Toward a transnational history of the social sciences

Current Sociology, 2013

Exploring the ‘globalization’ of the social sciences, this article first presents an historical interpretation of how transnational exchange in the social sciences has evolved. Earlier forms of international circulation are distinct from the more global arrangements that have emerged since the late twentieth century. Considering this globalizing field in more detail, it is argued that its predominant characteristic is a core–periphery structure, with a duopolistic Euro-American core, multiple semi-peripheries and a wide range of peripheries. Focusing on the global level, much of the existing research, however, has neglected the emergence of transnational regional structures. The formation of a transnational European field of social science is taken as an example of this process of transnational regionalization. The social sciences worldwide can thus be seen as a four-level structure. In addition to the local and national level, transnational regional as well as global structures hav...

The British Journal for the History of Science, 2012

In recent years, historians have debated the prospect of offering new 'transnational' 6 or 'global' perspectives in their studies. This paper introduces the reader to this special issue by 7 analysing characteristics, merits and flaws of these approaches. It then considers how historians 8 of science have practised transnational history without, however, paying sufficient attention to This introduction presents the results of our investigation on the interplay between 31 transnational history and history of science studies. 1 We first consider how transnational 32 history has emerged as a novel approach amongst the historical community at large. We 33 then examine works in the history of science that present some of its key features. 34 Drawing on these studies and our own analysis, we consider how transnational 35 perspectives could promote a novel understanding of science as historical phenomenon. We thus highlight the methodological challenges associated with the adoption of a 37 transnational approach, and envisage that one important advantage for those willing to 38 explore transnational history would be its propulsion of greater interaction with 39 historians outside our specialist domain. 40 41 Going transnational 42 Transnational history is a loosely defined term indicating the effort to produce novel 43 historical accounts by focusing on the flows of people, goods, ideas or processes that 44 stretched over borders. It has emerged following cross-contamination between 45 disciplines and has been appropriated in different ways by different communities. In 46 the Dictionary of Transnational History, French transnational historian Pierre-Yves 47 98 role played by organizations operating internationally (multinational corporations, 99 non-governmental organizations, religious associations, criminal and terrorist groups); 100 and the international management of infrastructures, resources and environmental 101 issues. 7 102 Yet transnational history has been only one of several perspectives that have flourished 103 in the last twenty years. Other approaches such as world history and new global history 104 share with transnational history the wish to abandon Euro-and US-centric viewpoints, 105

Brill, 2023

Call for papers While an overwhelming number of studies have been conducted in the field of global studies, our goal here is to understand the methodological dimensions of the consequences, for social and political scientists – sociologists, anthropologists, human geographers, linguists –, to address the Global and its consequences linked to epistemological considerations. The empirical question is one of the most pressing and compelling ones since it addresses the very issue of ‘how’ globalization(s) work(s) and its impact on the craft of the Social scientists in terms of methodological and theoretical tools. Where and when is the global to be observed? What are the indicators of globalization and how to approach these processes? How to measure global flows? What are the relevant scales of observation? How is it possible to integrate various levels of analysis as the Global North/South relations or Eastern/Western divides and a discussion of glocal phenomena? What might constitute (a) global fieldwork(s)? What kind of data (macro and/or micro) should be mobilized? How to better situate social scientist’s positionality in the global economy of knowledge? These are the questions that our edited collection would like to address. This edited collection aims to present and discuss multi-scalar, multi-level and multi-sited methods commonly used to study the Global or its impacts. It will focus either on comparative objects that have major economic and cultural impacts or on issues, knowledge and goods that are left at the margin of globalization. Like the large field of research that is Global studies, these approaches are by definition multidisciplinary and simultaneously involve researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds and geographical areas. The book intends to discuss various possible approaches among which cosmopolitan sociology, connected history, world history, in light with the challenges posed, on one hand, by globalization and, on the other, the need for situated standpoints and knowledges claimed by feminist, postcolonial, decolonial, or post-western approaches for the last 30 years (Stoetzler and Yuval-Davis, 2002; Santos 2007; Mignolo 2000).

The British Journal of Sociology, 2006

This article calls for a re-conceptualization of the social sciences by asking for a cosmopolitan turn. The intellectual undertaking of redefining cosmopolitanism is a trans-disciplinary one, which includes geography, anthropology, ethnology, international relations, international law, political philosophy and political theory, and now sociology and social theory. Methodological nationalism, the assumption of the nation-state, which subsumes society under the state, has until now made this task almost impossible. The alternative, a 'cosmopolitan outlook', is a very contested term and project -what does it mean? Cosmopolitanism must not be equalized with the global (or globalization), with 'world system theory' (Wallerstein), with 'world polity' (Meyer and others), or with 'world-society' (Luhmann). All of those concepts presuppose basic dualisms, such as domestic/foreign or national/international, which in reality have become ambiguous. Methodological cosmopolitanism opens up new horizons by demonstrating how we can make the empirical investigation of border crossings, mixing processes, and other transnational phenomena possible. The resulting real cosmopolitanism, which, seeking to overcome dualisms by proceeding based on a logic of 'both-and' instead of 'eitheror', does not fit into uniform or dualistic frame works.

