THEORETICAL AND POLITICAL WEAPONS

intellectual production in Information Science

Abstract

It considers the Brazilian scientific production of Information Science (IC), by institutionally recognized researchers in the area, to highlight transformation movements and intellectual influences on the theoretical framework constructed by them. It questions the concepts of postmodernity and postmodernism in the context of these productions, critically analyzing periodic scientific production, indexed in the Reference Database of Journal Articles in Information Science (Brapci), of Research Productivity Fellows (PQ) , from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), from 1990 to 2022, to describe the phenomenon of postmodernism and postmodernity, both as a process of transformation and stimulation of production on the contradictions found in this culture , as well as the recognition of theories, concepts, political and ideological positions. It adopts the distinction presented by Terry Eagleton, between postmodernism and postmodernity, to recognize the meanings of the terms focused on and their correlates, and in which contexts they are analyzed in the research corpus. Selects texts with potential contribution to a historical-evolutionary synthesis. It concludes by highlighting two most obvious positions. The predominant one associates it with the condition of IC as a post-modern science, with post-modern archival science, with the post-custodial paradigm, with post-modern society and with generic considerations about knowledge and information as basic commodities of post-modernity. The most critical position is based on authors such as Terry Eagleton, when denouncing the illusions of postmodernism, and David Harvey, whose main arguments relate the rise of postmodern cultural forms and the emergence of flexible modes of accumulation to the compression cycle of time-space in the organization of capitalism.