Introduction: The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations

Locating the book in the general debate on globalization, the editors present a structural approach to studying the internationalization of the social and human sciences (SHS). They argue that these processes are best conceptualized as structured by power relations on different levels. Various political actors, ranging from national governments to international organizations, have indeed heavily invested in the transnational development of the SHS, in the framework of broader geopolitical struggles. Moreover, the globalizing field of the social and human sciences is marked by an unequal distribution of resources, best described as a core-periphery structure. The book develops these ideas at the institutional, social and intellectual level, on the basis of a variety of empirical studies. Part 1 explores patterns of transnationalization that shape the social and human sciences at the global level. Part 2 examines a particular form of internationalization: transnational regionalization (in the cases of Latin America and Europe). Parts 3 and 4 focus on the circulation of ideas and scholars between respectively North and South, and between West and East.