Spe cial Iss ue on H uman C apital

Volume 52 / Numbers 2-3 / June-September 1998 810 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019

Council Announces Leadership Change

Kenneth Prewitt, president of the Council since 1995 The Council’s executive committee called him “a (as well as from 1979-1985), will resign the presi- first-rate social scientist and a proven, mature science dency effective October 1. He has been nominated by administrator.” President Clinton to direct the U.S. Census Bureau, and Senate confirmation hearings are expected in Search process September. Census 2000 has become controversial Paul B. Baltes of the Max Planck Institute for because of disagreements over the Bureau's proposal Human Development (Berlin), chair of the board of to use statistical sampling to remedy its usual under- directors, has announced the formation of a Pres- count of urban minorities; Mr. Prewitt hopes to work idential Search Committee. Cora Marrett, provost of with Congress and the professional community both the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, will be within and outside the bureau to ensure a Census free chair. Members include: Lisa Anderson, dean of the of politics. School of International Affairs, Columbia University; Jean Comaroff, professor of anthropology, University Interim president appointed of Chicago; Anne Petersen, senior vice-president for Albert Fishlow of the Council on Foreign Relations, programs, W.K. Kellogg Foundation; Burton Singer, chair of the executive committee of the Council's professor of demography and public affairs, Office of board of directors, has announced the appointment of Population Research, Princeton University; Marta Orville Gilbert Brim as interim president. Mr. Brim Tienda, director, Office of Population Research, received a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University Princeton University; Kenneth Wachter, professor of and taught at the University of Wisconsin before demography, University of California, Berkeley and joining the Russell Sage Foundation as a staff officer David Weiman, SSRC program director; as well as in 1955. He was Russell Sage president from 1964 to Mr. Baltes and Mr. Fishlow (ex officio). Mary Byrne 1972 and then served for ten years as president of the McDonnell, executive program director of the Council, Foundation for Child Development. Since 1989, he will serve as staff to the committee. has directed one of the most intellectually ambitious A description of the position of Council president of the MacArthur Foundation research networks, on will be widely circulated. Persons wishing to apply Successful Midlife Development. Mr. Brim knows or to propose candidates are urged to contact Chair, the SSRC well, having served on research planning Presidential Search Committee, SSRC, 810 Seventh committees and as a funder of Council programs. Avenue, New York, NY 10019.

29 international trends and impacts. We need a short- Introducing the Human hand to refer to this long and complicated thought Capital Initiative and many of the useful termsÐÐhuman resources, capacity building, human capitalÐÐalready have spe- by Mary Byrne McDonnell cific meanings. We are talking specifically about human analytic research capacity at the tertiary level The Social Science Research Council, in cooperation and beyond. This refers to trainingÐÐbut not only to with the American Council of Learned Societies, has trainingÐÐto using and sustaining intellectual research embarked on an initiative concerned with the devel- capacity internationally, particularly around the set of opment of intellectual capital on a global scale. A big issues facing humanity over the coming decades. series of planning meetings began in January 1997 We are using the term “human research capital” to and engaged some 60 individuals from around the refer to a process that engages the question of form- world in three separate sessions held in New York; ing an intellectual community. We work from an Bellagio, Italy; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The assumption that this research capacity may be devel- meetings assisted in identifying individuals who oped in many types of institutions, may be employed might sit on an international steering committee and in various ways through our societies. Its subject working groups convened around the human capital matter and its participants will be fully international. agenda. In fall 1997 a nine-member, fully interna- For an SSRC presentation on this subject in April tional steering committee was appointed, and it held 1997, committee chair Lisa Anderson prepared a set its first meeting in January 1998. of remarks on “Human Capital in the Social Sciences” This initiative begins from the premise that there is from the perspective of her discipline, area specialty a global need for new kinds of research professionals and institutional background. A revised version fol- who are capable and comfortable understanding local lows. We have asked members of the newly appointed situations in relationship to global, transnational and Human Capital Committee, or their nominees, to respond to this article from their own national, disci- plinary and institutional perspectives, and several of these pieces also appear. This issue of Items also Human Capital Committee includes excerpts from talks presented at “Social Lisa Anderson, dean of the School of International and Sciences Around the World,” a symposium in honor Public Affairs at Columbia University, agreed to chair of the SSRC's 75th anniversary which took place in the committee. She is joined on the committee by: New York City on June 11, 1998. These presentations Paul Evans, director, Center for Asia Pacific Studies, contribute to the attempt to create a global map of the University of York; C.T. Kurien, professor emeritus, social sciences described later in this issue. Madras Institute of Development Studies; Wilfredo Lozano, director, Facultad Latinoamericana de ciencias; Kurt Juergen Maass, secretary general, Institut fuer ■ ■ Auslandsbeziehungen, Elzbieta Matynia, East and CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE Central Europe Program, New School for Social Council Announces Leadership Social Sciences Around the Change 29 World 43 Research; Joyce Moock, associate senior vice president, Introducing the Human Capital Latin America, Elizabeth Rockefeller Foundation; Thandika Mkandawire, direc- Initiative, Mary Byrne Jelin 43 tor, United Nations Research Institute for Social McDonnell 30 Eastern Europe, Michael D. Human Capital in the Social Kennedy 44 Development; Salim Nasr, program officer, Ford Sciences, Lisa Anderson 31 Middle East, Rashid Khalidi 47 Foundation (Cairo) and Wang Gung Wu, director, East Social Science and Social South Asia, Veena Das 48 Asian Institute, University of Singapore. Together the Reality, C. T. Kurien 36 Africa, Michael Chege 50 expertise of this group spans the globe. Social Science and a Rapidly Second Round: The International Globalizing World, Dissertation Field Research Staff: Mary Byrne McDonnell, executive program Helga Nowotny 38 Fellowship Program, Kenton director, SSRC; Steven Wheatley, executive director, The Human Capital Program: W. Worcester 53 ACLS. The Next Steps, Current Activities at the Council 58 Mary Byrne McDonnell 40 Recent Council Publications 65

30\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 construedÐÐthe SSRC among themÐÐthe production Human Capital in the and maintenance of humanists and social scientists Social Sciences and the institutions in which they learn skills and con- duct research must be central. Those scholars are our by Lisa Anderson* “human capital”; identifying their needs, purposes and audiences, and constructing the necessary sup- Although there is much debate about the significance port—the training, research collaborations, vehicles of “globalization,” there is little doubt that time-hon- for dissemination of findings—should be a principal ored provincialisms—intellectual as well as geo- aim of those of us involved in postgraduate social sci- graphical—are being challenged by new perspectives, ence and public policy education. identities and commitments. Our growing awareness Three perspectives from which to approach this of our world citizenship also reminds us of the depth project present themselves. We need to ask about the of our immediate attachments. How will our experi- producers and consumers of social science research— ences of simultaneous global participation and local who they are and where they work. We need to know affiliation shape and reshape each other? How will to what kinds of issues social scientists will be devot- scholars in the social sciences and humanities reflect ing their attention. Finally, we need to consider what and mold those same shifting relationships? Indeed, kind of training and institutional support the answers what will be the contours, the role, the purpose of to the first two questions suggest. social science research in the future? What kinds of social science and what kinds of social scientists will The practitioners, parameters and purchasers of we need? With whom, how, and where will they social science research work? What will they need to know? In what skills One of the most dramatic changes in social science shall they be trained? in the last fifty years has been the internationalization In addressing these questions, we adopt two of its practitioners. Social science research, as exem- premises about the nature of scholarly research in the plified and supported by the SSRC, initially developed future. First, we stipulate that pressing public policy as a quintessentially American project. American questions in the world—famine, plague, war, poverty, social scientists became more involved in international tyranny—demand remediation and are amenable to issues through area studies, including in the enor- human intervention. Second, we assume that good mously influential area committees jointly sponsored social science research should contribute produc- by the SSRC and the American Council of Learned tively to understanding, and ultimately solving, those Societies. But the emphasis remained the training of problems. Americans and the strengthening of American institu- Plausible as these premises may seem, they are not tions, notably research universities, in international indisputable. Famines and plagues were considered and area studies. acts of God long before they became issues of public Incremental reform reflected the expansion of the policy. Moreover, insofar as they are public policy arena, the worksite, of social science research as questions, their pursuit may seem to distract from the international scholars were added to the joint SSRC- pursuit of truly scientific—theoretical as opposed to ACLS area committees and international social sci- applied—social research. For readers who believe ence meetings were held throughout the world. that famine is divine retribution or that social scien- Ultimately, however, area studies as originally config- tific research should bear no relation to social need, ured in the United States fell victim both to global little of what follows will be very useful. changes and, let us give credit where it is due, to their For those who agree that research in the humani- own success. The original purposes of area studies— ties and social sciences is appropriately engaged in the edification of Americans and the illumination of addressing important public policy issues broadly exotic corners of the world—were largely accom- plished: there are no dissertations left to be written * Lisa Anderson is dean of the School of International and Public merely because the author was the first American Affairs, Columbia University and chairs SSRC’s Human Capital Committee. social scientist to visit the place.

