International Collaboration in Multilayered Center-Periphery in the Globalization of Science and Technology

Abstract

This article analyzes international scientific collaboration in the context of the globalization of science and technology as a crossing point not only between local and global identities but also between scientific and sociocultural identities. It also elucidates how international collaboration—where middle scientific actors in the hierarchical multilayered center-periphery in the globalization of science and technology obtain advanced knowledge from core science and technology—takes place and structures the global division of research labor. This article emphasizes that we should develop the context of the globalization of science and technology with dynamic and interdependent interactions between multistructured, core-periphery scientific actors. Dichotomous colonialist discourse is not a useful analytical tool in this context. The author found that sociocultural factors, including economic, cultural, organizational, and political ones, as well as the multilayered center-periphery in the globalization of science and technology, operate as forces that encourage international collaboration.