European Social Science Research Articles

Introduction: Critical Thinking in Tourism Studies

In our introduction to the special issue we attempt to reflect on the plurality and development of critical argumentation in tourism analysis. First, we adopt a "genealogical" approach to the parallel birth of critical thinking in early 20th century European social sciences and critical–institutional elaboration of the "tourist" and "tourism" as contemporary phenomena. These interlaced histories of social thought are examined as "attitudes" towards the grand project of modernity, and divided into "soft" and contemplative, and "hard" or activist. We argue that these scholarly attitudes-as-projects organized groups of tourism theorists, passionate for the discussion of similar problems. The same groups would subsequently develop variations of criticality into more coherent "paradigms." In more recent decades these protoparadigms came to interrogate the basic tenets of business ethics, as well as the moral core of activities such as tourism and hospitality in more fulsome paradigmatic registers and vocabularies. From there, we proceed to present the organizational rationale of our eclectic collection of contributions to this special issue. Organized under the principles and axioms of Keith Hollinhead's "worldmaking," and the development of critical tourism paradigms, the articles discuss four themes: (a) postcoloniality and tourism, (b) biopolitics and tourism, (c) media representations, social identities, and tourism, and (d) cultural industries and tourism.

The WeChat public platform: strengthening HSS academics’ global competitiveness in non-English speaking countries (La plataforma pública WeChat: un refuerzo de la competitividad global de los académicos de humanidades y de ciencias sociales en países de habla no inglesa)

ABSTRACT The WeChat public platform has become a low-cost, synchronistic and effective social media channel for daily communications between the Chinese and the West. This project aims to enhance Chinese and European humanities and social sciences (HSS) academics’ global competitiveness in international scholarships via WeChat public platforms. The study was conducted in three parts, the pre-survey, the intervention using the WeChat public programme and the post-survey. There were 224 participants, who used the social media tool WeChat in the quantitative study. After the pre-survey, workshops were designed to introduce the WeChat platform and to explain to the HSS staff at the selected universities how the platform was constructed at the first stage. This was followed by a post-survey questionnaire which was adapted to evaluate the effects of the programme. The results show that Chinese HSS academics are interested in using WeChat public platforms in order to have potential collaborations with the West in research publications, conference presentations, visiting scholar programme applications and students’ mobility programmes.

Intellectual Dependency: Late Ottoman Intellectuals between Fiqh and Social Science

Modernization led to the intellectual dependency of the Muslim world on the West for social theories. Human action Carnal) is the subject matter of both Islamic/z<//z and Western social science (i.e. of all those sciences which attempt to apply empirical methods drawn from the natural sciences to the sphere of human society, including education and law). Though different in many aspects, both have a claim on widely overlapping intellectual territories. Social science in its different forms conquered the space traditionally occupied by fiqh, and its professional representatives (such as academicians, jurists, educationists, and writers) replaced the fuqah?'. This article thus points to a dialectic tension between^//? and Western social science which shaped Muslim intellectual history since the 19th century. This article unearths this latent tension by using the example of late Ottoman intellectuals as Ziya G?kalp, Said Halim Pasha and izmirli ismail Hakki. In the Ottoman case it brought about a new cleavage in the Muslim intellectual community between advocates of social science and advocates o? fiqh. Yet many intellectuals and even some fuqah?* attempted a synthesis between both fields. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the modern Turkish Republic adopted the policy of wholesale westernization, an element of which was the adoption of Western social science to replace fiqh in explaining and ordering human action. This intervention in the intellectual life increased the dependence of modern Turkish intellectuals on the state; which is another aspect of their intellectual dependency explored in this article. The increasingly intensified encounter between Muslim and Western civilizations during the 19th century finally also led to an engagement o?fiqh and European social science among Ottoman intellectuals. The

Liglugten af den moderne Civilisation? Moralstatistiske perspektiver på selvmord i 1800-tallets Danmark

This article investigates the impact of moral statistics on suicide in Denmark in the 19. century. Championed as a new European social science, moral statistics was able to reveal statistical regularity on social and moral issues – such as suicide. Statistics proved, firstly, that Denmark experienced one of the highest suicide rates in Europe. Secondly, as demonstrated in 1846 by the Danish physician C. J. Kayser, statistics uncovered that suicides over time occurred regularly in the case of frequency, gender distribution, method of self-killing etc.. This new knowledge encouraged Danish statisticians and physicians to look for societal causes rather than the former theological focus on individual sin. The statistical representations of suicide paved the way for two different interpretations of suicide in the second half of the 19. century, one of which linked suicide rates to the evils of modernisation and secularisation of society, emphasizing drunkenness, alcoholism, and moral decline as causes of suicide. Another, less prevalent, explanation stressed the social and economic inequality of industrialisation as the cause of rising suicide rates. ‘The moral explanation’ prevailed and the official statistical reports as well as newspaper articles was clearly affected by the idea that the rising suicide rates of the 19. century reflected an attack on core values of bourgeois society; moral, sobriety and religion. This way suicide statistics was embedded in a broader social representation reflecting a fear of breakdown of traditional values in modern society.