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/31 Today most social science graduate programs in variation even in the plausibility, the strengths and the the United States have substantial numbers of interna- vulnerabilities of our social scientific paradigms tional students, and most American graduate students themselves. have traveled outside the United States. While their Our commitment to sustaining rigorous, systematic origin does not necessarily give international students and analytical social science will be all the more cru- special interest or insight into the demography or cial with changes in the nature of its purchasers—and public health of their home countries, nor does casual I use the term intentionally. With the world-wide tourism confer expertise on labor markets or ethnic retrenchment of the welfare state, governments are no conflict to Americans, both have served to dilute the longer as influential as they were, in either defining parochialism often found in the United States gradu- public policy or setting intellectual agendas. This ate student population only decades ago. presents both an opportunity and a challenge. For Just as the provenance of the practitioners of area- decades, research scholars have been concerned that based social research has expanded, so too have the funding by governments—particularly, but not solely, parameters of the public policy to which social sci- the American government—compromised the integrity ence research is devoted. Public policy questions no of social science research. We will now have an longer respect national or ideological boundaries. opportunity to test that proposition, for we will be Environmental degradation, urban poverty, health conducting more and more of our research without crises demand new mixes of internationally recog- that funding. nized technical skills and intimate local knowledge. As governments around the world reconsider their No society is immune from questions of nuclear involvement in funding advanced research and higher waste and public health, energy conservation and education, much research activity is moving out of consumer preferences, disease transmission and universities, to privately funded, for-profit think tanks family structure, poverty, public assistance and infor- and consulting firms, and universities themselves are mal economies. These issues reflect common dilem- turning to the private sector to sponsor their research mas whether they are confronted in New York or operations. Whether this constitutes an improvement Cairo, Moscow or Mexico City, even if their success- over government funding is an open question; in any ful resolution obviously requires familiarity with spe- event, it is a feature of the research environment cific places and peoples. throughout the world. As American scholars worry The “internationalization” of social science has over the fate of federal funding of area studies centers caused no small anxiety among area specialists, par- at universities, half the world away India’s education ticularly in the United States and particularly in the secretary, P.R. Dasgupta, warns that “higher educa- context of post-cold war triumphalism. Regional spe- tion has to be market-friendly. It can’t just look to cialists are haunted by visions of social scientists government.”1 scouring the globe, seeing only regularities, common Market-friendliness does not necessarily mean the patterns, universal laws and missing the quite tangi- commercialization of social science, although some ble, important, even glorious, variations among the of us may undertake contract research for pharmaceu- world’s societies. It is certainly possible, indeed per- tical companies expanding market share in the devel- haps inevitable, that enthusiasm for common projects, oping world, just as some social scientists have been shared visions and collaborative insights will distort worked for governments, doing everything from our initial estimation of the specific character of some assessing the popular base of enemy regimes to issues in some places. Yet acknowledging the univer- improving social service delivery to the urban poor. sal character of some of our problems (and, one Market friendliness will most often mean acknowl- hopes, some of our solutions) should ultimately have edging that research conventionally understood as exactly the opposite effect. Rather than rely on anec- social science—meeting the same standards of rigor dote and conviction, we will be able systematically and review—is being done not only in universities and analytically to locate variations among world regions, in the estimation of climate change, the sig- nificance of AIDS, the impact of electronic media or 1 quoted in Jonathan Karp, “Change of course: India’s ivory towers try the definition of human rights. Indeed, we will find to get practical,” Far Eastern Economic Review, November 14, 1996.

32\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 but at international accounting firms like Price identities will loom as large and pressing questions. Waterhouse and nongovernmental organizations like If face-to-face interaction produced solidarity through Human Rights Watch. Academic social scientists the idiom of kinship and imagined communities con- cannot afford to simply bemoan or ignore this shift in stituted the basis of nationalism, for example, the vir- the locus of research. Rather we must actively tual communities of the electronic media may well engage with these new entrants into the social science produce novel ways of defining and legitimating sector and participate in the training and development themselves. of social scientists who work outside the conventional Political theory and political practice constitute a university setting to ensure that long-recognized sci- third arena of research for social science. Enlighten- entific standards and controls are maintained. ment conceptions of the individual and individual The internationalization of social science practi- rights, which underpin Western definitions of democ- tioners, the globalization of public policy, the privati- racy and human rights, are highly charged notions, zation of support for scientific research dictate changes contested in much feminist scholarship as well as by in the job description, the training and the institu- those who see their export as the latest expression of tional support of all social scientists. So too will the Western imperialism. Disputes about the very uni- nature of the questions that will be posed to them. versality of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are not merely academic feuds: they shape The topics of social science research religious conflict and international trade disputes in The strategies we adopt to foster production and the Middle East, East Asia and elsewhere. In another maintenance of social scientists, as well as the com- example, the vexed debates about clitorectomy in munities and institutions in which they will thrive, recent years illustrate how conceptions of women, of will depend not only on our assessments of shifting rights, of adulthood, and of the relative status and sources or supplies of research scholars but also upon power of local and global communities have changed our predictions about demand: the needs for social as a procedure once viewed as a right, perhaps a priv- science research in the future. Several clusters of ilege, is now considered an abuse. So too, challenges issues appear likely to seize our attention in the to the state posed by the growing importance of coming decades. supernational identities and subnational loyalties as Much of the social science of the 21st century will well as by the privatization of much of the welfare be devoted to public policy questions growing out of state’s traditional domain will command sustained human interactions with the natural environment or, attention from social scientists, as will growing atten- increasingly, the humanly-altered natural environ- tion to human rights, more widespread adoption of ment. From efforts to stem ecological degradation liberal democratic practices among previously author- and promote health, to contain population growth and itarian regimes, and continued pursuit of economic harness genetic engineering, social scientists will be reform. engaged in developing, assessing and promoting new Finally, social researchers will need to be self-con- techniques for profitable and sustainable interaction scious and reflective about their own programs and with the natural world. This will require closer col- projects. As we develop more sophisticated methods laboration with scholars from the natural sciences and more elaborate models, we must keep in mind than has been our practice in the past; our disciplinary that our social science rests on a conception of parochialisms are no more appropriate to the new knowledge that values quantification, measures real- world than is our area studies provincialism. ity in numerically precise, probabilistic terms and In addition, social scientists will continue to favors, if not requires, a conception of the human self explore human society itself, examining the myriad as a data point, a statistic—as “human capital.”2 forms of human exchange and communication in fam- ilies, markets and bureaucracies. How global and local societies shape each other in international 2 For an historical treatment of this question, see Alfred W. Crosby, migration and diaspora communities, and how The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250Ð1600. changes in the scale and medium of exchange alter Cambridge University Press, 1997.

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/33 This perspective is widely shared in advanced indus- importantly, it suggests that the catchment area for trial countries—political polling, mass marketing, the next generation of social scientists should be medical research have popularized the vocabulary of understood as the whole world. This may mean a quantitative economics and statistics—but it is by no variety of initiatives: expanding fellowship opportu- means universal even in the United States. Indeed, nities for international students in American univer- resistance to being a “nameless, faceless number” is sities, enhancing university-based social science the stuff of late-20th-century American folklore, and, training and research in other parts of the world, as popular reactions to reports of leaking nuclear inserting social science training into the NGO/non- waste or news of miracle cancer cures suggest, skep- profit sector agenda more seriously, cosponsoring ticism about “lies, damn lies, and statistics” does not training and research programs with private consult- abate in the face of threats to personal health and ing firms or research institutes. Because the practice well-being. of social science articulates with the public and pri- The cleavage between scientific communities and vate sectors and with other elements of civil society their societies is even deeper in much of the rest of in such varied ways across the world, we must be the world. Where literacy is not a foregone conclu- expansive and eclectic in our definition of the sites sions, “numeracy” is often even less common. of research and training. Indeed, in some places skepticism about or hostility So too we must enlarge our conceptions of the to scientific methods reflects government policy, as methods and methodologies of social science. regimes are reluctant to collect or disseminate infor- Where “bad data” confound our conventional mation in this form. The official population figure for approaches, we should look more seriously at the the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a state secret; half fact-finding models of research developed in legal the total volume of economic transactions in Egypt research and used to very good effect by human goes unrecorded. In these kinds of contexts, the work rights researchers. Equally importantly, we should of providing appropriate training, congenial work set- prepare the social scientists of the future to collabo- tings and other institutional support for social science rate far more closely with their counterparts in the is even more pressing and important than it is in the natural sciences. Even as we recognize and explore United States. the boundaries of the scientific paradigm, we must We should also resist contenting ourselves simply ensure that social scientists are more knowledgeable with decrying the “bad data sets” of developing coun- and confident about the scientific enterprise in neu- tries. Confronted with the all too frequent absence of robiology, epidemiology, physics, environmental even crude census figures, we need to develop scien- sciences. We need social scientists who can com- tific methods less unselfconsciously reliant on num- fortably and sympathetically navigate between the bers and social scientists less smitten with the tech- realm of the natural sciences and the much larger nology of statistics or econometrics for its own sake. arena of skepticism about the scientific enterprise Moreover, we need to be alert to the distortions— altogether. If area studies once served to introduce and familiarize Americans with the many cultures in of human self-definition, identity, interests—that may distant reaches of the worlds, a comparable initia- inhere in our collective commitment to quantification. tive should utilize the unique skills and perspectives In conducting our “thought experiments” and design- of social scientists to address the “two cultures” that ing our research protocols, we must resist the all-too- now reside side by side so awkwardly both at home human temptation to extrapolate from our own logic and throughout the globe. to divine the preferences of people to whom miracles We should also consider social science training a may be as real as probabilities are to us. life-long project. We who work in universities should not expect our students to replicate our own Creating and sustaining “human capital” in the careers: few social scientists in the 21st century, in social sciences the United States or elsewhere, will find permanent All of this suggests the desirability, if not the employment teaching what they learned in graduate necessity, of new models of how we create social sci- school for forty years—and those who do so will entists who know something about the world. Most probably not be the best or the brightest. Scholarly

