Western Social Science Research Articles

Knowledge production in a constructed field: reflections on comparative and international education

Adopting Maria Manzon’s theoretical framework, which draws on Foucault and proposes that comparative education as an academic field is socially constructed, I suggest that the field is neither stable nor well defined. To demonstrate this, I conduct a content analysis of the Comparative Education Review, using Klaus Krippendorff’s methodological framework to study comparative and international education (CIE) researchers’ understanding of the national—and of their related knowledge production in the field. Many comparativists express interests in multiple countries, and their knowledge production takes the form of individual country studies. The countries are habitually studied using a “problem approach” focusing on one specific aspect of the country under investigation and using an associated social science methodology deemed appropriate. Few comparativists are making explicit use of or reference to any methodology that is unique to comparative education. Efforts to catalog and systematize CIE research have demonstrated that the field is becoming so inclusive that it hardly is distinguishable from educational studies as a whole. Hence, I suggest that instead of speaking about unifying features of the field, it may be more relevant to speak about frequent elements, such as a focus on the national, and a knowledge production characterized by the academic practitioner who desires to improve the education systems studied. A third frequent element may be the focus on educational development, thus justifying the label of “comparative, international, and development education.” One challenge of the field is its dependence on Western social science discourses, which may be marginalizing other voices.

Beyond stateless democracy

Pierre Bourdieu began his posthumously published lectures “On the State” by highlighting the three dominant traditions that have framed most thinking about the state in Western social science and modern social theory. On the one hand, he highlighted what he termed the “initial definition” of the state as a “neutral site” designed to regulate conflict and “serve the common good.” Bourdieu traced this essentially classical liberal conception of the state back to the pioneering political treatises of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.1 In direct response to this “optimistic functionalism,” Bourdieu noted the rise of a critical and more “pessimistic” alternative—something of a diametric opposite.

Teori dan Praktek dalam Studi Konflik di Indonesia

Conflict studies are a social science field that identifies and analyses violent and nonviolent behaviors as well as the structural mechanisms attending social conflicts. This article seeks to analyze the methodology and conceptual problems in studying conflicts in Indonesia which is greatly influenced by Western social sciences tradition. The development of social sciences in Indonesia in describing conflict is supposed to be part of the root of Indonesian realities. However, Indonesian scholars lack of their own theoretical discourses which should have been developed by Indonesians to analyze conflict problems in the same level of understanding as if they were analyzed by Western perspective. As scientific discourses are socio-historical related, they go beyond than just ethic and emic principle in representing local perspective. The author also discusses conceptual misapprehension within Indonesian scholar regarding Modernist and Post-Modernist approach and research management Key words: Conflict studies, Scientific discourse, Methodology and Conceptual problems  

Deploying the post-colonial predicaments of researching on/with ‘Asia’ in education: a standpoint from a rich peripheral country

Against the current infatuation with Asia in Australian education, this article rearticulates the notion of ‘Asia literacy’ to explore new ways of researching on/with/through Asia. Drawing on the post-colonial critique of Western social science knowledge, I first demonstrate the problematic nature of Australian knowledge production on and with Asia in social science and education. And yet, I also highlight the contribution that Australian scholars have made to decolonizing knowledge work, with particular attention to their critique of internationalization of cultural studies in the 1990s. In so doing, I identify the particular epistemic standpoint of Australian scholarship, which has emerged out of its ambivalent location in the global politics of academic knowledge production. Then, I identify three types of engagement by Asian researchers with Western knowledge. Situating Australian education scholarship among them, I explore what ‘Asia literate’ education research might look like from the vantage point of Australia.

Social sciences as dependency: state apathy and the crisis of knowledge production in Nigerian universities

The dominance of Eurocentric perspectives on African studies has been examined in literature. The irrelevance of this corpus of knowledge to the development of an endogenous body of knowledge for studying society in Africa has been analysed by various scholars. Despite the obvious lack of utilitarian value of contemporary social sciences to addressing the problems that Africa is faced with today, they continue to dominate the intellectual horizon both at the level of theory and praxis. The study of social sciences in Africa has continued to manifest all the features of dependency in terms of theory, methods and application to everyday life. The anti-intellectual posture of political elites in postcolonial Nigeria has negatively impacted on funding of education. This neglect has created opportunity for the West to design technical and educational aids for the country. What role does foreign aid play in undermining endogenous development of social science in Nigeria? What is the relevance of the contradictions that this posits for the debate on the importance of endogenous knowledge production? This article fills the lacuna on the link between the epistemic dominance of western social science in African studies and the search for autonomous and development-oriented social science in Nigeria.

