Profiling people in multiple domains: Toward a sociology of science for intercultural disciplines

Abstract

Building on Kulich's introduction (2012), this article proposes a theoretical and analytical frame toward constructing an eventual sociology of science for the intercultural fields. Furthering Leeds-Hurwitz (2010) frame for analyzing people, places, and ideas in each decade, Löblich and Scheu's (2010) model is applied and extended to consider six domains for profiling a field: (#1) people—the biographies of influencers, (#2) places—their institutions/networks, (#3) ideas—their intellectual propositions, (#4) events—influential gatherings and associations, (#5) times—influential periods, paradigms, Zeitgeist, and (#6) contexts—multiple levels of other situated influences.The proposed six analysis areas seek to adopt Bourdieu's approach (1977, 1987, 1998) for examining the intersections of social history for a discipline, especially one as interdisciplinary in its origins and applications as intercultural communication (IC). Each is applied with proposals and starting profile suggestions for carrying out multimodal mapping of the intercultural fields. Two other potential frames are also considered: a possible (#7) behavior—the personal/social applications of the field (e.g., to intercultural training), and (#8) consequences—the social impacts and responses to the field. A “who's who” list of post-1970s “second generation” influencers is integrated with each of the categories with recommendations toward future poly-profiling and field analysis for both US American and intercultural disciplinary expressions in other nations or contexts.