34\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 careers will look different. Depending on their skills will be infinitely better informed and more useful— and preferences, social scientists will move in and not only to other academic social scientists and out of universities, research institutes, think tanks, humanists but to the presumed beneficiaries, the ulti- governments, not-for-profit advocacy organizations, mate “end-users,” of social science research: the private business firms—and they will still be schol- people whose economies work better, whose health ars. They will want and need a variety of mecha- improves, whose life chances multiply. nisms to continue and extend their training: postdoc- Technologically this vision of internationalization toral training (and retraining) fellowships should is closer than it may appear. At Shanghai Academy become routine. Mid-career programs should pro- for the Social Sciences five years ago there was one vide not only the venerable sabbatical rest and computer for each of the fifteen research institutes; renewal to seasoned professionals in and out of uni- today about one-third of the researchers have their versities but also, and perhaps more importantly, own personal computers and all the institutes are exposure to and training in new research techniques, linked to the Internet. Indeed, according to Academy innovative methods and disciplinary advances. If, in vice-president Yu Xintian, by the end of this year “if our production of the next generation of social scien- a scholar does not pass the national computer test, tists, we are open to new sources of supply for the he/she cannot get a higher academic title.”3 Many “raw material” and look to new sites and methods for parts of the developing world are quickly catching their “processing,” we will reap enormous benefits in up with our technical facility (indeed, if we are com- the inventiveness and intellectual vitality of our placent, we will quickly fall behind ourselves); the scholarship. As it stands now the conventions that international scientific elite will soon dispose of govern how social science is done are too often world-class research equipment even in countries narrow and unduly stylized. Though we rarely con- where many of the ordinary people still live in cede a difference between pure and applied science, poverty. we often distinguish between “literature-driven” and Where they do not—in much of Africa and the “problem-driven” research, failing to teach our stu- Middle East—we must recognize that the impedi- dents that these approaches are two sides of a coin. ments to the development of internationally recog- Literature-driven work is too frequently driven by nized social science are not technical. data sets than important questions—the researchers’ Social scientific research presumes not just techni- curiosity is technical rather than intellectual—and the cal infrastructure, equipment, transport, skills, train- results are trivial: the infamous mathematical demon- ing but, far more important, freedom of association, strations of corruption’s detrimental impact on devel- information, expression. To that extent, genuine opment in Africa. Yet solely problem-driven work is social science may represent a direct challenge to too often born of the day’s headlines, almost entirely the established order. descriptive and quickly dated, as the now dusty The internationalization of social scientific schol- shelves of Kremlinology attest. arship and the creation and maintenance of intellectu- The reinvigorating of the social sciences will be ally responsible and socially aware scholars is a pro- enhanced by the internationalization of scholarship foundly political project. If we are to pursue it, we and the concomitant integrative impetus to cross-dis- must to be prepared to acknowledge and accept the ciplinary and truly comparative research. When there consequences: this will be a difficult, often con- are good jobs in African universities for mathematical tentious, but ultimately rewarding effort. ■ modelers, when research institutes in Southeast Asia hire first-rate young game theorists, when econome- tricians compete for work in the Middle East, we will 3 Yu Xintian, “The Advantages, Shortcomings and Developing Trends of Chinese Researchers in Social Sciences and Humanities,” prepared for find transitory problems less distracting and technical “Human Capital Needs and Challenges Facing the Global Research virtuosity less consuming. Social science as a whole Community: Conditions in Asia,” Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, June 2, 1997.

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/35 Let me now turn to my second premise. It is true Social Science and Social that the 21st century will see the breaking down of Reality many once-rigid boundaries, but it is naive to expect that a world without boundaries is going to emerge by C. T. Kurien* even in the long run. True, communication technolo- gies and travel facilities will make the sense of the In responding to Lisa Anderson’s piece, let me indi- globe an experiential reality for many people, and in cate two basic premises. The first is that in the final the process some parochialisms may disappear. The analysis all social science must be about social real- spirit of jealous nationalism may also wane to some ity. The second is what may be described as the “situ- extent. But as Anderson recognizes, supra national ational factor,” that is, the vast majority of scholars considerations and subnational commitments will will remain bounded—to their particular disciplines, emerge and gather strength. This is because the social to their countries and localities and to institutions. space intrinsically involves the breaking and making I take it that it is not necessary to justify the first of boundaries. premise, which is also Anderson’s—that pressing The same is also true of academic boundaries. public policy questions will occupy the attention of Some disciplinary boundaries will be broken; others the scholarly community. I hope so, because one of will just disintegrate. New specializations will arise, the professional vices of that community is the ten- possibly cutting across existing boundaries. However, dency to escape from real-life problems into the sanc- nothing like a grand synthesized science of society is tuary of abstract reason. To be sure, there can be no going to evolve. serious research without abstraction even in the social The question, therefore, is how in the decades sciences; perhaps especially in the social sciences, ahead to move toward research into social problems which cannot conduct controlled laboratory experi- that will transcend geographical and cultural paro- ments. But if abstraction is not to become mere pro- chialisms and disciplinary boundaries. It seems to me duction of cobwebs, however elegant, it must be that a multi-pronged strategy is necessary. Its main treated as an intermediate step—between starting feature must be to emphasize the relationship be- from some concrete reality and returning to it with tween social problems and analysis from the most greater understanding. Abstraction can only be a view elementary to the most advanced levels. Tracing this from the top to gain perspective on what is on the relationship should form the basis of teaching social ground. But far too often it turns into the cult of sciences at the undergraduate level. At that level the climbing, moving farther and farther from the ground thrust must be to present real-life social problems in a realities. In the so-called advanced social sciences structured manner so that students come to under- like economics this is already a widespread disease. stand the principles of structuring, rather than to If research has to be about some aspect of social unfold the logical structure in the abstract. To take an reality, should it aim to predict, or to explain and example from economics, instead of introducing stu- interpret? A great deal of social science research in dents to the theory of competitive markets, they the past was misguided because of the perception that should be enabled to appreciate the variety of factors the essence of science was the search for regularities that influence the functioning of different real-life that formed the basis of prediction. This was possibly markets. To those for whom the undergraduate course the case in astronomy or even physics, but certainly is terminal (the vast majority of students in any coun- not in sciences like biology. In any case, social sci- try of the world), such training will be more useful ences do not have to imitate physical sciences. If they than a fragmentary and diluted introduction to the are to contribute to the understanding of social phe- “theoretical” corpus of the discipline. nomena, they will search for similarities as well as To those who go on for graduate studies, that foun- for differences, because the concrete is always a mix- dation will underpin a rigorous theoretical approach. ture of the two. A proper internalizing of categories and systems, with the awareness that these are ultimately related to

* C.T. Kurien is professor emeritus at the Madras Institute of real-life issues, will enable students at the doctoral Development Studies. level to take up concrete problems for rigorous analy-

36\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 sis. The dissertation topics of most Ph.D. scholars danger that in the interest of globalization (a good will and should be of this kind. (A few will, and thing in itself), we may rush to different forms of should, concentrate on systematization and theoretical pseudo-globalization. It will become possible through advances.) If this procedure is followed it does not the internet to access quantities of information from matter whether the search for the dissertation topic is data banks from all corners of the globe and combine literature-driven or problem-driven. With such an them to produce “global” research papers. It will be approach, scholars will not hesitate to transgress the possible to move around the world and contract col- boundaries of their disciplines as the treatment of laborative research programs of an interdisciplinary problems calls for it. nature, and so on. These have a place, but hovering With rare exceptions, during the doctoral research, around the globe is not substitute for becoming scholars will stay at a single institution. Institutional global; only those who have been adequately mobility will, of course, increase, and a few will also grounded can become genuinely global. manage to spend time in countries other than their Finally, a word about funding. Research, like edu- own. But in principle all doctoral students will learn cation in general, is a public good which will not how to open up to new problems, new methods and follow the market principle of being able to pay for new disciplines. That kind of opening up, solidly itself. Hence subsidy is unavoidable. In most soci- based on real-life issues rigorously analyzed, is acad- eties, the state has been the agency to provide that emic universalization or globalization. No one will subsidy, which has advantages and disadvantages. feel too threatened to move to new territories, meet But surprising as it may appear to some, market- new peers and deal with them as equals. The problem friendly private concerns constantly practice the prin- will be for those who approach such situations with ciple of subsidy. (The cost of advertizing, for example, imperialistic designs, but they will be shown their is covered by the price of the goods.) Hence it will not place and their parochialisms will be exposed. be strange at all if private corporations turn to subsi- Centers of postdoctoral research, whether in the dizing research, even social science research. There universities or in separate research institutions, will in are advantages and disadvantages in private subsidies turn become places where scholars with different too, and in both public and private instances researchers backgrounds and orientations meet and enrich one have to learn to figure them out and to lay down their another. Having scholars from different parts of the conditions for accepting subsidies. As the thrust of world will be natural in such global centers, and they marketized globalization gathers momentum, researchers will emerge in many parts of the world. in the social sciences should explain to the public that The procedure I have described may appear slow the principle of subsidy is just as universal as the prin- moving, but that is quite deliberate. For there is the ciple of pricing, and the two often go together. ■

