THE ETHICAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE IN INFORMATION SCIENCE

Abstract

In recent years, “social responsibility” appears as an increasingly present subject in the public, private, and federal institutions. However, it becomes a polemic subject, because the term is often associated to the pure and simple idea of philanthropy, charity, or good will of business men against the ailments of social and cultural differences. In this way, the social commitment of the public universities is to fight for the ethnically vulnerable social groups, showing itself as a represented category based on the ethical principle of the university services. The study examines the production of knowledge on blacks, stored in the science memory of the Federal University of Paraiba, focusing on the Graduate Program in Information Science of that Institution. The results show that this Program has a modest knowledge production concerning the ethno-racial issue. Nevertheless, some efforts need to be taken in order to give visibility to blacks in the production of knowledge that constitutes the science memory of UFPB. For that purpose, it is suggested the development of information actions by conducting researches designed to support the knowledge production, and advance the reflections on the ethnically vulnerable social groups that historically live in unequal conditions.  Revealing the (in)visibility of the positions they still occupy in the science memory of the higher education institutions and the roles of the power relations circulating in the universities.