Paper short abstract:

The paper discuses evidence coming from the ethnography of a case of knowledge construction carried out by a university research team and rice workers. The process constitutes an isolated example of research oriented to satisfy the needs of the most deprived pole in the existing social relations.

Paper long abstract:

The paper presents some discussions coming from an ethnographic approach of a process of knowledge construction, carried out by a university research team and rice workers. The research process emerged from the workers' demand for greater knowledge about their health situation associated with their labour (pesticides exposure, physical loads, weather exposure), and constitutes an isolated example of scientific research oriented to satisfy the needs of the most deprived pole in the existing social relations in the field (getting undone science done).

An emphasis on power relations that shape the research agenda, and the individual and collective strategies in respect of those is made. Also, in the aspects that led to the process, in the interactions of knowledge that were produced in the process, and in the eventual solution to the problems identified by the workers. The approach, the questions to answer, and the analysis is in the framework of anthropology of science.

As a social activity, the construction of knowledge does not follow natural paths. The background stories of individuals and groups, their political and philosophical ideas, power relations and strategies (individual and collective), the dialogue with different kinds of knowledge, set frameworks that define those paths. The analysis presented in the paper seeks dialogue with those ideas in order to arrive at conclusions that will allow, ultimately, to think in a production of knowledge that includes the interests and problems of the most disadvantaged social sectors.