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Scholarly Communities at the Crossroads: Internationalizing Sociological Networks in Valparaíso, Chile (2003–2019)

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Abstract

Achievements and tensions derived from the internationalization of national scholarly communities have attracted extensive attention. However, very little is hitherto known about the effects of these processes on specific situated communities. Through a multi-method approach (bibliometrics and interviews), we provide a nuanced description of these effects on the becoming of university-based sociology in Valparaíso, Chile, during the last fifteen or so years. The paper pays special attention to the emergence of a particular form of internationalization based on international indexes and rankings that has gained influence on the day-to-day practices of the scholarly communities in that part of the scholarly (semi-)periphery. We thoroughly described the entanglements of individual trajectories and institutional framings in the practices and discourses of sociologists in Valparaíso. The article concludes by highlighting the tensions arising from the encounter of traditions and some trade-offs of the current form of internationalization for (semi-)peripheral communities.

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Notes

  1. For example, an ambitious project to map the evolution of sociology worldwide can be found in the Sociology Transformed series (https://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14477).

  2. See, for example, the Latin-American databases SciELO (1998) and Redalyc (2002), the Chinese Citation Index (2000), the Russian Citation Index (2005), the African Citation Index (2016), and so on.

  3. As we have shown elsewhere (Koch et al. 2020), internationalization trends in Chile radically changed at the end of the 20th century. By means of discourse analysis of a sample of journals published and/or edited in Chile, we show that although international ambitions were present in Chilean scholarly communities since the 19th century, and these ambitions were often framed by ‘nationalist’ orientations (e.g., national socio-economic development). This trait started to change at the end of the 20th century, a process reinforced by the rise of international databases and indexes and their ‘calculated’ representation of the world of science. For a recent commentary on the transformations of university’s internationalization worldwide, see also De Wit (2020).

  4. For a recent compilation of Latin American critical thought, see https://www.clacso.org.ar/antologias.

  5. The Valparaíso conurbation (Gran Valparaíso) is located at 115 km from the capital, Santiago. It extends for 1,230 km2, and it is Chile’s second biggest region in terms of both population (951,311 inhabitants in 2017) and university students (81,767 in 2019).

  6. The national scholarship program was also enhanced. This program was crucial for the further organization of post-graduate programs in sociology at Chilean universities.

  7. The nomenclature changes across the universities studied (i.e., department, institute, school, or study program). A hybrid program of sociology and economy (Socioeconomía) also existed between 2002 and 2010 in Universidad de Valparaíso. We did not include this in our study because of its rather limited contact with the sociology departments within the region.

  8. Though not intended, these years coincide with the two biggest cycles of social protest in Chile (2011 higher-education student’s demonstrations and 2019 general uprising). Albeit the topic was not fully addressed in the interviews, to some extent, scholars’ discourses reflected the social climate, for example, in the importance they attributed to the social impact of sociology in 2019.

  9. We use translations of the quotations into English. Original quotations in Spanish are available as complementary material.

  10. We did not include other documents such as reviews, letters, editorials, technical papers, or press publications because of the limits imposed by the sources, which did not fully cover these types of documents.

  11. Although the ranking of universities based on accreditation involves two elements (years of accreditation and the number of dimensions accredited), these elements are highly correlated (r = 0.91 in 2010 and 0.76 in 2019), and institutions have tended to include elective areas of accreditation sequentially, from public engagement, to research and to graduate teaching. The rather flexible definition of ‘public’ contributed to positioning public engagement as a necessary step to climb up in this ranking.

  12. The coefficient of variation shows how large the standard deviation is relative to the mean. It was calculated as follows: σ/μ × 100, whereby σ stands for the standard deviation and μ for the mean value.

  13. The decrease in publications per scholar from 1.6 between 2003 and 2007 to 1.2 between 2008–2011 is explained by the early expansion of staffing oriented by teaching rather than research outcomes.

  14. This re-engagement is reflected, for example, in the organization in Chile of the conference of the Latin American Sociological Association (ALAS 2013) co-organized by Sociored.

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Funding

This work received funding from DGI-UPLA (CSO01-1121) and ANID PFCHA/DOCTORADO BECAS CHILE/2015 – 72160036.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Korte Meer 3-5, 9000, Ghent, Flanders, Belgium

    Tomás Koch & Ricardo A. Ayala

  2. Department of Sociology, Universidad de Playa Ancha, Avda. Playa Ancha 850, Valparaiso, Chile

    Tomás Koch

  3. Instituto de Historia y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Austral de Chile, Campus Isla Teja, Casilla 567, Valdivia, Chile

    Gustavo Blanco-Wells

  4. Research Foundation Flanders, Brussels, Belgium

    Ricardo A. Ayala

Authors
  1. Tomás Koch
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  2. Gustavo Blanco-Wells
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Correspondence to Tomás Koch.

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Appendix: Sociology Programs at Chilean Universities

Appendix: Sociology Programs at Chilean Universities

Year

Universitya

City

Administration (public/private)

1958

Universidad de Chile

Santiago

Public

1959

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Santiago

Private

1965 (Re-opened in 1993)

Universidad de Concepción

Concepción

Private

1989

Universidad Academia del Humanismo Cristiano

Santiago

Private

1990

Universidad La República

Santiago

Private

1991

Universidad Arcis

Santiago

Private

1991

Universidad Arturo Prat

Iquique

Public

1992

Universidad La Frontera

Temuco

Public

1998

Universidad Alberto Hurtado

Santiago

Private

2001

Universidad Central

Santiago

Private

2001

Universidad Católica Cardenal Raúl Silva Henríquez

Santiago

Private

2002

Universidad Diego Portales

Santiago

Private

2003

Universidad Arcis

Valparaíso

Private

2003

Universidad de Playa Ancha

Valparaíso

Public

2003

Universidad de Valparaíso

Valparaíso

Public

2003

Universidad de Viña del Mar

Viña del Mar

Private

2006

Universidad Central

Antofagasta

Private

2006

Universidad Central

La Serena

Private

2008

Universidad Católica de Temuco

Temuco

Private

2010

Universidad Andrés Bello

Santiago

Private

2011

Universidad Andrés Bello

Viña del Mar

Private

2012

Universidad Católica del Maule

Talca

Private

2012

Universidad Mayor

Santiago

Private

  1. aWe also found entries for sociology programs in the databases from the Education Ministry at Instituto Profesional del Valle Central (2002, La Serena), Universidad Autónoma (2003, Talca), Universidad Arcis (2009, Concepción), Universidad Santo Tomás (2012, Santiago), and Universidad Los Leones (2020, Santiago). However, these entries showed no students enrolled and we could not find evidence of those programs opening.

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Koch, T., Blanco-Wells, G. & Ayala, R.A. Scholarly Communities at the Crossroads: Internationalizing Sociological Networks in Valparaíso, Chile (2003–2019). Minerva 59, 99–122 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-020-09421-6

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