Serendipities. Journal for the Sociology and History of the Social Sciences

Do Forms of Knowledge Production Circulate?

2021-04-10T07:05:01+02:00

Forms of knowledge production adopted by academics in a given national space do not emerge without the right circumstances. Student circulation has a bearing on knowledge import processes. Opening with an overview of the field of Argentinian anthropology in the 1970s and 1980s, this article looks at some of the consequences of the international circulation of Argentinian students through the Social Anthropology Master’s and PhD Programs at the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (PPGAS-MN/UFRJ) from the late 1980s to the present. Based on documents in the PPGAS-MN archives, interviews with lecturers and former students and a review of PPGAS-MN and Argentinian university syllabi, this article: (i) provides a historical description of the agreement between institutions that has facilitated this flow; (ii) describes how this circulation has given these students a new perspective on the ethnographic approach and on classical anthropology; and (iii) describes how, from a student viewpoint, this shift has altered their way of thinking about social anthropology research and given them a new habitus. The results hint at a new approach to classical anthropology and the use of ethnographic data. There were three main drivers: (i) PPGAS-MN lecturers’ emphasis on the relevance of empirical data and the primacy of theory prevailing in Argentina; (ii) the renewed deep reading of classic ethnographical texts; and (iii) the development of a new habitus as a result of socialisation in the ensuing social space.

Styles of Academic Production in the Argentine Social Sciences

2021-04-10T07:04:48+02:00

Argentina is an appealing case for analyzing the social science system. In recent years (until 2015) there has been a robust increase in public funding, giving way to the expansion of research, the recruitment of hundreds of new full-time researchers and the consolidation of scholarships for PhD students. All this, in turn, has resulted in a remarkable increase in publications. Although these processes have occurred in the midst of professionalization (which implies higher levels of adherence to international academic standards), recent studies have shown that two contesting models within the social sciences continue to prevail in Argentina: one that conforms to international standards and practices, and another of a more endogenous nature, with its own logic for knowledge production, evaluation and circulation. In order to examine the impact of international standards in the Argentine social sciences, in this paper I analyze the styles of academic production. This implies the study of three closely related dimensions: research processes and models (theoretical foundations, methods, techniques, etc.); writing formats (structure and organization of academic texts); and publication logics (types of publications, profiles of the journals where the articles are published, etc.). The analysis is based on a large sample of publications selected by other researchers in order to carry out a comprehensive review of Argentine literature with regard to six key themes of the social sciences. These publications were also used to produce a dataset with several variables related to the three above-mentioned dimensions. In particular, this paper focuses on the publications grounded in empirical research, and compares qualitative with quantitative research and the various types of publications (journal articles, book chapters and conference papers). The results show that regardless of the recent process of professionalization, “heterodox models” of academic production are still largely pervasive within the Argentine social sciences.

Strange Encounter of the Third Kind

2021-04-10T07:04:36+02:00

In this paper the author takes issue with the notion of the Black Atlantic as discussed by the British scholar Paul Gilroy. While sympathising with the overall perspective it criticises Gilroy's uncritical, almost iconographic, approach to black intellectual celebrities such as W. E. B. Du Bois and C. L. R. James and particularly their discussion of Marxist tropes and communist politics.

Putting (social) science in its place(s)

2021-04-10T07:04:23+02:00

Book review of
Heilbron, Johan, Sorá, Gustavo, and Boncourt, Thibaud (eds). 2018. The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations. London: Palgrave.
371 pp.
ISBN 978-3-319-73298-5
Price: €128,39

Sociologies of New Zealand

2021-04-10T07:04:10+02:00

Book review of:

Crothers, Charles. 2018. Sociologies of New Zealand. Sociology Transformed Series. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
151 pp.
ISBN 978-3-319-73866-6.
Price: €53,49

Adolphe Quetelet

2021-04-10T07:03:58+02:00

Book review of:

Donnelly, Kevin (2015) Adolphe Quetelet, Social Physics and the Average Men of Science, 1796–1874. University of Pittsburgh Press
219 pp.
ISBN: 978-1-84893-568-6
Price: $45