Presidential Address—Becoming Ambicultural: A Personal Quest, and Aspiration for Organizations

In many ways management theory and practice, like life, are anchored in opposites. Dichotomies abound: East and West, global and local, research and teaching, scholarship and practice, among many others. But are they truly oppositional? Taking a broad view of “culture” as a concept that encapsulates all human affairs, I propose that an “ambicultural” perspective and approach offer a way to integrate the best qualities of what may appear to be irreconcilable opposites. Expanding on my August 2013 Academy of Management presidential address, I suggest that guideposts to gaining this perspective can be found in both my personal journey and my experiences in research, teaching, and professional service and that “becoming ambicultural” is a process that individuals and organizations alike can undergo to bridge divides and unite “opposites.” In this article I connect the ambicultural view to implications for management and organization research, for professional and personal growth, for the future of the Academy, and for attainment of a balance and enlightenment transcending differences. My research in competitive dynamics offers an example of ambicultural integration of Chinese philosophy and Western social sciences.

Сучасна теорія конфлікту: проблеми експлікації, демаркації, класифікації

This article is an attempt to find a basis for the systematization of the most famous variants of theoretical constructs of the conflict proposed by Western social science. To achieve this goal, the author refers to the analysis of the publications of the leading representatives of conflictological direction of modern social science and known experts in the methodology of science.

Culture and the periphery: Nomadic wanderings in the Argentine sociology of culture

This work presents both a history and an overview of current production in the Argentine sociology of culture. Based on the so-called double periphery – the peripheral location of Argentine sociology in the western social sciences, but also of cultural research within local sociology – the author seeks to analyze the emergence of this subdiscipline. It owes to both the concern for mass culture and its relationship with populism at the end of the 1960s. At that time, these studies were being done by researchers with training in literary criticism, researchers who approached cultural phenomena as a political concern, in a way similar to what occurred when British cultural studies were born. At the end of Argentina’s last dictatorship (1976–1983), the reappearance and growth of a sociology of culture expanded into Nomadic terrains and into varied themes and institutions: this was due to a proliferation of studies in social communication and new university departments, but it can also be attributed to the influence of Brazilian anthropology. Another factor is the delayed creation of graduate programs and their clearly multidisciplinary nature. Today the field is testing its potential while undergoing both quantitative and qualitative growth. However, it is essential to re-examine the field’s sociological aspects as it moves along this path.

Historical Research on the Western Social Science ― Social Science and Sociology ―

Historical Research on the Western Social Science ― Social Science and Sociology ―

The Learning of Western Social Science by the Koreans Studying in the United States and their Understanding of the Changing Times in the late Chosen Dynasty

The Learning of Western Social Science by the Koreans Studying in the United States and their Understanding of the Changing Times in the late Chosen Dynasty

The Genealogy of Eastern European Difference: An Insider’s View

The view of Eastern Europe as a locus of complex family organisation and familistic societal values has reached the status of general dogma in Western social sciences and demography. By offering an overview of almost entirely unknown scholarly achievements of Eastern Europeanists, this essay represents an attempt to persuade scholars to accept less stereotypical images of families from outside “Western Europe.” Well into the late 1990s, Eastern European literature on family forms remained screened off from the main current of European thought. Thus, not surprisingly, tracing the lineage of work from east of the ostensible Hajnal Line reveals the sharp differences between the findings of Eastern European researchers and the dominant assumptions of Western science. These marginalised discourses need to be integrated into mainstream research and discussion, so that scholars can better understand marriage, family, household and community patterns in Europe and elsewhere. The diversity of family forms and the rhythms of their development in historical Eastern Europe revealed in this literature also provide us with an excellent opportunity to free ourselves from a simplistic view of the continent’s familial history, and particularly from the one implied by the notion of a “dividing line.”

