The place of production of knowledge in the social sciences, Wallerstein and Chakrabarty This paper is a comparative approach to the positions of Dipesh Chakrabarty and Immanuel Wallerstein on "the place" of knowledge production of the Social Sciences. This "place" has different meanings in the texts of each of the authors, which does not mean that there is no relationship between them, on the contrary, can be seen as complementary and, to some extent similar. Chakrabarty refers to the theoretical structures on which the social sciences and humanities develop a knowledge of reality, in this sense, this author has an approach to epistemology that accompanies any research on society and history. For its part, Wallerstein focuses on structural aspects of the organization of the spaces where academic knowledge and how it transformed (or not) from the need for multidisciplinary studies, also, the author explores the limits of classical social sciences and the need to expand and "open" to other specialties that may find useful.
Both authors refer to the university as a privileged space of knowledge production, although Wallerstein comes to talk of a restructuring phase of the space as "principal organizational basis of scholarly research" Chakrabarty and relates to the university as a place where it is very difficult (almost impossible) to develop knowledge is not Europeanized. However, they recognize that college is the institution of knowledge production par excellence.
Let's see what offers each one of the authors and then buy proposals and make a comment.
"History": the language of the modern-European
In postcolonial and artifact of history: Who speaks for the last "Indian" ? Dipesh Chakrabarty examines the issue of self-representation of "Indians" in history, making a preliminary analysis of what this "story." For the author, the academic (drawn from universities) about the story continues to make "Europe" as the sovereign subject of the story, which is more universal and becomes subject to other stories (like the history of the India). Those "other stories" become changes in European history, so they are in a position of subordination in front of her.
On this subject, the author notes that there are at least two symptoms of subordination in the construction of historical knowledge Third: First, Third World historians feel the need to rely on knowledge about " history "made in Europe, while historians of that latitude does not. Second, in reference to the first symptom is a paradox of social science in the Third World that is to consider the knowledge developed in Europe as universal, that is also useful in understanding our societies, even if it was produced in and for society , in Chakrabarty's words: despite their inherent ignorance "we."
Regarding this last point, which suggests the author is that Third World social science sees Europe as the only known theoretical society, so that the other stories are the result of research empirically supported by a prefabricated theoretical framework to meet Europe.
Using a reading of Husserl, Chakrabarty points out that what's behind it is a Eurocentric claim that Western thought can know the truth through absolute theoretical categories, which are products of abstraction and, while , inputs for a theory that reveals the world as it is, allowing a practice whose purpose is to elevate man (humanity) through universal scientific reason. Similarly, the author adds, Marx raises a similar epistemological proposal to declare the "capital" as a philosophical category universal and theoretically more appropriate to hear the story. Thus, societies can be recognized from the similarities or differences from this category are proposed. And not only that. According to the reading of Marx by Chakrabarty, the most advanced societies in the capitalist elements carry pre-capitalist societies, because from them will be built ("evolved") bourgeois society.
For the author, and Husserl and Marx speak in a spirit of historicism, however, Marxism has failed to develop narratives about the story focusing on the theme of "historic transition" that have influenced historical narratives the Third World.
This transition is focused on key issues such as development, modernization, capitalism. In this sense, historical narratives are full of transitions Third and truncated processes.
reading the history of India in terms of lack or absence is due to the British conquest imposed a way of understanding the history that brought together "the last Indian" in a single "pre-modern past." This imposition of the linear view of time was a homogenization of what was the Indian before the arrival of the British: medieval, feudal and despotic. Of course, this was set up as the antonym of this colonial, modern, capitalist and "respect for the law" (Constitution). The latter, says the author, made the Indian "legal subject, ruled by a government sensitive to the pressure of private property [...] and public opinion, and supervised by the judiciary [...]" . That is, there was a depersonalization of power and transformation (or perhaps the creation) of public and private spheres according to the model of modern nation states.
accepted construction of history as linearity condition that evolves from the medieval, feudal, despotic to a modern, capitalist, constitutional allowed to establish an identification field going from one pole to another (from the premodern to modern), accompanied by a teleology whose peak values \u200b\u200bwere modern English. It is from this area that Indian nationalists set their ideological and identity. However, the "Indian" as the author, was always defined by its lack, absence or inadequacies. Thus, the Indians (especially those in the lowest rungs of society) had no ability to become citizens, from the perspective of model European modern humans, so the British imperial ideology chose subjects considered.
legal subjects This condition was accepted by the nationalist discourse as a prelude to citizenship and the nation-state control . Consistent with this, the nationalist thought believed that the "individual rights" and "equality" were abstract universal categories, so it could be "Indian" and "citizen" at the same time after independence.
