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

From the East to the West

Margot Elmer — 2024-05-30

This paper explores the experiences of foreign women studying the social sciences in a Brussels university during the Belle Époque. It seeks to unravel the motivations behind foreign women's pursuit of social science studies, by examining the educational and professional opportunities available to them. The paper begins by examining the challenges faced by women in higher education in Europe. It then delves into the social science curriculum, within the context of its early-stage of institutionalisation, and analyses the discrepancies between its different disciplines through the lens of gender. By focusing on some women’ individual trajectories, this research aims therefore to provide insights into the intersecting realms of migration, gender, and academia.

Between universality of science and Western provincialism: Unveiling the “imperial gaze” of the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (1930-1935)

Marie Linos — 2024-05-30

This paper examines the imperial gaze that the social sciences could endorse during the interwar period, while attempting to establish themselves as a global field. It specifically focuses on the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (ESS), an ambitious scholarly undertaking in the social sciences, edited by economists Alvin Johnson and Edwin Seligman. Fifteen volumes were published between 1930 and 1935 in total. By looking at the ESS’ contributors and articles, the paper questions the ambivalence between the universal appeal and rhetoric of this project and the actual outcome, which enforced a core/periphery division in the field of the social sciences. This indicates that, even if the ESS and its contributors defended a progressivist stance regarding colonialism, this scientific enterprise could not escape from the imperial culture that had deeply permeated US and European (social) science.

“Rigid criteria should not be established”?

Marie-Gabrielle Verbergt — 2024-05-30

This article asks when, how, and why external peer review was introduced in the funding procedures of the European Science Foundation’s Standing Committee for the Humanities. It covers both the period before and after the introduction of external review in 1997. Up to then, a lack of selection criteria in combination with highly flexible procedures made it possible for a small elite to allocate funding based on personal convictions and ties. When peer review was introduced, this was done not only because of ideological reasons, but also for logistical, and, in the end, economic reasons. This insight challenges all too triumphant interpretations of the history of peer review and points to the intricate connection of the history of peer review to scale and institutional changes in European research policy.

French economists and the symbolic power of (post-)national capital

Christian Schmidt-Wellenburg — 2024-05-30

The paper argues that economists’ position-taking in discourses of crises should be understood in the light of economists’ positions in the academic field of economics. This hypothesis is investigated by performing a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) on a prosopographical data set of 144 French economists who positioned themselves between 2008 and 2021 in controversies over the euro crisis, the French political economic model, and French economics. In these disciplinary controversies, different forms of (post-)national academic capital are used by economists to either initiate change or defend the status quo. These strategies are then interpreted as part of more general power struggles over the basic national or post-national constitution and legitimate governance of economy and society.

Peripheral internationalization at a crossroads

Carolina Monteiro de Castro Nascimento — 2024-05-30

The present article examines internationalization in a peripheral academic context by looking at graduate Sociology professors in Brazil. We focus foremost on research stays abroad and foreign publications, using mostly descriptive statistics. We aim to understand the elements that structure the choice of destination, how they express center-periphery dynamics, and their relation to a research grant called Bolsa Produtividade. Engaging in the debate with the literature on centers and peripheries, especially with the understanding that these are relational and condition each other, we observe the various dimensions and how internationalization strategies are presented. We distinguish between more or less prestigious graduate programs while comparing how they overlap with Brazilian regional inequalities. This sheds light on the pitfalls of the rising pressure to internationalize, and how it takes shape in the recent context.

International Circulations and Inequalities in the Social Sciences

Pierre Benz — 2024-05-30

This special issue calls for a critical, historically grounded, and interdisciplinary perspective on international circulations and inequalities in the social sciences. It emphasizes the importance of considering the social sciences as a whole and in relation to broader power dynamics. To address inequalities in the production and dissemination of knowledge in the social sciences from diverse perspectives, this special issue brings together scholars from different higher education systems, countries, and disciplines. Its five contributions examine various national contexts, international configurations, and historical periods, utilizing a range of methodological strategies, including document and archival analysis, secondary databases and descriptive statistics, prosopographical databases, and multiple correspondence analysis. The first section of this editorial proposes a socio-historical approach for reflexive study of international circulations and inequalities in the social sciences. The second section situates the five contributions within the transforming context of the internationalization of the social sciences, providing a periodization of these dynamics from the late nineteenth century until the present. Finally, a concluding section advocates for a renewed perspective on the subject.

Review of: George Steinmetz, The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2023).

Frederic Lebaron — 2024-05-30

Review of: George Steinmetz, The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2023).

Magne P. Flemmen — 2024-05-30

Review of: George Steinmetz, The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2023).

Idriss Jebari — 2024-05-30

Response to the Serendipities reviewers of The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought

George Steinmetz — 2024-05-30