The Korean Acceptance of the Western Social Sciences during the Late Chosun Dynasty and Taehan Empire: Its Beginnings and Historico-Political Legacy

The Korean Acceptance of the Western Social Sciences during the Late Chosun Dynasty and Taehan Empire: Its Beginnings and Historico-Political Legacy

Examining barriers and opportunities for sustainable adaptation to climate change in Interior Alaska

Human adaptation to climate change is comprised of “adjustments” in response to (or anticipation of) climatic impacts. Adaptation does not necessarily imply favorable or equitable change, nor does it automatically imply sustainable use of ecosystems. “Sustainable adaptation” in this case implies strategic, collective action to respond to or anticipate harmful climate change to reduce disruption to key resource flows and adverse effects on general well-being. This research examined social-ecological system responses to recent warming trends in the remote northwest region of Interior Alaska using a unique vulnerability and adaptive capacity assessment (VA) approach that integrated indigenous observations and understanding of climate (IC) with western social and natural sciences. The study found that Alaska Native communities that were historically highly mobile and flexible across the landscape for subsistence hunting are increasingly restricted by the institutional rigidity of the regulatory system for wildlife and subsistence management. This has resulted in negative impacts to game harvest access and success threatening food security and community well-being. This suggests that policies limiting the ability of natural resource-dependent societies to be flexible, diversify, or innovate can threaten livelihoods and exacerbate vulnerability. Nevertheless, opportunities for sustainable adaptation exist where wildlife management is adaptive and includes an understanding of and response to climate variability and slow-onset climate change with the human dimensions of subsistence hunting for more effective “in-season” management.

Dealing with difference: heritage, commensurability and public formation in northern New Mexico

This article explores the relationship among heritage, commensurability, and public formation in liberal political philosophy and social scientific analysis, both of which are products of European modernity. Liberal multiculturalism highlights commensurable forms of difference that are equivalent, comparable, and subordinate to shared humanity and imposes rules such as secularism and rationalism to manage difference publicly. A liberal conception of heritage can therefore help to unite groups and maintain a democratic public sphere, but it can also be homogenising and colonialist. A tension between similarity and difference also exists in the social scientific study of heritage. I use an analytical definition of heritage to examine three sites in northern New Mexico (a historical monument, a cultural centre, and a museum) within a single framework, but doing so obscures the incommensurable differences between them. This is more than just an analytical problem. Western social science shares liberalism's universal aspirations and commitment to neutrality and relies upon the creation of a broad ‘public’ (humanity) made up of commensurable subjects available for cross‐cultural comparison. I conclude that scholars may need to abandon ‘heritage’ as an analytical category if they want to begin to understand fundamentally different or hybridised ways of being in the world.

Re-appropriating Matrifocality: Endogeneity and African Gender Scholarship

A central concern of many Southern sociologists has been the crisis ‘intellectual dependence’ (Alatas 2000). Averting what Hountondji (1997) refers to as ‘extraversion’ involves separat- ing what is idiographic in western social science scholarship from its nomothetic aspirations; what chakrabathy (2000) called ‘provincializing europe.’ It involves excavating local ‘li- braries’ (Zeleza 2006b) and scholarship that takes its ‘locale’ or research site on its own terms. ‘The study of Africa’, Oyewumi (2004) argued, ‘must start with Africa.’ In this paper, we ex- plore the works of Ifi Amadiume and Oyeronke Oyewumi as such ventures in endogeneity, and examples of the contribution that African sociologists make when they take their ethnographic data on its own terms; without status anxiety. we examine the contributions of Amadiume and Oyewumi to gender scholarship, focusing on the idea of matrifocality or matricentricity. while not a new concept, the idea of matrifocal or matricentric societies acquires distinct valency in their epistemic framework and as the basis for theorising matriarchy. Rather than an exercise in the archaeology of a ‘mythical pre-historic past’ (eller 2000), matricentricity in Amadiume’s works accounts for the structural and ideo- logical conditions of many African societies. It affords us the basis for transcending the ‘bio- logic’ (Oyewumi 1997) of dominant western feminist discourses. Beyond the epistemic rupture that it produces in gender Studies, we argue that the concept of matrifocality has wider heu- ristic value. we illustrate its theoretical value for rethinking ‘Identity’, beyond the prevailing patricentric framing, and in allowing us to make sense of contemporary African data.