far the author has described and analyzed premises of modern discourse on the history and how they have affected our everyday imagery and national narratives, allowing the emergence of histories of deficiencies, failures and shortcomings. What then is to look Chakrabarty proposes alternative narratives, stories prior to the "history" "do not consider the link between the state and the citizen as the peak of the construction of the social." (p. 7). The author's interest is in the practices that occur in the private sphere, within the family. According
Chakrabarty, is a division idealistic trichotomous upon which rests the modern political structures : The State, civil society and the family (Bourgeois) is in this latter area that the Indians challenged the ideas of privacy and individualism in Europe, by questioning marriage as a partnership and family as a secular construction. Nationalist discourse raised the differentiation of the Indian (the same) from the discussion on the concept of "freedom", which allowed the Indians to give a position to talk.
The theme of "freedom" was directly related to the status of women within the family. According to the author, the Victorian idea of \u200b\u200bwomen as wife-mate put in between the bases extended family, then turned to the woman in a modern subject asserts his individuality over family relationships. What was the nationalist discourse was an ideal modern woman india educated enough to appreciate the modern rules of the body and the state but at the same time, submissive and selfless.
Thus, bourgeois ideas about domestic life were modified using two strategies: First, as already mentioned, putting the values \u200b\u200bof the patriarchal extended family to the nuclear bourgeois thereby are fighting the idea of \u200b\u200bmodern privacy. Second, joint within the family time "sacred" and "secular" in the ideal woman "truly polite, modest and India ", which is considered a good omen for the return of the principle embodied by the goddess Lakshmi (goddess of domestic welfare). In this way, they developed a form of collective memory that made one side the structure of modern historical narrative: secular and linear.
However, the modern nationalist discourse subordinated narratives produced from the domestic to the national history that was being built, which is aligned with the European world history, ie, becomes secondary.
Chakrabarty mentioned that the subject of history "India" itself is divided by a double bind: The dual character the Indian peasantry is to modernize and modernizing elite, ie, object (peasants) and subject (elite) of modernization, and, because of this characteristic, their way of self-representation can only be an imitation of the European model as such, can only speak from the narrative of the transition that always end up favoring the modern.
Hence, the author argues that the inability of the subaltern to speak as a "theory" in academic language: "As long as one continues to operate within the discourse of" history "produced at the headquarters of the university, you can not simply depart of the deep collusion between 'history' and (s) account (s) of citizenship, bourgeois public and private life and the nation-state. " (p. 13), in other words, the language of Modernity.
Why is taught the "history" in schools, asks the author. The answer he finds is that both European imperialism and Third World nationalisms have achieved universal nation-state idea as a political community. To legitimize the universal character of the nation state have required a number of institutions like the university.
However, Chakrabarty says that we all understand that European history can open a possibility of a policy and partnership project between dominant and subaltern histories: provincialization of Europe. This is from a radical critique of liberalism in its bureaucratic conceptions of citizenship, the modern state and bourgeois private life.
provincializing The draft document how Europe is "reason-science-universal" Europe has been instituted as such, try to see the consolidation of the property rather than deny or relativize. On the other hand, the project includes the recognition that the allocation of European modern adjective itself is part of global history, which is integrated into the narrative of European imperialism, also, understanding that Third World nationalism, such as modernizing ideologies have contributed to the "monopolization" of the modern and European.
The idea is to write in the history of modernity the ambivalences, contradictions, the use of force and ironies that accompany it. (p. 14)
Restructuring Social Sciences
In Open the Social Sciences Immanuel Wallerstein ago an analysis of the changes that have been the subjects assigned to the life sciences during the second stage of the twentieth century. The author argues that social sciences have changed and continue in various forms, from the scope of its objects of study to the institutional frameworks within which it develops, the most important university.
According to the author, three processes changed the structure of the social sciences after 1945: First, the bipolarity formed by United States and Soviet Union after the Second World War, the force United States clearly influenced by the definition of problems and how social science should deal with them. On the other hand, this period occurs political reaffirmation of non-European countries, which meant the questioning of several of the premises of the social sciences because they were part of political trends in a bygone era.
Second, population growth and economic expansion led to increased investment in science and, consequently, the social sciences. Wallerstein points out that investment rates were small, but the absolute numbers were very high, this allowed the development of social sciences centralized clusters, ie, he a process of concentration of resources, skills and information in places where investment was much higher (eg United States): " Thus, economic expansion strengthened global standing in the social sciences scientific paradigms underlying the achievements technology behind it. However, the end of the political dominance of the West over the world significa7ba while the entry of new voices on stage, not just of politics but of social science. " (p. 39)
Third, expansion of university systems was the multiplication of social scientists and therefore, social pressure for increased specialization, because the scholars sought to define their "originality or at least its social utility" , in the words of the author. The increase of social scientists led to a series of intrusions reciprocal disciplinary fields of each other, which began to blur the boundaries between disciplines.