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/37 The second pitfall in road mapping arises when Social Science and a there are no recognizable roads. Lisa Anderson stipu- Rapidly Globalizing World lates that good social science research should con- tribute to understanding and ultimately solving social by Helga Nowotny* problems. But the actual process of reaching consen- sus on public policy priorities—as Anderson is the Are we conceptually equipped to deal with a rapidly first to admit—defining them and arriving at a course globalizing world? Do we have the necessary means of action, is fraught with difficulties, especially at a and tools in terms of scientific competence, profes- global level. What may look like solid and easily rec- sional organization and methodology to take on the ognizable roads on one map may on another map— challenges that the Human Capital Initiative has put corresponding to another kind of social reality— on the agenda? simply disappear, lost in a terrain where mudslides, Three major pitfalls await us, if we are to engage earthquakes or desert sand render unrecognizable in road mappingÐÐi.e., looking ahead, charting the what should be or had been there. Even under such terrain and mapping it with the best cognitive and conditions, human beings manage to eke out a living, technical means at our disposalÐÐto obtain a globally and social communities attribute meaning to what extended look at our field of inquiry. This comprises binds them together. Roads in the Western sense may the collective knowledge and imagination of the dri- simply not be there—and yet people move around, vers of change as well as those who are most deeply exchange and communicate. affected by it. The identification of linkages within The third pitfall concerns the very process of map- the sciences and other forms of social knowledge and ping, the act of establishing some kind of correspon- practice remain crucial. The first pitfall concerns the dence between different social realities and our possibility that the search for global competence is research-guided representations of them. Mapping is likely to take us into territory where maps simply do the closest equivalent to experimentation that the not yet exist. Worse, the existing maps—crude and social sciences know. But how do our mapping proce- standardized as they are—may have been drawn up dures fare when we admit to a plurality of methods, for very different purposes. They may readily be mis- each one answering to specific kinds of questions, but interpreted, leading unsuspecting users astray. This is all responding to criteria of practical reproduction? the danger inherent in what Pierre Bourdieu calls “les What role is played by the changing materialities of ruses de la raison impérialiste,” the unintended cun- research processes, e.g. by access to new empirical ning inherent in taking for granted the pretensions of data collection methods like computer-assisted self- one’s own culture to being universal. According to interviewing? (Turner et al. 1998) How do our preva- Arjun Appadurai, two options are available in interna- lent mapping procedures compare to experimental tionalization. One consists in taking the hidden arma- systems in terms of encompassing heterogeneous ele- ture of our research ethos as given, and proceeding to ments and their potential recombination? In other look for allies. This is weak internationalization. The words, how are social scientific objects produced and other is to invite a conversation in which the very ele- reproduced, stabilized and destabilized, deformed and ments of what constitutes research are subject to reformed, in ways similar to what happens in the nat- debate and scholars from other societies are invited to ural sciences? bring their own ideas about what is central in pursuit None of these pitfalls is insurmountable, but they of new knowledge. The latter is strong international- serve as reminders of the many unstated cultural ization, in which participation does not require prior assumptions that underpin the heterogeneous notions adherence to specific ideas about which road maps to of what constitutes social science research and its use. (Appadurai 1997) global capacity. Better preparation for the processes of globalization presupposes a better understanding of how globalization, like technology, alters the * Helga Nowotny of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, is vice-president of the European Science and nature of social interaction—not only among our Technology Assembly. research subjects but also in our relationship to scien-

38\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 tific subjects. European social science research, far understandings that go with them, facing the demands from being equipped to immerse itself in this chal- of comparability of data and a fine-tuned understand- lenge, nevertheless is on its way to tackle the diver- ing of the functioning of different political institu- sity of research cultures and traditions, national tions while studying the emergence of a common research systems or the comparability of data. The European identity, calls for unprecedented efforts in 5th Framework Program of the European Union con- improving social science research capacities. With tains some innovative features that aim toward a them go an expansion of graduate training and a vari- better integration of social science research in areas ety of exchange schemes for students. None of these of great practical concern to the EU. Improving the efforts ensure that a globally competent social science quality of life and management of living resources, research capacity is yet in place, but they broaden creating a user-friendly information society, or pro- and deepen the experience of European voices to be moting competitive and sustainable growth also heard in the common quest. ■ demand far greater cooperation with the natural sci- ences and engineering. One important dimension of Notes the 5FP calls for the focused development of a social Appadurai, Arjun, 1997. “The Research Ethic and the science knowledge to underpin policy decisions Spirit of Internationalism.” Items, vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 55- across a wide range of public concerns. Bringing 60. users and producers of knowledge, including social Bourdieu, Pierre, 1998. “Sur les ruses de la raison impéri- science knowledge, into closer interaction is another aliste.” Actes de la recherche en Sciences Sociales, mars central feature built into the 5FP structure. 1998, pp. 109-118, 121-22. While these steps do not necessarily imply interna- Turner, C.F. et al., 1998. “Adolescent Sexual Behavior, tionalization, they represent important milestones in Drug Use, and Violence: Increased Reporting with the Europeanization of social science research. Computer Survey Technology.” Science, vol. 280, May Overcoming differences in language and the cultural 8, pp. 867-873.

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/39 The Human Capital expect to have made progress along each of these tracks, providing documents, drafts and data of vari- Program: The Next Steps ous kinds to assist the committee in designing next steps toward the conference. by Mary Byrne McDonnell* Track 1. The articles by Lisa Anderson and others on “Human Capital in the Social Sciences” that During the planning process for the Human Capital appear in this issue of Items, along with several Initiative [see p. 30 for an introduction], we identified other pieces, will be reprinted as the initial volume three critical clusters of issues to analyze in the initial in a new Council Working Paper Series on Building few years. The first is communications and connec- Intellectual Capital for the 21st Century.1 Using the tivity. This includes new technologies but also asks work of one author as a foil against which others questions about languagesÐÐtraining and usageÐÐas can comment, react and demonstrate alternative per- well as about network formation and function as a spectives is a model which, if successful in this ini- tool for research and dissemination. A second cluster tial experiment, may be used regularly in the work- concerns the changing nature and role of intellectuals, ing paper series. including how intellectuals engage the many commu- Track 2. As a way of framing the discussion of nities they serve. Related to this changing role is the each of the three issue clusters that form the initial expansion of the term “intellectuals” to include the agenda, working papers have been commissioned on many walks of life that employ intellectuals and the following five topics: The role of the intellectual researchers. Another dimension is the extent to in a changing world; communications and language, which diverse communitiesÐÐintellectuals, NGOs, new technologies and research, impact of interna- local communities, donors and policymakersÐÐmust tionalization and the relationship between intellectu- join together to tackle the kinds of research questions als and both the sources and audiences of their work that will garner public attention in the coming outside the borders of the academy. Authors will decades. A third cluster centers on the research write from their own national, disciplinary and insti- methodologies needed to cope with emerging issues. tutional perspectives. These essays will be a first For example, developing deeper and more nuanced take at defining the large issues that the committee understandings of the intricacies of comparative and hopes to address in preparation for the conference. team work approaches will greatly enhance the ability They may be publishable as stand-alone essays or, to work across cultures and perspectives, making it more likely, they may serve as points of departure more possible to gain useful insights into phenomena for further discussion, working groups, meetings and whose impact is both widespread and local. commentary on the road toward developing publish- able 50-100 page monographs in the working paper Work plan series. Track 3. One of the most successful elements of The January 1998 meeting resulted in a work plan the planning meetings that launched this initiative to be implemented over the coming months. As a was the members' spontaneous thumbnail sketches device for focusing the committee's energies it was of human capital conditions in diverse parts of the agreed to set the goal of a major conference in 2000, world. We believe an important early step we can which would itself produce a volume intended as a take is to develop “maps” of each world region seminal analysis of trends, conditions and competen- which will enable us to understand what issues, cies, while at the same time offering tools for fixing capacities and constraints (institutional, political, the problems that have been identified. economic, etc.) characterize each region with respect With this goal in mind, the committee will begin to work along four tracks. By the next meeting of the Human Capital Committee in November 1998, we 1 Volume 2 is also in production. It results from the planning meet- ing held in Bellagio, Italy in July 1997 and will use cases from the * Mary Byrne McDonnell, an historian, is executive program director African experience to examine the question of building intellectual of the SSRC. capital through network formation.

40\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 to the formation of intellectual research capacity. respond to the letter about its region, we expect that Later in the process, they may be linked together RAP members will be stimulated by reading about within a single working paper to form a global map. conditions around the globe. Therefore, we imagine This map will be useful in and of itself for programs that the individual RAP responses will be enriched and institutions involved in academic programming and enlivened by comparison with conditions in around the world. At the same time, it would allow other parts of the world. We expect that this system- us to see commonality and differentiation on a broad wide conversation will not only assist the human scale, providing a sense of areas that require special capital program but will also work to bind the RAPs attention (additional working papers, a working into the system more closely than if an annual meet- group or a spot on the conference agenda), where ing were the main source of contact. synergies of interest might be fostered in the search It is our intention to organize this conversationÐÐ- for solutions to problems or where others (founda- among members of single RAPs, across RAPs and tions, ministries of education, NGOs) may want to with the Human Capital CommitteeÐÐlargely via focus energy and attention. electronic means. We are in the process of develop- As a first step, we have asked a few qualified indi- ing a technology plan to enable the Council to better viduals, some from the committee and some others, act as a facilitator of international scholarly conver- to provide a 3-5 page informal letters in response to sations. We have recently acquired the capacity to three questions from us. The three questions are generate private e-mail lists that include internet those that drove our original planning process: addresses. Over time we also hope to be able to stimulate topically focused conversations among the 1) What are the areas and issues that will full international system or any of its parts via list- require intellectual firepower in the server or user-net technology. future? Track 4. During the January meeting, the Human 2) What is globally competent social science Capital Committee consistently identified the uses research capacity? That is, what types of and roles of networks as its top priority. This com- “ideal” global-local researchers are plicated and multidimensional subject will likely required given the research needs you require the formation of a working group to pull have identified? together the various threads. These threads range 3) What are the institutional constraints that from practical questions such as what kinds of net- inhibit the production of an adequate works (topical, disciplinary, domestic, international, supply of appropriately trained, sustained binational, multinational, regional) exist, for what and utilized researchers? purposes and under what conditions, to the more We see the Councils' system of Regional Advisory forward-looking issues of how to ensure that they Panels (RAPs) as central to the process of develop- thrive and contribute significantly to the creation, ing these essays on regional conditions.2 Thus, we maintenance and dissemination of social science have circulated the regionally focused letters we have research and knowledge on particular topics. A received to the RAPs for their comments, critiques related but broader take on the subject would look at and elaborations. We will ask each RAP to prepare a the role of networks in the development of the indi- response about its region through discussion among vidual professional. We would like to think about its members, with members of other RAPs and with networks both in the formal and bounded sense of members of the Human Capital Committee. It is research networks on a particular topic and in this worth noting that all RAP members will receive all broad sense of linkages and contacts that form com- the letters. Although a RAP will only be asked to munities, which themselves contribute to the profes- sionalization of individual researchers and of the social sciences. 2 The SSRC/ACLS Regional Advisory Panels (RAPs) are composed of It was agreed that there was no single implemen- scholars from various world regions. RAPs address a broad array of intellectual and infrastructural issues of concern within their regions; they tation strategy for working on this broad issue and work with each other in areas of concern across world regions. that we should start to work along multiple paths.