Sharing qualitative research data, improving data literacy and establishing national data services

Sharing qualitative research data, improving data literacy and establishing national data services

Social Data: CESSDA Best Practices

The European Commission report “Turning FAIR into reality” provides an index of 27 FAIR Action Plan recommendations. This index is used for a self-assessment on CESSDA, the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives. CESSDA is performing well on “Concepts for FAIR implementation”, “Skills for FAIR”, and “Investment in FAIR”; there is work in progress on “FAIR culture”, and work to start up on “FAIR ecosystem” and especially on “Incentives and metrics for FAIR data and services”. Next, an analysis on the FAIR components, reveals that CESSDA has accomplished the “F”, is working on the “A” – considering the sensitivity and security requirements of social data, just started on “I”, and that there is lack of clarity on what should be in “R”. On Findability, the CESSDA Data Catalogue is explained, showing the building blocks that need to be in place before one can produce a catalogue. The article ends with a forward look on CESSDA's deployment on the FAIR principles.

“The Modern Therapeutic Bath under Social, Medical and Economic Aspects”, Session at the “European Social Science History Conference”, Vienna, 23rd April 2014. A Short Introduction

Die Zeitschrift "Virus - Beiträge zur Sozialgeschichte der Medizin" ist das Publikationsorgan des Vereins für Sozialgeschichte der Medizin und erscheint einmal jährlich. Sie versammelt wissenschaftliche Beiträge verschiedener Disziplinen, die sich mit Themen aus den Bereichen Medizin, Gesundheit und Krankheit in historischer, kultur- und/oder sozialwissenschaftlicher Perspektive empirisch auseinandersetzen. Weitergehende Einschränkungen für Beitragsvorschläge in thematischer oder methodischer Hinsicht bestehen nicht. Der "Virus" publiziert vornehmlich Beiträge mit Bezug zur Geschichte der Medizin in Österreich, dessen Nachbarländern sowie der ehemaligen Habsburgermonarchie. Vergleichend angelegte Arbeiten können aber über diesen Rahmen auch hinausgreifen. Hinsichtlich der behandelten Zeiträume bestehen keine Eingrenzungen, jedoch stehen Beiträge zur Medizin in der Neuzeit und der Moderne/Postmoderne im Vordergrund (16.-21. Jahrhundert).

Diversifying diversity: Inclusive engagement, intersectionality, and gender identity in a European Social Sciences and Humanities Energy research project

This paper argues for inclusive engagement within Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) interdisciplinary research, particularly, energy and climate research, by reflecting on the attempts to implement an inclusive engagement approach in SHAPE ENERGY, a Horizon 2020 project aimed at creating a European energy-SSH platform where a broad range of viewpoints from researchers, businesses, policymakers, NGOs, and citizens could be brought to bear on energy policy discussions. The European Horizon 2020 funding program has sought to explicitly integrate gender considerations into their funded projects, including SHAPE ENERGY. Our study shows that, in spite of such ambitions, there was huge variety with regard to how gender was understood as well as how notions of gender were engaged with during the project. Dealing with gender was often reduced to counting men and women, while wider concerns, such as representations of age, geography, field of expertise, etc., were comparatively neglected. In this paper, we argue that gender equality strategies should embrace these wider perspectives to sufficiently address how various forms of intersectionality may inform and strengthen inclusive engagement.

From the South to the North: The circulation of Latin American dependency theories in the Federal Republic of Germany

Sociological research into the transregional North–South circulation of knowledge in the social sciences and humanities has tended to have a unidirectional bias to date. The standard assumption is that as a result of globalization, theories and methods are spread from the global North to the global South. Based on this premise, many of the studies of circulation focus on the transfer of knowledge in terms of ideas, traditions, authors and concepts from the North to the South. Thus far, little attention has been paid to the transregional circulation of theoretical approaches from the South to the North and their impact on the transformation of the European social sciences and humanities. Analysing the circulation of the Latin American dependency theories in the Federal Republic of Germany, this article addresses precisely this gap. The focus is on processes of institutional consolidation of area studies, North–South mobility, the translation-process into German, application in empirical research, modification and rejection. Focusing on this little-explored orientation regarding the circulation of knowledge, this article is in keeping with the current attempt to analyse transregional entanglements within European social sciences.

