Full Description
The book explores the stakes for the social sciences around four central problems: the challenges of context; modes of intervention; involvement; and the ethical dilemmas for the scholar in a democratic space. The first, challenges of the context, examines the variety of situations confronted by scholars since the beginning of the 20th century. These include their interventions in key judicial affairs, the impact of technological developments like the introduction of big data, or even the positionality of the scholar. Second, the book investigates the modalities according to which social scientists may intervene in the civic space: in particular as specialists, as experts, or in the media. A third problem brings together some cases illustrative of researchers' involvement in critical issues, such as food policies, major social reforms, or gender-related questions. Finally, the book concludes with a reflection on the modes of exercising critique or dissent in democratic societies and on the ethical dimensions of involvement in the civic space.
A searing examination of the role of social scientists, as they are called upon to address the multiple critical issues faced by contemporary societies, from pandemics to climatic change, sustainable development, migration, ethnicity, or the place of religion. This volume will be of great interest not just to scholars, students, and researchers of the social sciences but to the general reader as a concerned citizen.
Contents
List of contributors x Introduction 1 Arundhati Virmani, Jean Boutier, and Manohar Kumar PART I Challenges of the context 9 1 Historians in a world in crisis (1919-1944) 11 Jean Boutier 2 Discovering the genocide of the Rwandan Tutsi: Civic engagement or activism? 25 Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau 3 The freedom of the foreign scholar?: Writing national histories from afar 38 Arundhati Virmani PART II Interventions in the civic space 55 4 Three forms of expertise in social sciences 57 Irène Théry 5 Citizen economist or economist citizen?: An interview of Pulapre Balakrishnan and Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur 68 Arundhati Virmani 6 Experiencing last-mile welfare: Field notes from six districts in India 79 Ashwani Kumar 7 Why so few economists have become public figures 97 Alain Trannoy PART III Involvement in public debates 115 8 Public action and food security in India: Report from a participant-observer 117 Madhura Swaminathan 9 Social sciences, democracy, and social reforms: Insights from Scandinavia and France 137 Yohann Aucante 10 Anti-gender movements in France and Brazil in the 2010s: Populism, anti-intellectualism, and attacks on gender studies 153 Michel Bozon 11 Feminist research engagement and civic space in India 164 B. Rajeshwari PART IV Ethical politics of democracy 179 12 Are experts welcome in democratic societies? 181 Gloria Origgi 13 Data for public journalism and social research: Technological change and the civic space in India 192 Midhat Fatimah, Aasim Khan, and Sarayu Natarajan 14 Defining norms of civility: Disobedience as protest 205 Manohar Kumar PART V Perspectives 219 15 The labour of Sisyphus 221 Ranabir Samaddar Index 231