All these processes affect the organizational structure of social sciences at least three levels of restructuring: The first level is the border of the super-fields of social sciences, which have been redefinitions within the university structure due the emergence new disciplines on the one hand, required resources for its financing and on the other, appear as intersections of different disciplines (such as ethnohistory). The second level is that of the boundaries of social science, a product of the process described in the previous section. The third level is the flight research activities of the institutional environment of the university, according to the author's non-teaching areas of research have increased their presence at the expense of the university, and consequently, the university was losing a recovery in nineteenth century as a producer of knowledge. The challenge presented by the latter is to raise resources to fund research in areas that have have no public legitimacy for it.
problems detailed organizations are the institutional framework in which there were another kind of restructuring of the social sciences at the theoretical level. On the one hand, the relationship between researcher and research has been shifting from a point where the position of the researcher was acultural, apolitical and objective, to one where the researcher is contextualized, it is known from a social and cultural context that influence their observations, and a recognition that research activity as modified in reality something which is about, in this sense, the paradigm of objectivity of science is placed in between the and to that extent, the truth value of their findings.
Moreover, the reinsertion of time and space in social studies, but not as elements unchanged. The social sciences should aim to take these elements as cultural constructions that affect and, in turn, helps to interpret reality.
A third level is that of overcoming the separation supposedly objective interdisciplinary social science. In practice, the boundaries between disciplines are transferred by the challenges posed by the analysis of social reality.
According to the author, to overcome the current problems of the social sciences is necessary to "open" to virtually all scholars who have something to say on the subject and come from different geographical latitudes, social and academic. Furthermore, it also notes that several important dimensions that need to be discussed: the implications of rejecting the ontological distinction between humans and nature, the implications of refusing to consider the state as the only source of possible boundaries and / or primary within which social action occurs and must be analyzed, the implications of accepting the endless tension between the one and the many, the universal and particular, as a permanent feature of human society and not as an anachronism, and the kind of objectivity which is plausible in light of the assumptions presupposed by science.
Finally, Wallerstein argues that there are four kinds of structural processes that must be taken into account in the formation and management of production of knowledge areas: First, the expansion of institutions that bring together scholars from different fields working together. Second, the establishment of integrated research programs within university structures cutting through the traditional lines, with specific intellectual goals and funds for limited periods. Third, compulsory joint appointment of professors. And fourth, the attached work for graduate students, allowing them to function in other areas other than their specialty.
Comparing proposals
An important Wallerstein's approach with which we can start comparing with the proposal of Chakrabarty, is the subject of how to give the interdisciplinary social sciences and the corresponding debate on the validity of the distinctions between disciplines. Briefly
say that Wallerstein notes that the social sciences were built around three antinomies that are widely discussed: moderno-civilizado/no modern, past / present and nomothetic / ideographic. Based on the first antinomy, history and nomothetic social sciences (economics, politics and sociology) were charged to study the modern, civilized, while anthropology and Oriental studies studying the non-modern societies. On past and present, history is designated as a discipline for the study of past and nomothetic social sciences for the present. Finally, the distinction between nomothetic disciplines (social sciences) and ideographic (anthropology and Oriental studies) was performed on the basis that the first could pose laws or rules which elucidated the functioning of modern society, while the latter is in charge of describing the features of cultures or societies non-modern.
This distinction remained in force until mid-twentieth century when fueled interdisciplinary studies from the United States to produce reliable knowledge about different areas of the globe. This was a question about the division of social sciences was becoming as common sense that antinomies demarcating the borders between them, were invalid, it was perfectly possible to apply a discipline to an area that was traditionally the domain ( example, sociology in countries considered not modern).
However, it was not until after a time it reinforced the idea that there needed to interdisciplinary studies. This was created by the combination of two modern European concepts: Modernization and Development. Within interdisciplinary studies, emerged modernization theory, which sought to respond to the paradox of the disciplines applied in areas that were not within its competence. This theory proposed that all societies were in the process of upgrading, but not all were at the same stage, therefore, the way these people would reach the goal of Modernity (European), was a through "development." This tuco two consequences: One is from public policies, programs to encourage development, with the notion of "progress" back. Another organizational level with greater investment in social research to develop multidisciplinary social projects.
This position had detractors in the sixties by social scientists (to turn to the story) whose concern for social change led them to criticize the positions mainstream social science, calling it naive to highlight the "consensus "Social relations and arrogant to apply Western standards to study different cultures.
With all these ongoing developments, the increasingly blurred boundaries between disciplines and heterogeneity inside each one (due to the stretching of its objects of study) questioned the antinomies initially used to define the social sciences.
