ISA E-Bulletin, Number 15, March 2010 Contents From the Editor Featured Essays Mapping Sociology's International Pattern of Knowledge Production (original) (raw)
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.
International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, 2007
In what sense, then, can it be said that contemporary societies are becoming more and more dependent on the production, dissemination and use of knowledge? Are we witnessing a change from a social world in which 'things' simply 'happened' to a world in which things are more and more 'made' to happen? Finally, what is the nature of the linkage between social transformations, the globalisation process and knowledge in the modern world? (1) I will discuss the place of knowledge in prominent social theories of modern society as well as the place of knowledge in major policy efforts that proceed from the assumption that knowledge plays a key role for large scale social transformations; (2) I will advance a sociological conception of knowledge and (3) I will apply it to the social analysis of change in modern society.
Global Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences A critical assessment
This article reviews the compelling volume edited by Wiebke Keim, Ercüment Çelik, Christian Ersche and Veronika Wöhrer Global Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences: Made in Circulation (2014) to critically assess some explanations of the emergence and the development the global regime of knowledge production and circulation of knowledge within it. While praising alternatives to some hegemonic and universalizing trends in knowledge production, it is sought to demonstrate that the way postcolonial studies have been projected in the Arab region does not sufficiently account for the complexity of the situation neither in this region nor elsewhere. It is argued, in the end, that it is necessary to forge post-authoritarian studies to supplement postcolonial studies.
Book Review. Wiebke Keim Et. Al. (Eds.): 'Global Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences'.
'Global Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences. Made in Circulation'. Wiebke Keim, Ercüment Çelic, Christian Ersche, Veronika Wöhrer (Eds.). University of Freiburg, Germany. Ashgate Publishing Limited. https://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472426178 Despite the success of the intellectual wave known as the ‘postcolonial turn’, or rather precisely because of its achievements, the question of how it is possible to go on making social sciences within an epistemological context in which those historical assumptions carried by modern scientific traditions have been challenged remains highly problematic. Rather, it seems like both postcolonial and social science scholars have opted for separating off waters in order to defend one of those sides’ values and practices. Few exceptions can be recalled into this picture, and the volume Global Knowledge Production in the Social Sciences. Made in Circulation is a refreshing and indeed necessary approach whose aim is precisely to build bridges for such an intellectual gap.
The dynamics of global social knowledge
These are times of upheaval in which new structures of power, knowledge, and civility are being redefined. "Economic globalization," intensified "internationalization through markets, travel, and migrations," the "knowledge society" are catchwords for transformations often felt to be fundamental and new, although the quality of the newness may be overestimated neglecting what was already there, while at the same time the new seems unclear as to its particular direction, quality, and outcome. This should hold true for knowledge transformation processes in general, particularly in the case of science and technology and higher education.
Social Policy and Society
This article provides a critique of Eurocentric knowledge formations that currently dominate the sociological imagination and its analyses of the ‘other’. It proposes a deep questioning of the colonial underpinnings of the discipline and argues that a series of conceptual, methodological, and institutional concerns must be addressed if we are profoundly to transform teaching and learning agendas in universities. It will argue that decolonising sociology cannot merely rely upon cosmetic changes, but rather it must demonstrate a wider commitment to anti-racism and social justice.
Knowledge Networks and Global Transformations Fall 2020
How do refined knowledge and the social relations that organize and distribute it influence changes in the institutions, inequalities and cultural systems and practices that define particular world regions and global formations? And how do global transformations influence the trajectories of knowledge production themselves? We will examine particular knowledge-identified agents, including universities, research institutes, think tanks, and professional associations, to consider why they approach global transformations in the way that they do. And we will consider how particular kinds of global transformations, from the end of the cold war and the transformation of information/communication technology to the last financial crisis, affect knowledge production itself. By exploring intersections between global complexity and reflexivity in this fashion, we hope to increase our own capacities for seeing the world not only as it is, but how knowledge might be used in making better alternatives for the future. Enrollment limited to 20 juniors and seniors. So it was written in the course guide, but this course engages its present. Both the knowledge networks and global transformations KNGT engages have changed over this last year in profound ways. In particular, we need to attend to the increasingly overt conflict over white supremacy and the pandemic that is transforming this world. In order to do that, we are going to figure how sociology, and the knowledge networks extending from it, might engage the world as it is becoming. In order to do that, we are going to go both deep into scholarship and out in public engagement. In terms of scholarship, we shall develop a more refined sense of what culture is, and how to articulate knowledge, and ignorance, in its terms. We'll dwell on what intellectuals are, what universities should be, and what intellectual and institutional responsibility looks like. In particular, we shall consider how to identify an intellectually rigorous critical and public sociology that identifies the limits and possibilities of expertise in public affairs, the value of implicit knowledge from and with the body, and how to recognize knowledge networks that might be transformative both for emancipatory hopes, and dystopian nightmares. By drawing on the alumni of this class at Brown University, I hope to connect you with others of similar critical and public sociological disposition to develop knowledge activism with consequence. Of course developing your own critical and public sociological capacities, and building our own collective work across generations of learners, can only happen if we take care of ourselves and one another. Please know that I recognize the challenge of the times in which we live, and value your well-being first. I then support you in your learning. And here are things Brown University encourages in every syllabus.