Introduction: labor coercion, labor control, and workers’ agency

In April 2018, the European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC), taking place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, hosted a session entitled Labor Coercion, Labor Control, Workers’ Agency. Organized...

A PERSISTÊNCIA DA EUROPA COMO MEDIDA DA MODERNIDADE

O objetivo do presente trabalho é apresentar as relações entre eurocentrismo como padrão cognitivo imperial e o pensamento social de Jürgen Habermas. Tal análise será levada a cabo pela discussão do método comparativo bastante comum à tradição das ciências sociais europeias e cujo uso em Habermas torna possível entrever o monismo universalista característica de sua teoria em que a Europa é tomada como norma, significante mestre, medida de todas as outras sociedades e civilizações do mundo. Para desenvolver o objetivo delineado, foram escolhidas, basicamente, duas obras, uma dos anos de 1980 e outra do início do século XXI com o intuito de mostrar como a narrativa habermasiana se mantém basicamente presa ao que designamos por padrão cognitivo imperial europeu pela qual se entreve uma geopolítica de classificação da população mundial cuja dinâmica se iniciou em 1492 com a conquista da América.

Bibliometric analysis of Central European journals in the Web of Science and JCR Social Science Edition

This paper deals with the multi-perspective bibliometric analysis of Central European scientific journals indexed in the Web of Science database and covered in the Journal Citation Reports – Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). The analysis focuses on the evaluation of the (inter) national orientation of Central European Social Science journals indexed in the period 2012 – 2015. Data were obtained from the Web of Science database on October 20, 2016. The journals are divided in two groups in favour of the scientific discipline identifying the journal in the Web of Science. The first group consists of journals belonged to public health and psychology. The second group includes all social related scientific journals covered in both the SSCI and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) databases. Journals were chosen by language versions of journals in the Web of Science, language versions of articles, authors’ most important institutional affiliations; and other statistically significant indicators provided by Clarivate Analytics. Assessment of the “openness of Central European journals” to foreign authors was analyzed on the basis of the “INO indicator” (Index of National Orientation). Statistical analyses were conducted on the articles which carry the relevant scientific information. Descriptive statistics was used for the data analysis, using frequencies, percentages and means. The results of this research showed a strong orientation towards Slovakian and Czech authors regardless of the two analyzed groups.&nbsp; Based on INO, most of the Central European journals quality and impact were comparatively low.&nbsp; A competitive environment has been created for journals in the social science disciplines, especially for those with competitors in neighboring countries in fields such as psychology, economics, geography and sociology.&nbsp;&nbsp

Elaborating a Crosswalk Between Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) and Encoded Archival Description (EAD) for an Emerging Data Archive Service Provider

Belgium has recently decided to integrate the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA). The Social Sciences Data Archive (SODA) project aims at tackling the different challenges entailed by the setting up of a new research infrastructure in the form of a data archive. The SODA project involves an archival institution, the State Archives of Belgium, which, like most other large archival repositories around the world, work with Encoded Archival Description (EAD) for managing their metadata. There exists at the State Archives a large pipeline of programs and procedures that processes EAD documents and channels their content through different applications, such as the online catalog of the institution. Because there is a chance that the future Belgian data archive will be part of the State Archives and because DDI is the most widespread metadata standard in the social sciences as well as a requirement for joining CESSDA, the State Archives have developed a DDI-to-EAD crosswalk in order to re-use the State Archives' infrastructure for the needs of the future Belgian service provider. Technical illustrations highlight the conceptual differences between DDI and EAD and how these can be reconciled or escaped for the purpose of a data archive for the social sciences.

Polish Economists in Nehru's India: Making Science for the Third World in an Era of De-Stalinization and Decolonization

Between 1956–68 economic expertise became Poland's key export product in the decolonizing world. India, a broker of social science in the Cold War, became a geopolitical gateway for Polish economists’ spread of developmental thinking that revived heterodox Marxism and peasant studies. In this article, Małgorzata Mazurek investigates epistemic and intellectual effects of Polish – Indian encounters and how they evolved separately from Soviet Third World politics. Mazurek argues that during de-Stalinization and decolonization, failures and obstacles to planning and land reforms came to be seen as a common ground between eastern Europe and South Asia. This shared perception also revived the historical legacy of central and east European social science, which was internationalized in new ways both because, and in spite, of the Cold War.