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/41 The Africa RAP is planning workshops based on the A related question is to what extent these networks results of the Bellagio conference. These will pro- foster better social science research and better uses vide analysis of existing research networks within of that research. This study could include not only Africa with an eye to determining in what areas new networks as in people and institutions, but journals. networks might be developed and defining new It should provide a useful picture of what networks, organizational strategies for creating networks that contacts and demands are required today to be a function well in underdeveloped institutional envi- member of the global research community. ronments. We also expect some discussion of net- We discussed whether or not we should look at works to emerge in the letters produced as part of best practices beyond what the Africa RAP is cur- Track 3. rently doing. For example, in Asia, research net- An additional early strategy will begin to look at works are highly developed on a subset of issuesÐÐ- networks as sets of professional linkages or nascent security, agro-foodÐÐand not in other areas. Further, communities. Beginning from the notion that there we assume that different institutional environments are today social scientists who embody the “ideal” mean that different kinds of networks become valu- researcher of the future, the task is to query these able and that different topics or disciplines may gen- individuals about their networks—calendars, link- erate different uses for networks. It will be impor- ages, contacts—and determine what their professional tant to examine some of these issues as we move lives look like and what they think is important to do. toward the 2000 conference. ■

42\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 Social Sciences Around the World

The Social Sciences in Latin America Another reason for the politicization of social sci- ences stems from the fact that basic funding for by Elizabeth Jelin* research, or basic lack of funding for research, comes I start with a question and an anecdote. The question from public funds. The science budgets in Latin is, Is it good or bad for social sciences in Latin American countries are extremely low and do not America or in general in the world that a president of meet the minimum international standards in terms of one of the largest countries in the world, Brazil, is a their percentage of GNP. Within them, social science world-renowned social scientist? It’s also possible gets very, very little, and has to struggle politically to that the next president of Chile will be a world- get anything. Finally, and this is a major fact in the renowned social scientist. We also have several min- region, social science has been subject to the whims isters and other government officials. of political instability, and we have had a long history Next the personal anecdote. I lived through mili- of political instability. tary dictatorship in Argentina from 1976 onward. I But there is more to it than these structural and traveled a lot, and every time I would enter or leave institutional reasons. Latin America has a culture of the country I had to fill out an immigration form. social science activity that draws on a model of intel- One of the items in the form was occupation, and I lectual and academic life—the ensayista tradition, the would systematically leave it blank. The immigration essayist who looks at reality, comments on it intelli- official would usually write “housewife, ama de gently and participates actively in political debate. casa.” I wasn't going to lie but I also wasn't going to After the Second World War and especially from the say that I am a sociologist. I was afraid of saying that late 1950s onward, modern social science was intro- in a government immigration office. duced into the region, with specialized professional Now, what do these two things—my friend training in sociology, anthropology and political sci- Fernando Henrique Cardoso being the president of ence. These disciplines were introduced in academic Brazil and my fears regarding my professional identi- environments, implying the growth of specialized fication as a sociologist during the dictatorship—have expertise. in common? I think they are indicators of the politi- The resulting tension between the social scientist cization of the social sciences in Latin America. operating as an intellectual and the social scientist Social science is part of public and political life in doing narrowly defined research projects is one of the close relationship to power and to power struggles. most interesting features of Latin American social There are good historical and structural reasons science today. When I look at those who are making why this is the case. First, Latin America has a tradi- it in politics today, they combine both. It's not the tion of public universities, and in particular, highly intellectual debate in the ensayista tradition, and it is politicized public universities. For example, it's the not the narrowly defined, research-oriented social sci- president of Mexico who selects the president of ence, but it's the combination of both. UNAM, the Mexican National University, and it's a What are the important developments nowadays? political appointment. Student movements have long First, there is the growth of private universities, but of been important in Latin American politics. This year a very special type; it's not the Harvards and the marks the 80th anniversary of la reforma universi- Yales. The universities that are expanding in Latin taria, a major student movement that started in America are professional schools, usually offering Argentina and spread elsewhere, calling for the business administration courses geared to the demand democratization of public universities. Student of the rich business class who can pay high tuition for strikes are still common. the education of their children. These new universi- ties are not creating new conditions for the expansion * Elizabeth Jelin is professor of sociology at the Universidad de of social science research. Meanwhile, public univer- Buenos Aires. sities are in big financial trouble. There is a push

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/43 toward what is called sustainability, which means get democracy, a democracy with increasing income your own money for research from private funds, polarization and increasing inequality. The discrimi- which leads to the commodification of social science nation and polarization that pervade society are also through contract research. These trends accompany present in the social sciences. The gaps between the economic policies that are being implemented in those intellectual and academic elites that are part of the region, geared to efficiency, to open markets, to the international circuit (including me!), other col- results that have immediate application, to satisfy leagues who earning enormous incomes from con- demand through the marketplace. tract research, and the rest—I am thinking of provin- Yet the social sciences as a community of scholars cial university professors anywhere in Latin America are quite lively. If we look at financial investment in and mid-career locally-trained professionals—are Latin American social science and look at output—I widening. It is critical now to design strategies and am not thinking of quantitative but of qualitative ways to help to counterbalance this polarization. output (good ideas, depth of interpretation, creativity, rigor in research)—we see surprising efficiency. Why is it so? I would say that political commitment, politi- Internationalizing Social Science in Eastern cal engagement and moral outrage are a very strong Europe source of motivation to pursue knowledge. It is not by Michael D. Kennedy* that we have to counterpoise political commitment and objective social science. Rather, one is pushing In the last ten years, a truly global network of schol- the other. ars and practitioners has been formed around the A second important element is links to the outside making of transition in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. world. Latin American social sciences and the ensay- This population of ministers of finance, consultants, istas before that have been international from the economists, sociologists, political scientists and start. In the late 1940s, for instance, São Paulo was others has been produced by some marvelous educa- much more cosmopolitan than the United States. tional initiatives—for instance, the Center for Translations of old European literature were plentiful; Economic Research in Graduate Education (CERGE) intellectual debates were lively. Max Weber was in Prague—and has been coordinated by such bodies translated into Spanish about 30 years before he was as the William Davidson Institute at the University of translated into English. Gramsci was translated into Michigan. This culture is of course rife with debates, Spanish much earlier than into English. So intellec- but it nonetheless is organized around a basic narra- tual and political elites have long been quite geared to tive that anticipates the future in terms of global eco- (European-oriented) internationalism. nomic integration and views the past in terms of an And this is where the SSRC comes in, because I anachronistic statist or socialist culture. think that support from the outside—not only finan- This transition culture is, however, quite selective, cial support but also intellectual support and dia- and dependent on the various types of capital located logue—are crucial assets for the development of in different national sites. Consider the number of social science in Latin America. The SSRC joint studies that have made Hungary and China central to committee served that purpose for more than 40 the transition debate in sociology. This is not because years. Given the politicization of social science, being Hungary and China are somehow more decisive than part of an international community and dialogue pro- Russia and Poland or any of the other countries for vides a continuous check against the danger of falling defining the systemic transformation. Their centrality into political dogmatism. derives from the global circulation of intellectual cap- A further reason why productivity is relatively high in the context of scarcity and diminishing resources is related to the process of democratization, * Michael Kennedy is director of the Center for Russian and East beginning in the 1980s. Democracy is creating more European Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Please room for diversity and for dialogue—between intel- address comments to the author at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, 1080 South University, The University of Michigan, lectual debate and professional expertise, and among Ann Arbor, MI 48109 or to [email protected]. See also the disciplines. Yet this is a very special type of

44\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 ital that is associated with Hungarian and Chinese attention of the accomplished. Scholars with interna- social science capacities. In the case of the former, tional social science qualifications, especially if they indigenous and émigré Hungarian scholars and their are younger than forty-five, are likely to be drawn Western collaborators are remarkably prominent in into much more lucrative market research opportuni- the sociology debates. The Chinese diaspora and the ties or multinational employment or directly into poli- American area studies project in Chinese studies has tics. Social science projects become projects of produced a nearly equivalent set of scholars. If one policy research, whether for one’s own state or for the moves over to economics and business studies, multinational organizations that want to learn about Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Russia are human rights, women’s rights, minority rights or overwhelmingly important for defining the social sci- industrial upgrading. Social science research in ence problematic, with the first three providing many Eastern Europe and Eurasia has been commodified of the positive lessons, and the last case posing some through its dependence on state power, private capital of the greatest potential threats to transition at a and the financial support of multinational organiza- global level.1 tions and collaborations. An increasingly sophisticated debate about the While in most places scholars are no longer politi- dynamics of transition thus is taking place with a sys- cally constrained, they are economically constrained tematic bias built into the research. Those places to pursue projects that pay. Whether it is a worldwide with the most intellectual capital, those places per- comparative study of injustice, or EU-sponsored work ceived to be exemplary and those places perceived to on accession to the European Union, this commodifi- be the greatest threat to the transition project are the cation of scholarship has of course produced many sites that provide the experts, experience and data for excellent studies. Many scholars in the global circuit formulating theories and questions for research. are thriving and even overwhelmed by the number of The problem, then, for internationalizing social opportunities presented to them. But because these science in post-communist countries is not only to networks are well-worn and increasingly exclusive, question how quickly various national traditions of internationalizing social science tends to augment social science might be brought into a global conver- indigenous inequalities in scholarly capacities. This sation about transition, but also to question how privi- tendency can, however, be softened by strategic action leging the concerns of those people already advan- on the parts of international partners and indigenous taged by their intellectual capital or by the promise or actors. There are many patterns that I have seen, but threat of their places for an implicit global future is I might just mention one for illustration. shaping the development of international social sci- Lviv State University in Ukraine, from an extremely ence in and about that region. The question of privi- rudimentary social science foundation in the early lege is also important for considering the relationship 1990s, has through judicious use of international between the development of indigenous social sci- funds associated with Soros, USIA, the Ford Found- ences and international practice. ation and other sources developed a distinctive col- Even as networks of scholarship are being interna- laborative capacity that simultaneously draws upon tionalized, the indigenous social science infrastruc- old and newly-acquired strengths in focus group and ture of post-communist countries is being trans- oral history studies. It maintains a local historio- formed and occasionally destroyed. The destruction graphical concern with the distinctions of Polish, wrought by wars in the former Yugoslavia deserves western Ukrainian and eastern Ukrainian identities its own discussion which I can’t provide here. More and social relations. Lviv State University has taken generally, however, Academies of Science, once the the resources it has acquired and used them to develop pinnacle of prestige, now fight with institutions of institutional capacities that benefit others through a higher learning over claims to scholarship. State uni- combination of teaching and exemplary research. It is versities and private universities compete for the also developing a capacity to integrate local experi- ences as points of theoretical intervention and not just

