International Circulations and Inequalities in the Social Sciences

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

Special Issue: International Circulations and Inequalities in the Social Sciences

Guest Editors:

Pierre Benz (University of Lausanne, Institute of Political Studies)

Johanna Gautier Morin (European University Institute, Department of History and Civilization) Elisa Klüger (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning, CEBRAP)

Thierry Rossier (London School of Economics, Department of Sociology)

Extended abstract submission (1,000 words + bibliography): November 15^th, 2021 Notification of acceptance: December 21^st, 2021

Preliminary paper submission (ca. 3,000 words + bibliography) to be discussed during an online workshop by the guest editors and the other contributors to the special issue: April 2022 Full paper submission: August 31^st, 2022

Publication of the issue: First semester 2023

Although the internationalization of the social sciences and humanities has become a defining characteristic of research, teaching and publishing practices (Heilbron et al. 2017: 131), national academic labor markets tend to turn in on themselves in times of crisis (Gruzinski 2016; Adelman 2017). Moreover, the global dimension of wealth inequalities (Piketty 2014, 2020; Savage 2021) and the growing disparities in research investments impact scientific disciplines and foster the hierarchization of national scientific fields. International circulations of people, texts, research practices, and funding contribute to asymmetrical competition among geographical and linguistic areas, national higher education systems, universities, and researchers (Gaillard and Gaillard, 1997; Gingras 2002;

Slaughter & Rhoades 2004; Münch 2014; Beigel 2014). Social sciences provide many examples of disciplinary frameworks that remain embedded in “national traditions” despite repeated “international turns” (Wimmer & Glick Schiller 2002; Chernilo 2011; Berger 2015; Vasilev 2019; Alatas 2003;

Gareau 1988). While the international distribution of scientific networks through co-authorships has intensified since the 1980s (Mosbah-Natanson & Gingras 2014), international collaborations often happen between researchers located in geographically and culturally close countries, similarly endowed with state research funding, while national logics, especially in dominant academic spaces, endure (Heilbron & Gingras 2018).

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Call for Papers

In this polarized global space, Northern America and Western Europe occupy the top positions in terms of the language of production as well as the legitimation of specific research interests and national case studies (Porciani & Tollebeek 2012; Gordin 2015; Heilbron et al. 2018). Consequently, international capital, understood as resources linked with the “familiarity” with more than one country (Bühlmann, 2020; Wagner 2020), follows the hierarchization of national fields. Acquired through the participation in central institutions from Western academic spaces, foreign credentials and connections have become powerful assets that reinforce scientific prestige in many national con- texts (Rossier & Bühlmann 2018). Their accumulation also plays a significant role in the reproduction of state elites, notably in the Global South (Dezalay & Garth 2002, 2006). Less known are, in contrast, the cumulative advantages and effects of research travels within the Souths or from the Norths to the Souths on academic labor markets (Delanty 2019). Moreover, international mobility and international scientific prizes are also hierarchized according to socio-demographic characteristics and ascriptive criteria such as gender, race, class background, or geographical origin (Nokkala et al. 2020; Korom 2020).

This special issue of Serendipities calls for papers that document the diverse dimensions of inequalities linked to international circulations in the social sciences. We welcome studies that analyze how scholars from different social science disciplines acquire, accumulate, convert, and distribute international capital, and how this process evolves over time. In order to propose new angles and theo- retical approaches on the topic of international circulations and inequalities in different fields and academic labor markets, the papers must be empirically based. We expect a thorough descriptive and theoretically well-informed approach to be undertaken (Savage 2020), as well as a historical inscription of case studies from all over the world and on a variety of social science disciplines, car- ried by scholars with a diversity of profiles. Qualitative approaches, such as ethnography, archival and historical document analyses, and interview-based studies are welcome, as well as quantitative approaches, using descriptive methodologies, such as social network analysis, geometric data analysis, sequence analysis, topic modeling, or other theoretically justified methodology.

Key topics for the articles

This call is open to all topics that fit the general scope of this special issue but may want to address one or several of the following themes regarding international circulations and inequalities in the social sciences:

- International careers and inequality in the scientific reputation of social scientists.

- Unequal distribution of funding and research impact among countries and regions.

- International inequalities among higher education institutions and social science departments.

- The effects on scientific careers of academic travels within the Souths or from the Norths to the Souths

- International scientific awards and gender, class, race, and country inequalities.

- The prestige or shortcomings of circulations between regions/hemispheres and their historical role in the construction of national states and the reproduction of business elites.

- The history of the emergence of an international scientific “elite” concentrating powerful resources in the social sciences.

