Conceptualizing circulation of knowledge in the social sciences

Wiebke Keim (1)

1 SAGE - Sociétés, Acteurs, Gouvernement en Europe

Circulation is not a new phenomenon - especially in the domain of science and knowledge. One would be hard pressed to think of a static and closed moment of knowledge production. Instead, exchange and circulation have always been constitutive of knowledge making and thus represent “both a fact of life and a usefully enabling condition of intellectual activity" (Said, 1983, p. 226). It is the use of the circulation-terminology that is recent, particularly with regard to South-North-circulation of knowledge. This paper attempts at conceptualizing circulation of knowledge, i.e. the overarching concept of this edited collection. I shall thus start with a brief historical overview over earlier frameworks for thinking the circulation of ideas in the (social) sciences prior to the introduction of this new concept, focusing mainly on international and South-North-circulation in accordance with the orientation of this edited collection.

Mots clés: circulation of knowledge; scholarly exchange; scholarly debate; international reception; international social sciences; centre-periphery

Domaines: Sociologie; Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Wiebke Keim. Conceptualizing circulation of knowledge in the social sciences. Global knowledge in the social sciences. Made in circulation, Ashgate, pp.87-113, 2014, 978-1-4724-2617-8. ⟨halshs-01077347⟩