Highlights
The 25th International Congress of History of Science and Technology (ICHST), was held in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 23 to 29 July 2017. The general theme was “Science, Technology and Medicine between the Global and the Local”.
Questions of place are gaining increasing importance in the work of historians of science, technology and medicine, to such an extent that some scholars suggest this corresponds to a veritable “spatial turn”. It is unavoidable that researchers take sides on issues such as the situatedness of knowledge and practices, the problems pertaining to their movements across spaces and cultures (and not only along time) and, above all, the proper choice of scales of analysis – all the way between the global and the local, which was the core of the 25th ICHST’s theme. At the same time, this theme related to the very nature of the Congress as the largest international gathering of historians of science, technology and medicine, inviting all of us to think about what we may say to and learn from each other, considering our own multifarious places and standpoints.
The 25th ICHST was held in the Praia Vermelha campus of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), located in one of the most beautiful and touristic regions in the city, served by various forms of public transport and close to important clusters of hotels, beaches, and numerous artistic and cultural attractions.
This was the first time that ICHST was held in South America and the Southern Hemisphere.