, que deixam de investir na ampliação horizontal da base de pesquisa e no apoio à emergência de grupos, com capacidade de encontrar soluções para problemas econômicos e sociais, nas diferentes regiões do país (que apresenta dimensões continentais), podem levar a um agravamento das dificuldades para o rompimento do círculo que mantém o país como periférico, com relação aos centros dinamizadores de conhecimento e, também, reduzir suas chances de um desenvolvimento sustentável, apesar do discurso e, mesmo, de políticas explícitas em ciência e tecnologia, direcionadas para esse tipo de desenvolvimento. / This paper aims at an analysis of the last decade of the twentieth century’s Brazilian policies on science and technology. Specifically, the author tried to verify potentials and limitations of these policies in the construction of conditions for sustainability and improvement of the country’s relative position in an international scene which is characterized by a global economy and, in the central countries, on intensive knowledge. Aiming at identifying the impact of management structures and promotion of science and technology on the development and the consolidation of the Brazilian technological and scientific foundations in the decade of 1990, the paper scrutinizes the relationship between State, society and scientific communities, as expressed in public policies, for which the State, with the partial support of the scientific collective, institutes "excellence" as the center of the reorganization of the Brazilian scientific and technological development, taking it as an essential condition for the attainment of the demanded levels of competitiveness for the insertion of the country in the new world-wide economic order. The investigation was carried out from the analysis, on one hand, of the social macrostructures represented by the State (public policies, State agencies) and the Market, with structures that affect and connect the micro-situations; and on the other hand, their relationship with the micro-processes that involve the action of the actors present in the science and technology sector and their role in maintaining or transforming social structures. The inclusive concept of scientific collectives, which contemplates macro and micro-social relationships, has asserted itself as a fertile terrain for the inquiry into science and technology policies in Brazil, specifically in relation to its peculiarity, which is expressed by the inclusion of the scientists as privileged actors in the creation and management of policies of science and technology. The study concludes that the new forms of management in science and technology in Brazil fail to invest in the horizontal expansion of the bases for research as well as failing to support emergent groups, which are capable of finding solutions for economic and social problems in the different regions of a country as large as Brazil. This failure can make it very difficult to disrupt the circle that keeps the country peripheral with relation to the driving centres of knowledge. Moreover, it reduces the possibilities of a sustainable development, in spite of the official discourse and even the implementation, by the State, of explicit policies in science and technology, intended for this type of development.