Human sciences in combat: circulation, publication, internationalization (1920-1945)

• Grant number: 23/13759-7
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2024
• End date: August 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Marcia Cristina Consolim
• Grantee: Marcia Cristina Consolim
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/10050-2 - Database - biographies and bibliographies: trajectories, networks and bibliometric analysis, BP.TT; 24/16318-4 - The reception of American sociology by the French human and social sciences: archives, database, and publication, BP.TT; 24/18229-9 - Database - biographies and bibliographies: trajectories, networks and bibliometric analysis, BP.TT; 24/15467-6 - Primary sources - biographical and institutional: archives, newspaper libraries, collections and forms of treatment, BP.TT

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the social and intellectual conditions of the disputes involving the legitimate definition and limits of the sciences of man - in particular sociology, anthropology/ethnology and social psychology - in the interwar period. The aim is to investigate these transformations based on the trajectories of the agents involved in these disputes (professors, researchers, mediators, managers), as well as the spaces of production and intellectual diffusion, both national and international. In the inter-war period, these disputes involved, firstly, conflicts between nations over national prestige and power, at the same time as scientific transfers and the circulation of intellectuals and texts in the transnational space; secondly, they involved epistemic clashes, in other words, assumptions about what the human sciences are and how the conditions for their objectivity and scientific legitimacy arise, generally polarized between a French model and an American one; thirdly, they involve a broad debate on the relationship between pure science and applied science and, more broadly, on the role of the dissemination of scientific knowledge in social transformations, with the broad involvement of multilateral agencies. More specifically, the aim is to observe these processes from three specific countries - Brazil, France and the United States - selected because they occupy different positions in the transnational space. France because it represents the dominant country in the field of human sciences and the United States because it is the country on the rise in this field, whose claim is to subvert scientific hierarchies and occupy the dominant position. Finally, Brazil because it occupies a dominated position and is therefore more open to receiving foreign texts and professors. This diversity makes it possible to isolate the conditioning factors according to their position in the national and transnational space. The research hypothesis is that this period is characterized by a movement towards greater legitimacy for the North American social sciences to the detriment of the French human sciences due to the expansion of the international circulation of intellectuals and works in the transnational space. Hence the importance of studying the trajectories of producers and various cultural intermediaries - publishers, public and scientific managers, philanthropists, etc. (AU)