Postsocialisms Unbound: Connections, Critiques, Comparisons

This is the introduction to a cluster ofSlavic Reviewarticles that argue for retaining and expanding the analytic rubric of postsocialism beyond the era of “transition” and beyond the conventional borders of the former Soviet bloc. With primary attention to recent developments in anthropology, Douglas Rogers outlines and evaluates three strategies for unbinding postsocialisms: exploring connections and circulations that lead outward from the formerly socialist world; embarking on new kinds of critical projects that call categories of western social science into question; and developing new varieties and vectors of comparison, especially among socialist and postsocialist contexts around the world. Each of these strategies builds upon and extends the work of the first two decades of research on eastern European and former Soviet postsocialisms. Each also points to significant areas of recent scholarship that new research on postsocialisms is primed to join.

Promoting reciprocal relationships—examining the ‘give and take’ in Social Science research

The focus of this paper is on how international Social Work research can respond to critiques of western Social Science research with Third World women. Drawing on recent fieldwork experiences with young women in Mozambique, it examines the power relationships that are inherent in the ‘give and take’ between researchers and participants. Questions such as ‘who gave what?’ and ‘who took what?’ are at the forefront of its concerns. Although the research resulted in minimal material benefit for the participants, the two-way exchange documented builds a more complex picture than one in which participants do all of the ‘giving’ and researchers all the ‘taking’. The paper concludes by suggesting that while the ‘Southern’ context compels particular attention to the ‘give and take’ relationship, it is also pertinent to ‘Northern’ contexts.

The Origins of Western Social Sciences

On the whole, Muslims have accepted Western claims that both social sciences and physical sciences are equally fact and logic based, and positive descriptions of reality. In fact, Western formulations of social sciences hide ethical and social commitments to secular views which conflict the Islamic views. Widespread acceptance by Muslims of these false claims to factuality and objectivity has prevented the development of genuine Islamic alternatives, and has been a serious obstacle to progress in the project of Islamization of Knowledge. The goal of this paper is to examine the origins of Western Social Science, and to show how it is based on secular preconceptions antithetical to Islam.

Cultural encounters in the social sciences and humanities: western émigré scholars in Turkey

Turkish modernization relied on the western social sciences and humanities not only as an abstract and distant model, but also in the form of close encounters and interactions with western refugee scholars. This article examines the activities of western intellectuals and experts who visited Turkey in the early republican era (1923-50), especially focusing on a group of èmigrè scholars who were employed in Turkey after the university reform of 1933. While European and North American social scientists were drawn to meticulous comparisons of "east" and "west" in this period, elites in the former component of this comparative dichotomy were seeking creative ways to turn this taxonomy to their advantage. In the Turkish case, the project of adopting modernity contained universalistic aspects intended to function for particular local needs. A body of racial, historical and linguistic theories attempted to create and sustain a nationally homogeneous society while, at the same time, emphasizing the contributions of Turkishness to western and modern history. Republican scholars tried to establish the Turkish origins of western civilization with the help of western social sciences in general and of western èmigrè scholars in particular. In the process of facilitating the local efforts to import western modernity into the specificity of Turkishness, refugee scholars encountered contradictory demands and employed different strategies to respond to these demands.

Big Money as an Obstacle to Democracy in Russia

Established Western social science theory equates democratization with rising levels of wealth and the associated establishment of a middle class that has an interest in the peaceful resolution of conflict through a political process. The case of Russia under Putin suggests that there is no necessary link between wealth as such and democratization. During his two terms as president, Putin benefited enormously from the rapid rise in world oil prices, but this economic security did not translate into liberal democratic political practices – quite the reverse. Indeed, the swift pace of economic growth and rising standard of living has not pushed Russia's rulers in the direction of democracy but rather, has encouraged a form of authoritarianism that in its use of rewards for favourites and supporters is reminiscent of aspects of feudal rule. The Russian middle class, secure in its wealth, is not a bulwark of democratic values, and those who have spoken out – and, more importantly, acted – in support of democratization have been silenced. It is Russia's poor, rather than the wealthy elite, who are critical of Putin's anti-democratic actions. The transfer of office from Putin to Medvedev in May 2008 is unlikely to change this tendency.