CfP: Special Issue - Interdisciplinarity in the social sciences: Human ecology and the environmental sciences
Prof. Dra.
Iva Miranda Pires
Associate Professor at NOVA University Lisbon, Faculty of Social Sciences and
Humanities, Portugal.
Researcher at CICS.NOVA – Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences,
Portugal.
CiênciaVitae : https://cienciavitae.pt/portal/5513-3046-E37E
Prof. Dr.
Karl Bruckmeier
Visiting Professor at NOVA University Lisbon, Faculty of Social Sciences and
Humanities, Portugal.
Visiting Professor at South Bohemian University Ceske Budejovice, Faculty of
Economics, Czechia.
Visiting Senior Researcher at CICS.NOVA – Interdisciplinary Centre of Social
Sciences, Portugal.
CiênciaVitae : https://cienciavitae.pt/portal/4318-3068-32BB
The Gulbenkian
Commission had in its 1996 report “Opening the Social Sciences” discussed the
present situation in the social sciences, but not given clear answers for their
future development, as has been criticised in the sociological discourse
(Wearne 1998 in “The American Sociologist”). What opening towards the future
meant remained unclear : it was not a clear plea for an opening towards
inter- and transdisciplinary knowledge creation and integration, that was
already on the way at that time. Moreover, the report did not answer, how the
social sciences can, after the two liberations from the church and the state in
the course of modernisation, liberate from the third dependence that is
dominant today, that from economic power, business and marketing control, as
Wearne writes.
The thematic
issue planned has the aim to assess and reflect the experience with the
interdisciplinary opening of the social sciences since the Gulbenkian report,
that happened in paradigmatic forms with the concepts of inter- and transdisciplinarity,
describing new forms of knowledge production. Both terms include a variety of
knowledge practices that show similarities. In this issue we want to collect
articles that analyse the interdisciplinary trends in human ecology and the
environmental sciences, where sociological and ecological knowledge is required
and needs to be integrated. The oldest interdisciplinary subject in this sense,
the core theme of the special issue, is human ecology ; newer subjects
originating from that in the course of the 20th century include
cultural-, social-, and political ecology. Recent developments include
sustainability science and transformation research, that show the connections
to the interdisciplinary discourses about sustainable development in science
and politics.
The new
interdisciplinary knowledge practices were since the end of the 20th century
intensively discussed in epistemological debates about “new knowledge
production” (mode 2, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, post-normal
science). Also the European Union has in its funding of research supported the
interdisciplinary opening of social scientific research, as the calls and
reports from recent years show. The joint feature of the new approaches in
interdisciplinary science is their distancing from the conventional forms of
academic science and research based on disciplinary and sub-disciplinary
specialisation (mode 1). Knowledge integration between disciplines and
cooperation between scientists from different disciplines, practitioners and
citizen are main features of the new approaches, that spread quickly in some
fields, especially in environmental research, where the integration of
social-and natural-scientific knowledge became necessary.
The importance
of the new inter- and transdisciplinary approaches is justified with two
arguments :
- the limited perspectives of
specialized academic research (mode 1), that does not deal adequately with
such complex social and environmental problems as climate change,
biodiversity loss, land use change, urbanisation, population growth and
its management, exponential economic growth, globalisation and its social
and environmental consequences, social inequality and the digital divide,
or problems of sharing resources more fairly between countries, as
discussed in the sustainability discourse;
- specialized academic knowledge does
not address sufficiently problems that come with the transfer and
application of scientific knowledge in social practices of resource use
and other fields of action.
In the issue
should be included examples from the practice of interdisciplinary research
(how is it done), and of the application of such research in resource use
practices, policy and governance processes.
This special
issue will be published on December 2023.
RULES FOR
THE SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS
In will be
accepted proposals written in English, Portuguese, French and Spanish.
Full
manuscripts of no more than 40,000 characters including spaces (abstract,
footnotes/endnotes, figures, tables, and references included) should be sent by
e-mail, in Word (.docx) format, to journal Forum Sociológico with the title of the special issue in the subject field of the e-mail
and no later than 30 JUNE 2023.
Authors should
follow the Guidelines for Authors (available here)
and the Statement of Ethics and Good Practice of Forum Sociológico (available here).
More
information here.
Contact
Info:
Journal Forum
Sociológico
CICS.NOVA | NOVA FCSH, Portugal
URL: https://journals.openedition.org/sociologico/