Human Practices

The UNAM-Genomics Mexico team's project "Hydrobium etli" engaged with the ideal of tying most aspects of the human sphere in the Human Practices. On the one hand, we decided to mix art and science with our special art exhibit Bio-sintetizarte, as a way of showing people's perceptions on synthetic biology, their concerns, their critiques, their hopes and their hypes, embodied in the artists' works that are being presented in la cas de la ciencia museum from September the 30th to October the 28th. On the other hand, we pursued the ideal of appplying our potential developments on the ground, and made a visit to Cuatzoquetingo, a rural community in the southern state of Guerrero, to learn about the necessities of the community, how could we aim to solve them, and how could we accomodate our potential products to the tradition and cultural settings we were presented in Cuatzo. These human practices helped us to place our project's goals and aims on the right spot, taking into consideration that science is not an isolated activity, one that carries a heavy load of feelings on the lay person, and that cannot be simply offered as-is without consideration of the status quo of the communities that ultimately might take advantage of its benefits. We hope that the description of both projects is as fascinating to you as they were for us to organize, and that you'll learn as much from the human and social dimension of science as we did.