Načelo zakonitosti u pravu Moskovske Rusije XVI i XVII veka

This research concentrates on emergence and development of the principle of legality in the Russian law of 16th and 17th century. The paper begins with a review of the thesis that Russian state was an oriental despotism and denies even existence of an idea about supremacy of law in any period of the Russian legal system development. For the purpose of contesting this thesis, deeply ingrained in the Western European social science, this article elaborates Russian legal sources of 16th and 17th century. Firstly, Sudebnik from 1550 as the first Russian legal document which contains a regulation that declares statute as the only source of law and which also provides legal procedures in courts and administration. Emergence of the principle of legality in Russian law is usually brought into relation with social, organizational and territory changes that Moscow Russia was undergoing at the beginning of rule of the Emperor Ivan IV. In addition, this article is analyzing provisions of Ulozenije from 1649 that speak about further development of the principle of legality in Russian legal system of 17th century.

México y Bélgica: interpretación para la justicia en países multilingües vista a través del enfoque intercivilizacional y decolonial

La transferencia hacia situaciones europeas del marco conceptual de la decolonialidad, elaborado en un contexto geo-histórico latinoamericano, resulta pertinente para analizar desde una perspectiva comparada los logros y deficiencias de la interpretación para la justicia en países multilingües. La adopción de una mirada cruzada, transatlántica, centrada en los casos de México y Bélgica, ilustra el interés de la adopción de un enfoque intercivilizacional y decolonial en las ciencias sociales y humanas europeas.

Introduction: Food Cultures and Spaces

“Food culture” has become a key notion in the European social sciences since the beginning of the 2000s. While anthropologists and sociologists consider food as a “total social fact” (Mauss), historians have broadened the term by connecting it to an accumulation of layers and ruptures in history and geographers have insisted that food is a system of identity distinction based on distances and interconnections. Although these approaches have enabled the field of food studies to be structured, ...

The Educational Governance of German School Social Science: The Example of Globalization

Purpose: This article challenges the outsiders' views on European school social science adopting genuine cosmopolitan views, when globalisation is treated in social science classrooms. Method: The article is based on the theoretical framework of educational governance analysis and on qualitative corpus analysis of representative German Laenders' social science curricula from 1994-2014 (n=13). Findings: The article highlights tendencies of renationalisation of the global learning agenda and the problematisation of democracy in contexts of globalisation studies at German schools.

Conceptions and expectations of research collaboration in the European social sciences: Research policies, institutional contexts and the autonomy of the scientific field

This paper investigates the interactions between policy drivers and academic practice in international research collaboration. It draws on the case of the Open Research Area (ORA), a funding scheme in the social sciences across four national research agencies, seeking to boost collaboration by supporting “integrated” projects. The paper discusses the scheme’s governance and its place within the European policy space before turning to awarded researchers’ perceptions of its originality and impact on their project’s emergence and development. Drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory, we analyse the scheme’s capacity to challenge researchers’ habitual collaborative practice as well as the hierarchical foundations of the social science field. We relate the discourses of researchers, located in France, Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, to such structural dimensions of the academic profession as, disciplinary cultures, institutional environments and national performance management of research careers. The paper argues that the ORA introduced novel mechanisms of power sharing and answerability in social sciences research capable of unsettling the autonomy of the scientific field. This analysis offers a new perspective on the often unquestioned superiority of the model of international collaboration induced by schemes such as the ORA.

Dialectic Critical Realism: Grounded Values and Reflexivity in Social Science Research

Critical realism emerged from the philosophical writings of Roy Bhaskar, and has evolved into a philosophy of social science research using the model of “dialectical critical realism” (DCR) which begins with the researcher’s assumptions that the structures being researched have a real, ontological grounding which is independent of the researcher. This approach has proved fruitful in British and European social science research, but has had less influence in North America. We outline DCR’s four-level model for understanding society and its changing social structures through “the pulse of freedom”. DCR has been used by Marxists, Muslims, Catholics and secular scholars who engage fruitfully in morphogenic dialogues leading to a critical realist understanding of society and social research, which transcends positivist and social constructionist models. Examples of DCR’s application in the fields of childhood research, child abuse, education, and research on organisations are outlined to illustrate the working of this new research paradigm. We are enthusiastic in our advocacy of DCR as a model of qualitative research, and for constructing models of positive social change, and are particularly impressed by the substantive and theoretical expositions of DCR by Priscilla Anderson, Matthew Wilkinson and Margaret Archer, whose work we document and review.