Shaping the Transnational Sphere , 2015

Today the role played by experts, expert knowledge and epistemic communities in international politics is manifest. Decision making in fields ranging from technology to the environment, from science to international security and from European Union integration to economic development is shaped by expert knowledge. 1 The politics of expertise are not a new phenomenon. This book examines expert networks and organizations in Europe, in Western Europe in particular, in the period between the mid-nineteenth century and the early 1930s, and demonstrates their relationship with policy-making processes at both the domestic and the international level especially with respect to the social reform movement. The volume explores the activities of networks and non-state actors beyond and below national borders that were particularly important for the dissemination of reform ideas and practices. Social scientists have often neglected the influence of these networks and the circulation of knowledge and expertise, despite the more recent discussions about their 'Atlantic crossings' analysed by the historian Daniel T. Rogers. 2 The dominance of the paradigm of the nation-state has, until recently, resulted in a focus on intergovernmental and diplomatic relations, and a consequent underestimation of the significance of transnational relations. 3 Although the rise of networks of experts has been attributed by social scientists to 'the birth of a knowledge society' during the second half of the twentieth century, 4 as the chapters in this edited collection demonstrate , the contribution of expert knowledge to policy processes reaches back at least a century earlier. In the mid-nineteenth century, cultural, political, social and economic factors inspired contemporaries to believe in the overarching role of scientific and technological progress as a means to overcome the problems caused by rapid industrialization and social Notes for this chapter begin on page 15.

Current Sociology, 2013

This article addresses the issue of internationalization of social sciences by studying the evolution of production (of academic articles), collaboration and citations patterns among main world regions over the period 1980–2009 using the SSCI. The results confirm the centre–periphery model and indicate that the centrality of the two major regions that are North America and Europe is largely unchallenged, Europe having become more important and despite the growing development of Asian social sciences. The authors’ quantitative approach shows that the growing production in the social sciences but also the rise of international collaborations between regions have not led to a more homogeneous circulation of the knowledge produced by different regions, or to a substantial increase in the visibility of the contributions produced by peripheral regions. Social scientists from peripheral regions, while producing more papers in the core journals compiled by the SSCI, have a stronger tendency...

Serendipities, 2020

Like any intellectual pursuit, social science is dependent on the international circulation of thought and thinkers in order to yield its promise of enlightening the understanding of the societies they study. The four articles in this special issue of Serendipities deal with various aspects of the international embeddedness of East European social sciences during the socialist period. While social sciences are typically strongly context-bound or "indexical" (Fleck et al. 2018)-meaning they refer to particular historical situations, the analysis of which does not always travel easily across time and cultures-knowledge of a multiplicity of social realities appears to be a precondition for imaginative social thought. This, it seems, places all social sciences in the context of a global history of thinking about the human condition.

Tapuya. Latin American Science, Technology and Society, 2019

This article collects some results of the research carried out between 2014 and 2017 about the trajectories and scientific experiences of social researchers in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. The information was obtained through in-depth interviews with 39 researchers from the social sciences in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. The article analyzes the biographies of the researchers interviewed, specifically in relation to the causes that motivated or forced departures from their countries of birth to continue their academic careers abroad. The focus of the analysis is on the relationship between international mobility and the biographical aspects that caused their departure, either as a training process or as an obligation during military dictatorships. The results show aspects about the configuration of the scientific subjectivities of social researchers, which is a dimension little taken into account in studies on international mobility.

Journal of World-Systems Research, 2019

This paper expands the framework of the Bourdieusian field theory using a world-system theoretical perspective to analyze the global system of social sciences, or what might be called the world-system of knowledge production. The analysis deals with the main agents of the world-system of social sciences, and it also investigates the core-like and periphery-like processes of the system. Our findings affirm that a very characteristic center-periphery structure exists in global social sciences, with a few hegemonic countries and distinctly peripheral world regions. Our analysis not just presents empirical data on power structures in global social sciences but it also offers meaningful typologies for analysis of the roles different world regions play in maintaining the world-system of global knowledge production. The paper also proposes a three-dimensional model by which both geographical and social/institutional center-periphery relations may be analyzed.

Introduction , 2016

This book is a great example of the history of the transnational sphere. It analyses a wide range of themes such as social science and peace congresses, the prison reform movement, the nationalisation of academia, forestry science, sanitary engineering and migration. All topics are approached from the perspective of transnational cooperation, connections and networks. The emphasis on experts and networks makes the volume an informative, complex, dynamic and important piece of research. The aim of the book is to ‘examine expert networks and organizations in Europe ... and demonstrate their relationship with policy-making processes ... especially with respect to the social reform movement’ (p. 1). For the contributors to this publication, the key issue to understanding the transnational sphere is to analyse how ‘experts became agents of the emergence of a transnational or, in some cases, supranational consciousness among European elites’ (p. 2). The whole volume itself proves how fruitful such a focus is and how many new insights it brings to European history. The authors observe the practical means of how experts worked through ‘international organizations, gatherings of experts, international congresses, publications and journals’ (p. 2). The volume consists of three sections: experts, networks and issues. This particular structure could be useful, while providing context for the reader, yet the separation of topics in these three blocks does not make it easy to navigate the book, as they are implicit across all topics. One of the book’s strengths is its longue durée approach. It covers 90 years, allowing us to see how certain spheres appeared, evolved and function. The book refers to the formation of three phases of the transnational sphere. The first phase, from the 1840s to the 1870s, was ‘the encyclopedic moment’ with ‘gentlemanly networks of experts’ (p. 7). The next phase, from the 1880s to 1914, was an ‘organizational turning point’ that resulted in ‘the creation of an international society under the rule of law’ (p. 8). The third phase was the interwar period when the League of Nations took centre stage with its work for peace and decolonisation (pp. 10-11). Although not all of the chapters refer to the three phases, they address at least two, which enables an understanding of the function of international relations under the changing influence of historical events. Despite these slips, historians of early modern Europe and those interested in legislative matters will benefit from the work of Toomas Kotkas. His thesis – that the understanding of law as an instrument of social change emerges in Sweden during the seventeenth century – is clear, supported by evidence, and, most importantly, convincing.