Editorial: Don’t look down on Latin American science

Take a look at this year’s edition of C&EN’s Trailblazers featuring chemists with roots in Latin America, and you’ll see that we open with a map of the Americas oriented with south pointing up. The decision is a wink at the theme of “The Revolución/Revolução”—both the turning of the planet and a subversion of expectations—but it also means something more profound.

Maps have and reflect power. It is not by accident that the Mercator projection of the globe makes Latin America look puny relative to the hulking US and Europe, yet that map has maintained its popularity for centuries even though few still use it for its intended applications in navigation.

But ever since there have been maps prescribing a worldview, there have surely been dissenters. In a 1935 manifesto, the Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García says European artists laid claim to modernism when in fact many of the movement’s aesthetic elements were universal. To underscore his point, he began drawing maps with the Southern Hemisphere on top as a jab at European claimed superiority. He writes, “Now we know what our true position is, and it is not the way the rest of the world would like to have it.”

In this Trailblazers issue, we wanted to elevate the stories of researchers from and working in Latin America, whose triumphs and struggles the global research community doesn’t properly recognize. This lack of recognition occurs for several reasons. For instance, their research is often regionally focused. So when they transform natively grown materials into technological marvels or study environmental issues that plague their local communities, the rest of the world can easily dismiss their work as niche or not generalizable.

The inequity is also rooted in more systemic issues. Governments don’t give researchers in Latin America the funding or the freedom of movement that their colleagues to the north get; globally, researchers cite papers less if they’re not written in English; and Latin American scientists devote more of their time to maintaining their footing in shifting political landscapes.

A few things stuck out to us about our cohort of Trailblazers. First is their desire to build up their region and mentor other Latine scientists. Even the expats among them are trying to recruit students from their home countries to build talent pools in Latin America. It seems that our Trailblazers value generational growth as much as they value their individual progress.

Second, many of our Trailblazers mentioned a language barrier to participating in global science. In the spirit of revolution and change, perhaps those who speak only English should start branching out linguistically. But at the very least, supporting those trying to hurdle language barriers is and will be instrumental to nurturing scientists in Latin America and ensuring they can collaborate effectively abroad.

We feature a healthy selection of computational chemists that are leading a revolution of their own. This group uses quantum computing, cutting-edge simulations, and artificial intelligence—often combining these with experimental techniques—to enhance and make safer the materials and molecules that our lives depend on. This is a vibrant community that the broader field of chemistry often doesn’t adequately recognize.

A scientific revolution is more than a new medicine or experiment. It’s about people coming together and challenging established practices. Labs in Europe and the US would do well to shed any elitism they feel about their own research. Taking a note from our map, when they look south, instead of looking down on that research, they should try looking up.

This editorial is the result of collective deliberation in C&EN. For this week’s editorial, lead contributors are Manny I. Fox Morone and Krystal Vasquez.

Views expressed on this page are not necessarily those of ACS.