This book examines the circulation of knowledge within globalization, focusing on the differences between centers and peripheries of knowledge production in the social sciences. It explores not only how knowledge is appropriated in peripheral fields but also how foreign ideas shape those fields and the trajectories of scholars, and uses actor-network theory to explain circulation of knowledge as an extension of socio-technical networks that transcend borders.
An innovative contribution to debates on the internationalization and globalization of the social sciences, this book pays particular attention to their theoretical and epistemological reconfiguration in the light of postcolonial critiques and critiques of Eurocentrism. Bringing together theoretical contributions and empirical case studies from around the world, including India, the Americas, South Africa, Australia and Europe, it engages in debates concerning public sociology and explores South-South research collaborations specific to the social sciences. Contributions transcend established critiques of Eurocentrism to make space for the idea of global social sciences and truly transnational research. Thematically arranged and both international and interdisciplinary in scope, this volume reflects the different theoretical and thematic backgrounds of the contributing authors, who enter into dialogue and debate with one another in the development of a more inclusive, more representative and more theoretically relevant stage for the social sciences. A rigorous critique of the contemporary state of the social sciences as well as an attempt to find another way of doing transnational sociology, Global Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences will appeal to scholars of sociology, political science and social theory with interests in the production of social scientific knowledge, postcolonialism and transnationalism in research.
This book studies the circulation of social knowledge by focusing on the reception of Niklas Luhmann's systems theory in Hispanic America. It shows that theories need active involvement from scholars in the receiving field in order to travel.
The political economy of research and innovation (R&I) is one of the central issues of the early twenty-first century. ‘Science’ and ‘innovation’ are increasingly tasked with driving and reshaping a troubled global economy while also tackling multiple, overlapping global challenges, such as climate change or food security, global pandemics or energy security. But responding to these demands is made more complicated because R&I themselves are changing. Today, new global patterns of R&I are transforming the very structures, institutions and processes of science and innovation, and with it their claims about desirable futures. Our understanding of R&I needs to change accordingly. Responding to this new urgency and uncertainty, this handbook presents a pioneering selection of the growing body of literature that has emerged in recent years at the intersection of science and technology studies and political economy. The central task for this research has been to expose important but consequential misconceptions about the political economy of R&I and to build more insightful approaches. This volume therefore explores the complex interrelations between R&I (both in general and in specific fields) and political economies across a number of key dimensions from health to environment, and universities to the military. The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science offers a unique collection of texts across a range of issues in this burgeoning and important field from a global selection of top scholars. The handbook is essential reading for students interested in the political economy of science, technology and innovation. It also presents succinct and insightful summaries of the state of the art for more advanced scholars.
In the eighteenth century, malaria was a prevalent and deadly disease, and the only effective treatment was found in the Andean forests of Spanish America: a medicinal bark harvested from cinchona trees that would later give rise to the antimalarial drug quinine. In 1751, the Spanish Crown asserted control over the production and distribution of this medicament by establishing a royal reserve of "fever trees" in Quito. Through this pilot project, the Crown pursued a new vision of imperialism informed by science and invigorated through commerce. But ultimately this project failed, much like the broader imperial reforms that it represented. Drawing on extensive archival research, Matthew Crawford explains why, showing how indigenous healers, laborers, merchants, colonial officials, and creole elites contested European science and thwarted imperial reform by asserting their authority to speak for the natural world. The Andean Wonder Drug uses the story of cinchona bark to demonstrate how the imperial politics of knowledge in the Spanish Atlantic ultimately undermined efforts to transform European science into a tool of empire.
Universities are inherently and definitionally universal in their quest for the creation and dissemination of knowledge. They are set to defy borders that exist in parochial forms. Globalization which opened up borders has by design or default created inequalities and imbalances in knowledge systems. Undoubtedly, knowledge is power but there is difference in the power that is intrinsic to it and the power that is ascribed which is determined by dominant political and economic hierarchies. If knowledge predominantly flows from global north to global south, people seeking knowledge move from global south to global north. These imbalances are also seen within these regions, between cultures and communities, one claiming superiority over the other. These realities call for a reassessment of not only what constitutes knowledge, but also what encompasses the idea of borders. This book elaborates on the inclusive role of education that can act as an equalizer or as a catalyst for creating a level playing field across borders. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)
In the form of a sociological pilgrimage, this book approaches some topics essential to understanding the role of science in Latin America, juxtaposing several approaches and exploring three main lines: First, the production and use of knowledge in these countries, viewed from a historical and sociological point of view; second, the reciprocal construction of scientific and public problems, presented through significant cases such as Latin American Chagas Disease; and third, the past and present asymmetries affecting the relationships between centers and peripheries in scientific research. These topics show the paradox of being at the same time "modern" and "peripheral."
