STS between Centers and Peripheries. How transnational are STS mainstream journals?

INVERNIZZI, NOELA; KREIMER, PABLO R.; RODRIGUEZ-MEDINA, LEANDRO; AMILCAR DAVYT

Toronto

Congreso; 4S Annual Meeting; 2021

University of Toronto - Society for Social Studies of Science

In the context of increasing internationalization of the STS field, and reflections on postcolonialityand provincialization of STS, we examine to what extent a set of twelvemainstream journals of the field have published papers from different regions worldwide.In this exploratory work, based on Web of Science data for the period 2010-2019, we payspecial attention to Latin America, but reflect on peripheral regions of the field morebroadly. Our findings show that the historical West Europe-North American centers ofthe field maintain their hegemony, dominating the discussions in mainstream journals.Some Latin American and East Asian countries gained some visibility in journals focusedon scientometrics and S&T policy and innovation, whereas the journals specialized in thesocio-anthropological studies of S&T are the less transnationalized. Our hypothesis toexplain such sub-field variations is that there are objects (scientific policy, innovation)and methods (scientometrics) that are more universal and consensual, facilitatingtransnationalization, while peripheral science, the object of study for peripheral STS, hasnot attracted attention from mainstream journals. Emphasizing the relational character ofcenters and peripheries, we argue that the invisibilization of the academic production ofcertain parts of the world in mainstream journals makes this work peripheral.