Mexican academie of social sciences: navigating the patterns of neoliberalism

Abstract

In Mexico, the National System of Researchers (SNI) is the most representative institution of academie. In 2019 it grouped 30532 members, representing the area of social sciences 16.5%. In particular, over the last forty years, its members have witnessed changes in Science and Technology policies that have had a direct impact on their way of producing knowledge, presenting what some have called neoliberal science features (Ordorika, 2004). Based on a constructivist paradigm, this study explores the professional trajectories and perceptions of 50 social scientists who are members of levels II and III of the SNI, using a qualitative methodology based on in-depth interviews. The results contrast the narratives between researchers with longer and shorter tenure in the system, highlighting the incorporation of practices aligned with global science, which evidences the abandonment of national research agendas, loss of autonomy and limits to academic freedom (Pérez Mora, 2020), as well as practices that navigate between the logics of the market and power, among others. Finally, the relationship between science and national development is questioned, raising questions about the effects of recent changes in the Science and Technology Policy, which advocates a science with social impact, anti-neoliberal in nature.