Chakrabarty is among the critics of social science to try to approach different situations with a theory developed for Europe in that line, says the author, the history of non-European countries are part of Europe, have this universal character and because researchers approach different situations with categories of modern European social sciences also declared universal.
At this point, make two touchdowns Chakrabarty quite interesting. The first concerns "inequality from ignorance", ie the need for Third World social scientists to learn European history and European indifference to the show on the history of third world countries. This has to do with the place of validation of social science categories. The influence of European modern scientific thought is such that the idea that only through science and modern European philosophy is possible to achieve a theoretical, abstract, true reality is predisposed to all social scientists (including Third world) to accept this premise as true.
The second refers to the route as the histories of Third World countries. As the analytical model is of European origin and European societies, the history of non-European countries always be seen through the eyes of modernity and in that sense, description and analysis of the stories are full Third truncated process, deficiencies, vision ucronia (see the past as a sum of missed opportunities, etc.). However, even when the social scientist predisposes their horizon and develop analytical tools to collect stories about the stories of subordinates, yet it is impossible for social science knowledge without the prism of European history as representations of the junior end up being a mimesis of modern forms of European subject, given that the social sciences are speaking from modern categories that can only see the social relations within the institutional framework of the nation state.
Are these two goals which lead the author to say that it is impossible to produce a full understanding of Third World countries since college, since she plays institutionally "vices" of modern European social theory.
From this, Chakrabarty poses two things. First, demystify Europe as the sole producer of theoretical knowledge, it should be noted the circumstances in which it was produced, ie the processes observed. On the other hand, to make visible that the attribution of "modern" to "the European" have ethnocentric character to validate the position of Europe as "illustrator" in the world, a position that has been endorsed by third world scientists. Second, Chakrabarty impels the reader to doubt the knowledge from the university and, in general, of all places "official." However, no proposed sites from which to obtain the knowledge, perhaps in a spirit of "open" the social sciences to multiple centers of production capacities are not attributed validate or not the knowledge produced in other places, this is not clear.
Rather, Wallerstein does have a much more definite about it. To this author, the emergence of non-teaching sites of knowledge production has been positive in both has led to an interdisciplinary development of social knowledge. However, Wallerstein does not rule out the university and organizational basis of scholarly research, however, says that while there is institutional flexibility for interdisciplinary contact, social knowledge production can be quite rewarding.
Comment
"Open the Social Sciences" and "provincializing Europe" are two very interesting proposals from which they can do some thinking.
undoubtedly is becoming more necessary to build bridges between different disciplines for the approach to reality. In fact, in countries like the Netherlands there are universities that combine ancient races that are not related as engineering and sociology, to produce graduates capable of using the tools of both races in the analysis of irrigation systems. This is just a sample of the growing need to diversify the social science methodology and scope vary their objects of study for adapt to the demands of the current situations.
However, a more abstract level, we should ask ourselves if only interdisciplinarity will allow a fuller understanding of reality. As Chakrabarty ago, we must also ask whether the epistemological foundations of social sciences allow the approach to the reality we want. The example of natural resources and water is typical. Social sciences for a long time served as tools for development projects, says Wallerstein talking about modernization theory, but put aside a crucial factor was the environment. Wallenstein himself in a text called The End of the World as we know it , realizes what material and discursive conditions that allowed the historical capitalism eventually produce a system that produces more and more goods and degrades the environment. This system, as Boaventura de Sousa Santos said, is based on a modern Western epistemology that gives you the power to the rational subject to take control over nature that is both resource and even hostile to humans .
"provincialize Europe, for example, would also problematize the history of progress and development, showing its ambiguities and contradictions, and question the very foundations of capitalist production and irrational use of natural resources.
The question that remains to be answered is whether achieving this is possible from traditional institutions like the university. Perhaps rather than give an answer other questions should be formulated. A plant may be what is the role of social science? Does the fact that it is accepted that criticism or is influenced by cultural context, imply that we should forget the whole ideal of scientific objectivity and take a position of active involvement in society? Who should define this position? Should be from the university? Do you have the legitimacy to choose one or another trend?
One last thought about it, it should not be discarded in the university and organizational basis of academic, as it appears to do Chakrabarty, because before it would have to think about the trends that continue to this university and its academics. After all, Chakrabarty himself is speaking from a university of Chicago, in a country belonging to the First World, yet has managed to develop a speech in which he will reveal the pitfalls of "history" universal and modern European social sciences for the analysis of reality that it is geographically close and distant biographically.
In this sense, Wallerstein has a much broader vision about the possibilities for restructuring or, in his words, "open the social sciences" from different areas are new or traditional.