This book investigates and critically interprets the underrepresentation of the global South in global knowledge production. The author analyses the serious bias towards scholars and institutions from this region: he argues that this phenomenon causes serious disadvantages not only for authors and institutions, but global science as well by impeding the flow of fresh, innovative scholarship. This book uses a combination of field theory and world-systems analysis to explain the motives and dynamics behind the geopolitical and societal inequalities in the system of global knowledge production. Subsequently, the author offers several solutions by which these inequalities could be reduced, or even eliminated. This book will be of interest and value to scholars of knowledge inequalities, and knowledge production in the global South. “Márton Demeter’s monograph invokes rich anecdotal, empirical and scientometric evidence to delineate the contours of a world system that preserves the dominance of Western knowledge and scholars and the westernisation or peripheralisation of the rest – a system defined by geopolitical and material inequalities, socio-economic class differences, institutional elitism and publishing biases. Demeter’s work counters narratives that present academia as meritocratic and that justify disparities in world publications on the basis of pure rigour, exposing rather norms and values that perpetuate a western elitist system and peripheralise those who happen to lack this cultural capital. Demeter’s work adds to an expanding field of research documenting how Anglophone standards and biases in journal indexing, peer review and editorial board recruitment marginalise consistently the Global South. His practical and concrete suggestions to subvert this system of horizontal and vertical inequalities could not be timelier and provides momentum to decolonisation movements in higher education across the world.” —Dr Romina Istratii, SOAS University of London, UK “Márton Demeter is a scholar dedicated to revealing the inequality in academic publishing and a strong advocate for scholars from the Global South. This book is an epitome of his effort on this cause. Demeter utilizes his wealth of data including authorships, citations, journal publishers, editorial review board compositions, the reviewers and the editors of journals as strong evidence of inequality with his three-dimensional model of academic stratification. This book is a must-read for scholars both in the Global North and the Global South to reflect on the current state of academic knowledge gatekeeping and production. It will spark a dialogue between scholars to address the dominance of the Global North especially in the field of communication.” —Professor Louisa Ha, Bowling Green State University, USA “Márton Demeter’s analysis and critique of the unequal structure of global knowledge production is a powerful contribution to the global justice movement with dramatic implications for what academics in both the Global North and the Global South can do to help science and the humanities live up to their claims of meritocracy and universality. Demeter employs a useful critical combination of the world-systems perspective and Bourdieusian field theory to organize the results of his careful and sophisticated empirical studies of global knowledge production. He is an intrepid protagonist of a more egalitarian human future.” —Professor Christopher Chase-Dunn, University of California, Riverside, USA
The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences offers a uniquely comprehensive and global overview of the evolution of ideas, concepts and policies within the human sciences. Drawn from histories of the social and psychological sciences, anthropology, the history and philosophy of science, and the history of ideas, this collection analyses the health and welfare of populations, evidence of the changing nature of our local communities, cities, societies or global movements, and studies the way our humanness or ‘human nature’ undergoes shifts because of broader technological shifts or patterns of living. This Handbook serves as an authoritative reference to a vast source of representative scholarly work in interdisciplinary fields, a means of understanding patterns of social change and the conduct of institutions, as well as the histories of these ‘ways of knowing’ probe the contexts, circumstances and conditions which underpin continuity and change in the way we count, analyse and understand ourselves in our different social worlds. It reflects a critical scholarly interest in both traditional and emerging concerns on the relations between the biological and social sciences, and between these and changes and continuities in societies and conducts, as 21st century research moves into new intellectual and geographic territories, more diverse fields and global problematics.
This volume sheds new light on how today’s peripheries are made, lived, imagined and mobilized in a context of rapidly advancing globalization. Focusing on peripheral spaces, mobilities and aesthetics, it presents critical readings of, among others, Indian caste quarters, the Sahara, the South African backyard and European migration, as well as films, novels and artworks about marginalized communities and repressed histories. Together, these readings insist that the peripheral not only needs more visibility in political, economic and cultural terms, but is also invaluable for creating alternative perspectives on the globalizing present. Peripheral Visions combines sociological, cultural, literary and philosophical perspectives on the periphery, and highlights peripheral innovation and futurity to counter the lingering association of the peripheral with stagnation and backwardness.