1 See, for example, From Plan to Market: World Development Report, as data points in international social science. 1996. One can distinguish strategies in the cultivation of

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/45 international social science according to the depth of whose English is a second or third acquired language. internationalization they invite and the ease with Nevertheless, identity’s polysemy demands substan- which it is distributed. Transition culture exemplifies tial theoretical innovation (and occasional confusion) one that is closely tied to power, has relatively ample among those who would use it to organize interna- resources, invites systematic data collection and vig- tional scholarship. orous debates and succeeds to the extent it convinces These four cases illustrate an important point for a wider range of international scholars and practition- the internationalization of social science. The most ers to participate. At the same time, recruitment into easily distributed social science practices are those that project depends upon a broad political orienta- that minimize the epistemological uncertainties of tion, a relatively particular knowledge base and at inquiry, which claim to be beyond politics, and which least a basic English language capacity. The interna- require a relatively narrow set of discursive compe- tional survey research community is less obviously tencies that do not require elaborate English language political, but like transition culture it has the capacity skills. The most challenging are those communities to assess competence in relatively unambiguous of discourse whose constitutions require theoretical ways. Evaluating the quality of sampling strategies, virtuosity across a wide range of disciplines and con- questionnaire design and other skills enables the testing epistemologies, and whose global definition is community to identify who can become members and open to contest by local reformulations. In this case, who cannot. Both traditions can extend their research we run the risk of narrowing the scholarly conversa- projects rather smoothly by the addition of new mem- tion ever further to those with sufficient English lan- bers from across the world. The core scholarship of guage facility to challenge paradigms and reframe the both communities thrives with the internationalization articulation of global and local cultural formations. of their practices of knowledge production. One of the central questions for the internationaliza- Neither of these fields invites the strong vision of tion of social science, therefore, is whether ways internationalization that Arjun Appadurai recom- might be found to broaden access to international mends in which the research ethic is itself put into social science practice while nonetheless cultivating question.2 To a considerable extent, women’s studies theoretical agility beyond those already privileged by and identity studies do. In the case of the former, the the reigning distribution of global practices and definition of expertise varies depending on the ways resources. in which feminist paradigms articulate with indige- A strong program of internationalization requires a nous cultural and intellectual politics. As a conse- measure of reflexivity that some modes of interna- quence, gender studies promises substantial intellec- tional collaboration are unlikely to cultivate. At the tual transformation in its encounter with East same time, this deep internationalization is likely to European lifeworlds. Those networks that use iden- privilege those already most accomplished on the tity as their catchword have less obvious political global circuit of scholarship. Appadurai’s project challenges, but have more problems associated with deserves support, but I also think SSRC and the foun- theoretical range. The virtuosity required to navigate dations should help extend that vision to include the variety of discourses associated with identity those less theoretically versatile and adept in English. poses barriers for many scholars, not only for those In particular, by encouraging types of data collection that feature not only transparent behaviors or categor- ical responses, but also problematize modes of repre- sentation and expression as well as the challenge of translation, we can offset the privilege associated 2 By which he means the “commitment to the routinized production of with access to the reigning cores of theory production certain kinds of new knowledge, a special sense of the systematics for the and greater experience working in English. Thereby production of such knowledge, a quite particular idea of the shelf life of good research results, a definite sense of the specialized community of we might not only globalize our research community. experts who precede and follow any specific piece of research, and a pos- We could expand our conventions of knowledge pro- itive valuation of the need to detach morality and political interest from scholarly research.” Arjun Appadurai, “The Research Ethic and the Spirit duction to meet the challenge issued by deep interna- of Internationalism,” Items vol. 51, no.4 (1997), p.59. tionalization of social science research even as we

46\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 diversify the criteria through which membership in the security forces, which can wreathe themselves in that international social science community can be a national security mystique. Their heavy hand can be recognized. seen in every Middle Eastern state without exception, including even those with established democratic sys- tems, like Israel and Turkey. Such a situation tends to The Social Sciences in the Middle East freeze the intellectual agenda, and make it all the by Rashid Khalidi* harder to address issues like democratization and civil society versus the power of the state. The social sciences in many countries of the Middle Where are social scientists to stand in a society East, like most of higher education in that region, are polarized between authoritarian, repressive states in crisis. This is partly a crisis of states and societies, dominated by sclerotic regimes clinging to power at which have failed to fund the universities sufficiently. any cost while the people remain divided, repressed It is partly a crisis of the universities themselves, and poor, and oppositions which claim to be democ- which have failed to develop into centers of excel- ratic but are often violent, intolerant or dominated by lence in teaching and research. And it is partly a obscurantist religious bigots? The choice is not crisis of the social science disciplines in the Middle always so stark, but this description applies in some East, which have failed to address important prob- measure to well over a dozen states, including a lems and stake out vital research territory, thereby number of the largest and most populous ones. These passing up the opportunity to establish a position of are not conditions conducive to productive scientific influence and respect for themselves. work. In the most extreme circumstances, social sci- Some Middle Eastern countries such as Israel and entists frequently find themselves in the front lines, Turkey have avoided a few of these problems, while whether over issues of freedom of speech or the private universities in Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt and ethnic rights of Kurds in Turkey, issues of religious Jordan are better off in certain respects than their freedom in Egypt—or simply because they are secu- larger public counterparts. And many gifted social lar intellectuals in Algeria. scientists are able to operate even in these conditions. Because so many colonial and postcolonial era But the general picture is a grim one of grossly conflicts have not been resolved, there is lingering underpaid and overworked scholars, teaching huge resentment of the West, which is seen as having numbers of students in overcrowded facilities, with caused them, and of the United States in particular. poor research support and little access to interna- This has led to a continuing suspicion of Euro- tional scholarship, operating under a variety of politi- American scholarship, and of much else which is cal and social pressures. Western, in a number of Middle Eastern societies. Beyond these daunting material challenges lie a There is nevertheless extensive intellectual collabora- plethora of political and intellectual ones. The post- tion between Euro-American and Middle Eastern colonial era seems to have lingered on in the Middle social scientists, partly because many of the latter are East longer than elsewhere. Whether it is the continu- eager to obtain access to the latest findings of Euro- ing effects of French rule in North Africa, or the American social scientists, and to participate in joint backwash of a conflict between Arabs and Israelis activities and thus share the comparatively lavish rooted in the British mandate period or the seemingly resources they command. unending repercussions from many decades of heavy- All too often, however, this collaboration ignores handed external interference in the affairs of Iran, the most serious issues on the regional agenda, often issues left over from the colonial era often retard in favor of flavor-of-the-month approaches imported debate and stultify the intellectual atmosphere. from the West. What results is therefore often less The wars, conflicts and tension that grow out of collaboration than cooptation of regional social scien- these “old” issues particularly benefit the military and tists. In other cases, a few well-connected Middle Eastern scholars in each country tend to dominate * Rashid Khalidi is professor of Middle East history and director of access to the international academic circuit, blocking the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago. others and monopolizing resources, and showing up

