scholarly journals Understanding the Societal Impact of the Social Sciences and Humanities: Remarks on Roles, Challenges, and Expectations

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedikt Fecher ◽  
Freia Kuper ◽  
Nataliia Sokolovska ◽  
Alex Fenton ◽  
Stefan Hornbostel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Societal Impact ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Online Consultation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Learned Societies ◽  
Societal Problems

Science is increasingly expected to help in solving complex societal problems in collaboration with societal stakeholders. However, it is often unclear under what conditions this can happen, i.e., what kind of challenges occur when science interacts with society and what kind of quality expectations prevail. This is particularly pertinent for Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), which are part of the object they study and whose knowledge is always subject to provisionality. Here we discuss how SSH researchers can contribute to societal problems, what challenges might occur when they interact with societal stakeholders, and what quality expectations arise in these arrangements. We base our argumentation on the results of an online consultation among 125 experts in Germany (representatives from SSH, learned societies, stakeholders from different societal groups, and relevant intermediaries).

scholarly journals Who benefits from ex ante societal impact evaluation in the European funding arena? A cross-country comparison of societal impact capacity in the social sciences and humanities

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan P L de Jong ◽  
Reetta Muhonen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Societal Impact ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Evaluation Procedures ◽  
Societal Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Increasingly, research funders include societal impact as a criterion in evaluation procedures. The European Commission is no exception to this trend. Societal impact determines one-third of a project’s success in receiving funding from the Societal Challenges in Horizon 2020 (H2020). Yet, there are large differences in terms of science and technology performance between countries that participate in the programme. In this article, we (1) compare societal impact practices in the social sciences and humanities in high-performing countries (HPCs) and low-performing countries (LPCs) to the evaluation of societal impact in funding procedures at the European level and (2) reflect upon consequences for the competition for research funding in the European funding arena. To this end, we introduce the concept of ‘societal impact capacity’ as well as a framework to analyse it. The analysis of 60 case studies from 16 countries across Europe shows that (1) researchers from HPCs have a higher impact capacity than those from LPCs and (2) researchers from HPCs report more details about impact than those from LPCs. This suggests that researchers from HPCs are better equipped to score well on the impact criterion when applying for funding than researchers from LPCs. We conclude with policy recommendations for the organization and evaluation of societal impact.

Women break down the barriers to the Vietnamese social sciences and humanities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quan-Hoang Vuong
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Middle Income Country ◽  
Women In Science ◽  
Income Country ◽  
The West ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Low And Middle Income

Valian rightly made a case for better recognition of women in science during the Nobel week in October 2018 (Valian, 2018). However, it seems most published views about gender inequality in Nature focused on the West. This correspondence shifts the focus to women in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in a low- and middle-income country (LMIC).

scholarly journals Post-Islamism and Intellectual Production: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Evolution of Contemporary Islamic Thought

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Mohamed Amine Brahimi ◽  
Houssem Ben Lazreg
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Scientific Field ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
The Social ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Thinking Differently ◽  
Intellectual Production ◽  
Representative Samples

The advent of the 1990s marked, among other things, the restructuring of the Muslim world in its relation to Islam. This new context has proved to be extremely favorable to the emergence of scholars who define themselves as reformists or modernists. They have dedicated themselves to reform in Islam based on the values of peace, human rights, and secular governance. One can find an example of this approach in the works of renowned intellectuals such as Farid Esack, Mohamed Talbi, or Mohamed Arkoun, to name a few. However, the question of Islamic reform has been debated during the 19th and 20th centuries. This article aims to comprehend the historical evolution of contemporary reformist thinkers in the scientific field. The literature surrounding these intellectuals is based primarily on content analysis. These approaches share a type of reading that focuses on the interaction and codetermination of religious interpretations rather than on the relationships and social dynamics that constitute them. Despite these contributions, it seems vital to question this contemporary thinking differently: what influence does the context of post-Islamism have on the emergence of this intellectual trend? What connections does it have with the social sciences and humanities? How did it evolve historically? In this context, the researchers will analyze co-citations in representative samples to illustrate the theoretical framework in which these intellectuals are located, and its evolution. Using selected cases, this process will help us to both underline the empowerment of contemporary Islamic thought and the formation of a real corpus of works seeking to reform Islam.

scholarly journals Subaltern Debris: Archaeology and Marginalized Communities

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Beatriz Marín-Aguilera
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Patricia Hill Collins ◽  
Definition Of

Archaeologists, like many other scholars in the Social Sciences and Humanities, are particularly concerned with the study of past and present subalterns. Yet the very concept of ‘the subaltern’ is elusive and rarely theorized in archaeological literature, or it is only mentioned in passing. This article engages with the work of Gramsci and Patricia Hill Collins to map a more comprehensive definition of subalternity, and to develop a methodology to chart the different ways in which subalternity is manifested and reproduced.

The Distribution of Emotions: Affective Politics of Emancipation

Hypatia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 580-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitte Bargetz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social

Currently, affect and emotions are a widely discussed political topic. At least since the early 1990s, different disciplines—from the social sciences and humanities to science and technoscience—have increasingly engaged in studying and conceptualizing affect, emotion, feeling, and sensation, evoking yet another turn that is frequently framed as the “affective turn.” Within queer feminist affect theory, two positions have emerged: following Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's well‐known critique, there are either more “paranoid” or more “reparative” approaches toward affect. Whereas the latter emphasize the potentialities of affect, the former argue that one should question the mere idea of affect as liberation and promise. Here, I suggest moving beyond a critique or celebration of affect by embracing the political ambivalence of affect. For this queer feminist theorizing of affective politics, I adapt Jacques Rancière's theory of the political and particularly his understanding of emancipation. Rancière takes emancipation into account without, however, uncritically endorsing or celebrating a politics of liberation. I draw on his famous idea of the “distribution of the sensible” and reframe it as the “distribution of emotions,” by which I develop a multilayered approach toward a nonidentitarian, nondichotomous, and emancipatory queer feminist theory of affective politics.

“*Pseudonyms Are Used Throughout”: A Footnote, Unpacked

2021 ◽  
pp. 107780042110483
Author(s):  
Janet Heaton
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Current Practice ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Textual Data

Pseudonyms are often used to de-identify participants and other people, organizations and places mentioned in interviews and other textual data collected for research purposes. While this is commonplace, the rationale for, and limits of, using pseudonyms or other methods to disguise identifying information are seldom explained in empirical works. Following an illustrated outline of pseudonyms, epithets, codenames and other obscurant techniques used in the social sciences and humanities, this paper considers how they variously frame the identities of, and position the relations between, participants and researchers. It suggests ways in which researchers might improve on current practice.

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