The Aysén Hydroelectric Project in Chilean Patagonia proposed the construction of the country’s largest power facility to supply its capital, nearly 2,000 kilometres away. We seek to explain the way science, politics, law, business and the civilian population are joined up. To this end, we analyse the project’s evolution, the construction of techno-scientific arguments by the participants and how Chilean regulations are adapting to this process.

The first Latin American molecularbiology laboratory came onto the scientificscene in Argentina in early 1957, only to bedismantled in 1962, following a ministerialchange. This paper explores the social,political, institutional, and cognitiveinteractions present in this short experience,and assesses their importance in understandingthe development of a new scientific field in a`peripheral context'.