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Call for Papers

- Inequality of patterns and intensity of international circulations, highlighting the differences between social science disciplines and their respective labor market.

- The obstacles, limits, and dead-ends of scientific internationalization

- Unequal international diffusion and international openness of scientific outlets (journals, book collections).

- Linguistic inequalities and challenges to the international insertion of languages of origin over time and place.

- Patterns of co-citations and scientific collaborations, and positioning of authorship among countries.

Extended abstracts (1,000 words, not including the biography) must be submitted by November 15^thto johanna.gautier@eui.eu and thierry.rossier@unil.ch. The authors whose article proposal have been accepted will have to submit first a preliminary paper of ca. 3,000 words, which will be discussed by the guest editors and the other contributors to the special issue during an online workshop to be held in April 2022 (the exact deadline will be communicated later). They will then submit their full paper by August 31^st 2022. Articles will then be peer reviewed following the usual procedure.

According to the Serendipities submission guidelines, submitted articles are expected not to exceed 7,000 words or 55,000 characters (with spaces, notes, tables/figures and references). In certain cases, however, editors can decide to accept longer papers.

References

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Beigel, F. (2014) Introduction: Current tensions and trends in the World Scientific System. Current Sociology, 62(5): 617-625.

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Bühlmann, F. (2020) ‘How to Study Elites’ “International Capital”? Some Methodological Reflections’. In Denord, F., Palme, M., and Réau, B. (eds) Researching Elites and Power, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 241–251.

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Dezalay, Y. and Garth, B. (2006) ‘Les usages nationaux d’une science « globale » : la diffusion de nouveaux paradigmes économiques comme stratégie hégémonique et enjeu domestique dans les champs nationaux de reproduction des élites d’État’, Sociologie du travail, 48(3): 1-25.

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Call for Papers

Gaillard, J., & Gaillard, A. M. (1997). Introduction: The International Mobility of Brains: Exodus or Circulation? Science, Technology and Society, 2(2), 195–228.

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Chicago University Press.

Gruzinski, S. (2016), ‘How to be a Global Historian.’ Public Books (https://www.publicbooks.org/how-to-be- a-global-historian/)

Heilbron, J., Boncourt, T., Sapiro, G., Sora, G.A., Karady, V., Brisson, T., Jeanpierre, L. and Lee, K.H. (2017)

‘Indicators of the Internationalization of the Social Sciences and Humanities’. Serendipities 2(1): 131-147.

Heilbron, J., Boncourt, T. and Sorá, G. (2018) ‘Introduction: The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations’. In Heilbron, J., Sorá, G. and Boncourt, T. (eds.) The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1-25.

Heilbron, J. and Gingras, Y. (2018) ‘The Globalization of European Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities (1980–2014): A Bibliometric Study’. In Heilbron, J., Sorá, G. and Boncourt, T. (eds.) The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 29-58.

Korom, P. (2020) ‘How do academic elites march through departments? A comparison of the most eminent economists and sociologists´ career trajectories.’ Minerva, 58: 343-365.

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Routledge.

Mosbah-Natanson, S., & Gingras, Y. (2014) The globalization of social sciences? Evidence from a quantitative analysis of 30 years of production, collaboration and citations in the social sciences (1980–

2009), Current Sociology, 62(5): 626-646.

Nokkala, T., Bataille, P., Siekkinen, T., & Goastellec, G. (2020) ‘Academic Career, Mobility and the National Gender Regimes in Switzerland and Finland’. In Weimer, L. & Nokkala, T. (eds.), Universities as Political Institutions, Leiden: Brill, pp. 262-286.

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Porciani, I. and Tollebeek, J. (eds) (2012) Setting the Standards: Institutions, Networks, and Communities of National Historiography, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Rossier, T. and Bühlmann, F. (2018) ‘The Internationalisation of Economics and Business Studies: Import of Excellence, Cosmopolitan Capital, or American Dominance?’ Historical Social Research, 43: 189-215.

Savage, M. (2020) ‘What makes for a successful sociology? A response to “Against a descriptive turn”.’ The British Journal of Sociology, 71(1): 19-27.

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Harvard University Press.

Slaughter, S. and Rhoades G. (2004) Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher Education, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Vasilev, G. (2019) ‘Methodological Nationalism and the Politics of History-Writing: How Imaginary Scholarship Perpetuates the Nation.’ Nations and Nationalism, 25 (2): 1-24.

Wagner, A.-C. (2020) La mondialisation des classes sociales, Paris: La Découverte.

Wimmer, A. and Glick Schiller, N. (2002). ‘Methodological nationalism and beyond: nation–state building, migration and the social sciences.’ Global networks, 2(4): 301-334.