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/47 at panel after panel and in one edited volume after Indian society was one in which social sciences and another. national traditions were in opposition to each other. What future is there for the social sciences in the Thus this particular imagination of India (and by Middle East? Clearly, most of the problems I have analogy other countries in the region) led to a counter outlined are not amenable to easy solution, and are in discourse produced by scholars in South Asia (but not any case far beyond the capacity of individuals to only by them) of placing the ideas and interests of affect directly. Until and unless they are resolved, the Western scholars within the field of inquiry rather predicament of the social scientist in this region is than seeing them as records of disinterested unlikely to improve significantly. Perhaps, however, observers. For a while then social sciences and the social scientists in the Middle East, in collaboration processes of nation-building came to be seen as con- with others elsewhere, can help to chart out the path joint enterprises. The relationship between Western to the resolution of such conflicts, which after all part social science, colonialism, nation-building and the of what we as social scientists are supposed to be creation of national traditions in social sciences was about. not a simple one. In the case of India, there was a hunger on the part of social scientists to claim their traditions. It was clear, though, that to make these tra- The Social Sciences in South Asia ditions vibrant and alive they would have to be by Veena Das* brought into relationship with new concerns arising both out of the new knowledge and the new demands While it is true that the traditions in the social sci- of nation building. The tension in much of the writ- ences cannot be said to correspond with national ings of social scientists in this region in the first two boundaries, it is also a fact that these boundaries decades after independence reflects this. There has interact with scholarly enterprises in complex ways. also been a strong influence of social scientists in Hence as an Indian, I can only speak of social sci- national enterprises in India. This might be the induc- ences in the other countries in the region from my tion of economists in the drafting of planning; the perspective as a social scientist practicing from collaboration of historians in writing history text- within the context of an Indian university. I can bear books that would reflect a more nationalist and secu- testimony though to trials and tribulations of co-oper- lar past than the writings of British historians; or the ative ventures and the vulnerability of collaborative creation of a public discourse by the active collabora- enterprises in these regions. tion of social scientists with the print media. It is not possible to understand the organization of I believe that the Emergency in India in 1976, knowledge without some reference to the colonial when basic human rights were suspended, marked a enterprise within which questions of modernity were watershed in the self-definition of social scientists. first posed in these societies. In brief, one can say The critique of nationalist historiography by the sub- that the organization of knowledge under the colonial altern school is now well known. What is less known regime in South Asia assumed continuity in the pat- but is of equal importance is the knowledge generated terns of life for centuries. Much of colonial knowl- by economists on estimations of poverty, debates on edge and intervention was premised on the idea that what constitutes well-being and how far had the state societies in South Asia had remained completely in India succeeded in addressing these issues. It is static; that they lacked a sense of history and that interesting that questions of swaraj (self-rule) in sci- novelty was introduced by the benign and enlightened ence were posed, but the idea of national traditions rule of the British. It may appear surprising to many was shifted to the domain of civil society rather than that many social scientists, almost until the 1960s, the state. The role of conflict, inequality and the seemed to have shared this framework. Since the underside of development all received attention. static nature of society in South Asia was taken for Institutionally the growth of social movements and granted, many believed that the task of creating an what came to be known later as NGOs was important. While there was a distancing from the state, there was also a certain romanticization of “people.” There * Veena Das is a professor of sociology at the University of Delhi. was an elusive search for “authenticity” in the knowl-

48\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 edge produced in the countries in this region. tied up in inflexible bureaucratic rules (which is cor- The 1980s were a period of sharp rise in local rect), global institutions have increasingly turned to movements. Issues relating to the environment, vio- NGOs or independent network of scholars to do the lence against women the and search for greater local research they need in order to promote new ways of autonomy came to the forefront. Ironically this was thinking. Unfortunately this has led to the growth of also a period of the centering of an identity politics spurious knowledge because there is more interest in which led to fundamentalist movements, growth of generating consensus on new programs than in gener- tension between religious and ethnic groups and a ating a critical assessment of them. great increase in collective violence in Sri Lanka, The question is further complicated by the fact that Pakistan and India. The 1980s also saw the beginning a good deal of local knowledge is required for the of collaboration between social scientists in the implementation of globally programmed initiatives. region. Examples can be drawn from the books pro- Yet the decline of universities, especially the neglect duced on collective violence, the Partition of the sub- and simultaneous politicization of regional universi- continent, the democracy movement in Nepal and the ties and colleges, means that the scholars recruited to organization of voluntary action in Bangladesh. As collaborate with global institutions do not always universities collapsed because of the state of civil war have the conceptual resources to critique the para- in Sri Lanka, or the demands of fundamentalist move- digms within which these programs often work. ments in Pakistan or corruption in India, voluntary Hence it is not difficult to get social scientists to col- organizations such as BRAC, ICES, Sharkatgah and lect data according to the agendas set by global insti- others played a leading role in forging these co-oper- tutions. I do not wish to imply that all the projects ations. These enterprises however were fragile, vul- initiated by global programs suffer from these defi- nerable and subject to political pressure. The escala- ciencies, but only to suggest that this has happened in tion of suspicion between India and Pakistan many instances. The problem is confounded by the following the testing of the nuclear bombs in this lack of resources for research in universities and by region point to the vulnerability of building sustained the fact that criticism of globalization in the public communities of social scientists whose interests are discourse tends to be in the nature of rhetorical shad- not dictated by national jingoism. owboxing. A sustained analysis of the institutional The importance of the South Asian Diaspora also changes that result from globalization has yet to be became evident in the 1980s. The importance of con- undertaken. This is a major challenge for understand- structing traditions in locales other than that of their ing globalization and its impact on the social sciences home countries; of hybridity as a form of identity; of in the region. travel, transportation and circulation rather than root- From what I have said it would be clear that the edness—in other words the experience of being social sciences are in a critical period. From my point “unhomed”—came to the center of discussion in of view the most important task in this region is to American universities. This led to lively debates develop a community of social scientists that cuts within the region as to whether the voices of those across national boundaries. The example of Inter- who were locked in their localities would be lost to national Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo is par- social sciences. Many scholars in India have also ticularly important because it has provided leadership pointed to the manner in which magazines like India in times of great danger to the whole region. The Today and the internet have become major sources of question of international collaboration thus needs to data leading to high theory with thin data. be addressed at several levels. Further, the conse- The decline of universities in this entire region has quences of the simultaneous decline of universities serious consequences for the future of social sciences. and the growth of global institutions produces a trou- This decline has been accompanied by the growth of bling configuration. It is in the interest of social sci- global institutions that have influenced the production ences and all who are engaged in translating social of knowledge in the region in accordance with their science findings into policy that competent and criti- own agendas. On the grounds that universities are cal studies are produced.

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/49 The Social Sciences in Africa spectives and an attempt to rediscover local socio-cul- tural origins and use them to come to terms with the by Michael Chege* social difficulties of the present. This is evident in the history of Cheikh Anta Diop, in some versions of These are very personal perceptions of what the African humanities, in African literature and in the status of social science in Africa happens to be today. poetry of Léopold Senghor, for example. African As in all other regions of the world, we have huge socialism, “negritude,” African personality and so on arguments and conceptual differences about where were the school’s defining terms and watchwords. we stand, where we came from and where we are Third, we have recently witnessed the rebirth of going. This in itself is positive. I consider that the the classic liberal humanistic approach. Enshrined principal weakness that afflicts social sciences in primarily in democracy and neo-classical economics, Africa today is a problem that affects social scientists it came into full blossom after the fall of communism in general in other parts of the globe. Many of the in 1989, culminating in the liberation of South Africa tenets of Social Science Methodology 101—separat- from apartheid in 1994. To some extent this is as ing values from facts, distancing oneself from tenden- much the product of past failures as it is the result of tious political positions and the process of making political and economic pressure emanating from the paradigms, testing hypotheses and reconstructing par- World Bank, the IMF and Western bilateral donors. adigms again as a result—appear to have been lost This line of thought has sought to reconstruct on sight of. This could very well constitute the origin of African soil the ideas of liberal democracy and our disagreements. market-based economics once disparaged by African The dominant paradigms informing African social socialism and allied nationalistic doctrines. scientists and their work after the Second World War In the meantime, much has been written on the could be roughly summarized under three general decline of social sciences in Africa, some of it true. I headings. First there was a dependency perspective, do not believe that the disintegration of the social sci- which reached its high water mark in the 1970s and ence community on the continent is as uniform as is has not fully dissipated yet. Its emphasis is not on the often supposed. Some African institutions have done internal social scientific variables but rather, the well under the circumstances, even as others collapse. external, primarily economic variables, particularly Nor is it true that Africa lacks a creative community colonial exploitation and imperialism. To the extent of social scientists despite the evident institutional that they are part of the scene, local actors appear distress in many local universities. Most of the work either as accomplices of Africa’s external tormentors, that is coming from Africa is no longer being done in or as their implacable foes. Walter Rodney's How universities but rather in clearly established indepen- Europe Underdeveloped Africa is the clearest exam- dent institutional networks, though sometimes work- ple of this approach. Dependency perspectives sought ing with specific university research centers. I have to contradict, via homegrown analysis, the dominant in mind here the Council for the Development of “modernization” and liberal “development” para- Social Research in Africa based in Dakar, Senegal; digms that appeared in the West after the war, and the Organization for Social Science Research in their accomplishment in bringing history and external Eastern Africa, based in Addis Ababa; the Southern factors to bear on African development studies should African Political Economy Series in Harare, not be underrated. Zimbabwe; the African Economic Research Second, there is another important school drawing Consortium based in Nairobi, Kenya—all of them primarily from the humanities, predominantly from glued together, or glued separately I might say, by literature, but also from the social sciences. It doted meetings, conferences, competitions, publications, on back-to-the-roots, back-to-traditional African per- books and in three cases, regular academic journals. It is saddening to see how little this work is referred to, in North America especially, by social scientists * Michael Chege is director of the Center for African Studies, unfamiliar with most of its contents, some of whom University of Florida. repeatedly pontificate on the poor standards of social

