Society & Culture / Sociology / Sociology of Knowledge

The Dark Side of Academia: Why Modern Science Isn't Neutral

Prácticas otras de conocimiento(s): Entre crisis, entre guerras

Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Mercedes Olivera, Charles Hale

For centuries, society has treated academic science as a neutral search for truth, assuming that higher degrees automatically mean deeper wisdom. But what if modern research operates less like an engine of liberation and more like an extractive industry, strip-mining lived human experience to fuel academic careers? This slide-by-slide presentation tears down the pedestal of the so-called neutral expert. It exposes why top-tier methodologies collapse in the real world, how specialized training often produces institutional tunnel vision, and why true discovery requires abandoning the detached observer complex. Exploring radical grassroots frameworks, it unpacks the power of walking while asking questions, thinking through both heart and mind, and turning passive research subjects into equal creators of knowledge. Featured Book and Thinkers: Based on the groundbreaking collection "Prácticas otras de conocimiento(s): Entre crisis, entre guerras" (Other Practices of Knowledge: Between Crises, Between Wars), a landmark project exploring how grassroots movements and critical scholars build counter-hegemonic ways of knowing. The work features insights from Boaventura de Sousa Santos, an internationally acclaimed Portuguese sociologist and leading theorist of the Epistemologies of the South, alongside pioneering Mexican feminist anthropologist Mercedes Olivera, activist scholar Charles Hale, and indigenous intellectuals across Latin America. By unlearning conventional assumptions about expertise, you will discover how to question who dictates reality and reclaim your own critical voice.