50\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 science research in Africa. out up here, especially after the fall of communism. The real truth is that there are rigorous debates Liberal democracy and market economics, that's all symptomatic of a vibrant, if still small, African social you need to develop. These Africans and their baleful science community. Not just in South Africa but cultures are entirely responsible for the development indeed on the internet recently, there's been a great mess in the continent. Their cultures hinder them debate on the relevance of the experience of the rest from seeing the light of neo-liberal paradigms, from of Africa to South Africa after apartheid. This was being more like us. stimulated by the publication of Mahmood From both approaches, there's a tendency to want Mamdani's book Citizen and Subject (Princeton to look at things too much, you have to excuse me, in University Press, 1996), which draws on some of the black and white, something that I consider especially work from CODESRIA and OSSREA and some of unacademic and dogmatic. To cite just one example, the work done in universities like Dar es Salaam. I I’d like to draw your attention to an article by was impressed by the published work of OSSREA William Easterly and Ross Levine, both distinguished between 1993 and 1997, which I recently reviewed development economists affiliated with the World on behalf of one of its major European donors. Some Bank, that appeared in the Quarterly Journal of of it supersedes the much-vaunted research on Africa Economics last November. It argues, on the basis of published in the West. 30 years of accumulated statistics on individual coun- I think therefore that it is important, especially for try growth rates and ethnicity in sub-Saharan Africa social scientists, for Africanists, not to mourn prema- and Southeast Asia, that close to 50 or 60 percent of turely the death of critical social science in Africa— the economic growth differential between the two something which we read about much too often for regions can be explained by one and only one fact: our own comfort these days. Rather, the challenge is too many ethnic groups in Africa. (And, of course, to go back to Methodology 101, under which African the proclivity of African ethnic groups to quarrel over publications should be judged critically by the same sensible macro-economic policy, education, infra- standards as the others. Show us what is wrong with structure and sound financial management.) the hypothesis the existing African material espouses, Any reader with even a cursory understanding of show us what is wrong with its empirical data, show Africa will appreciate how ridiculous such an expla- us what is wrong with these conclusions drawn from nation is when cited to explain economic regress in both. Better still, expound the paradigm that better Tanzania (which the article surprisingly does) or the reorders African empirical reality. That is how social record high growth rates in Botswana (where ethnic science is going to grow and develop in Africa. That “homogeneity” is said to be a causal factor) while is the only way we are going to make progress, not ignoring the tragedy of even more homogenous by endless debates on some mystical all-African Somalia. There is no room in this supposedly de- decline and the need for a sure-fire methodology (like tached analysis, for example, to explain why it was rational choice) that might reverse it. possible for South Africa to overcome its handicap of I'm particularly saddened by a certain tendency cultural, racial and ethnic diversity in 1994, despite a towards polemical, platitudinous statements by social conflict-driven historical situation; or why, for exam- scientists, often backed up by statistical data banks ple, Rwanda and Burundi, with an extremely low and models that have absolutely nothing of value to degree of ethnic diversity, happen to be among the add to our understanding of the continent’s contem- most unstable and deadly places on the continent. porary predicament. In Africa this unfortunate polem- Indeed, several colleagues and I who are currently ical tendency takes the perspective of, Look, we are working on a panel that examines the entire span of not responsible for our own situation and the prob- growth in Africa from 1965 find that, statistically lems we are going through; it's they over there, the speaking, wider distribution of ethnic identity tends colonialists, the imperialist exploiters and their local to be positively associated with economic growth. allies, the outsiders who have conspired to produce This is not to say that one causes the other; causal this tragedy. The mirror image from North America relationships cannot be automatically deduced from or from Europe tends to be, Oh no, we have it figured statistical associations. Ross and Levine’s study gives

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/51 many intervening variables short shrift in the rush to As after the Second World War—a brutal experi- prove how ethnically perverse Africans are, and how ence born of slipshod social theories—we need to that translates into negative growth statistics. revisit the basics in social research and reconcile In the same manner, dogged efforts to legislate them with empirical findings in Africa as they are, a single universal paradigm—rational choice—for rather than as we wish them to be. That requires area studies can only damage African studies within informed debate on both sides of the Atlantic. Shoddy Africa. Rational choice (like all models, including “scientific” findings create an acrimonious and ten- those of African ethnic diversity and economic dentious environment, characterized by more intellec- growth) must prove its mettle by how well it fits tual heat than light. Despite many disappointments, empirical observations, how accurately it predicts African scholars have played a part that is seldom relationships between social and economic variables. recognized by the heat-seeking intellectual missiles It cannot claim the moral high ground on the basis of their antagonists. As the SSRC enters its next 75 of alleged mathematical rigor alone. years, we hope we can use it as a forum to diffuse that heat. ■

52\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 ciplinary workshops that are designed to facilitate Second Round: The network-building and help fellows identify the International Dissertation broader implications of their research projects. The program is open to full-time graduate students Field Research Fellowship in the humanities and social sciencesÐÐregardless of citizenshipÐÐenrolled in doctoral programs in the Program United States, and it invites proposals for field by Kenton W. Worcester* research on all areas of the world, as well as for research that is comparative, cross-regional and/or The selection committee for the International cross-cultural. Proposals that identify the US as a Dissertation Field Research Fellowship Program case for comparative inquiry are welcome; however, (IDRF)1 held its second meeting on April 18-19, 1998, proposals that require no field research outside the to award fellowships for area-based research. The United States are not eligible. Proposals requesting committee named 49 fellows for 1998, out of a pool support for a second year of field research are funded of 883 completed applications. The IDRF program is only under exceptional circumstances. administered by the SSRC in partnership with the Announcements for the 1998 program were sent American Council of Learned Societies. Funding for to university departments, research centers, discipli- the program is provided by the Andrew W. Mellon nary associations, regional studies centers and to Foundation. The program, which was founded in individuals who contacted the program directly. 1996, represents one of the larger and more presti- Information about the program was also made avail- gious sources of support for advanced graduate train- able on the SSRC website and through electronic ing in the social sciences and humanities. scholarly information networks. An announcement The purpose of the IDRF program is to enable stu- specifically targeted at potential applicants in the dents of outstanding promise to develop sophisticated humanistic disciplines was prepared by ACLS. research projects addressing issues of compelling sig- Applications to the 1998 competition were pre- nificance that resonate across disciplines and areas. screened at the staff level for eligibility and minimal It seeks to promote scholarship that treats place and competence. Each application that made it past the setting in relation to regional, global and transna- pre-screening stage was read by three screeners (in tional phenomena as well as particular histories and 1997 the program only used two). A total of 82 cultures. The fellowships are intended to encourage screeners, seven more than last year, reviewed up to doctoral candidates to use their knowledge of distinc- 30 applications each in their area of disciplinary, the- tive areas, cultures, languages, polities, economies matic and/or area specialization. Ratings and evalua- and histories, in combination with their disciplinary tions provided by screeners were used to identify a training, to address issues that go beyond their disci- pool of 94 finalists. These applications were for- plines or area specializations. Following the comple- warded to a 14-member selection committee, chaired tion of field research, fellows participate in cross-dis- by Rayna Rapp, Department of Anthropology, New School for Social Research. Applications were received from doctoral candi- dates at 116 institutions, up 13 from the previous year. The fellows are drawn from a total of 26 insti- * Kenton W. Worcester, a political scientist, is program director of the International Dissertation Field Research Fellowship Program. tutions, of which 12 are usually described as public. 1 Selection committee: Anthony Appiah, Harvard University; Valerie Five of the fellows are based at the University of Bunce, Cornell University; Rhonda Cobham-Sander, Amherst College; Chicago; four each are based at Columbia University, Pamela Crossley, Dartmouth College; Caroline Ford, University of British Harvard University, Yale University and the Univer- Columbia; Ellis Goldberg, University of Washington; Terry Karl, Stanford University; Ivan Karp, Emory University; Juarez Brandão Lopes, sity of Pennsylvania. These five universities repre- Ministry of Labor, Brazil; Margaret Nesbit, Vassar College; Rayna Rapp, sent the home institutions for just over 40% of the New School for Social Research; John Rogers, Tufts University; Juliane fellows; in 1997, the top five institutions were Schober, Arizona State University; Dae-Sook Suh, University of Hawaii, Manoa. responsible for 53% of the fellows.

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/53 geography, literature, religion, sociology and urban planning. A total of 22 disciplines were represented in the applicant pool, which means that slightly under 25% of these 22 disciplines are represented in the list of awardees.

The geographic mix of the applicants and fellows is broadly reminiscent of the 1997 competition. In 1998 just over 30% of the fellows will be conducting field research in Latin America or the Caribbean; 18% will be working in Western Europe; 14% will be working in Southeast and/or East Asia; and 10% will be working in Sub-Saharan Africa. These five world regions are responsible for 72% of the fellowships. The figures for 1997 were 22% Latin America; 13% A majority of both the applicants and fellows are East and Southeast Asia; 7% Africa; and 11% each women. In 1997, 62% of the fellows were women, for Western Europe and the former Soviet Union. whereas in 1998, 53% of the fellows are women. The percentage of fellows working in Africa, Latin Forty-two of the 49 fellows are US citizens or perma- America, South Asia and Western Europe rose in nent residents. An overwhelming majority of the fel- 1998; the percentage of fellows working in Eastern lows applied to the program in the third or fourth Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Near and year of graduate school (40 out of 49). The remainder Middle East fell in the same period. The fact that the were in the fifth (7), sixth (1) or 8th (1) year. 1998 competition failed to provide any fellowships to applicants working in the Near and Middle East is particularly regrettable. In its first year the program classified 11% of the fellows as “cross-regional” in that their projects required substantial field work in more than one world region. In 1998 the number fell to 6%. Given the extraordinary demands that are placed on gradu- ate students pursuing projects in more than one world region, the percentage of cross-regional applications is expected to remain smaller than the percentage of Of the 49 fellows, roughly 33% are in anthropol- applications that only require field research in a ogy, 29% are in history and 18% are in political sci- single site, nation or region. ence. As a result, and disappointingly, fully 80% of As before, fellows are working on a rich and the 1998 fellows are drawn from these three disci- diverse range of topics, all the way from the “ascen- plines. The remainder are in the fields of art history, dancy” of mathematics to the politics of squatting in

54\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 Nepal, and from Italian architecture in North Africa lectuals and the state; reforming educational systems; to labor market reform in Germany and the Nether- and the status of women within particular societies lands. Interestingly, fewer projects featured the word and/or cultural frameworks. As was the case in “identity” (or “identities”) in their titles in 1998––- 1997, the projects use a variety of methodological threeÐÐthan was the case in 1997, when the number approaches, including discourse analysis, quantitative was more than three times as high (11). A number of analysis, ethnographic participation and semi-struc- the projects are concerned with themes that are of tured interviews. broad intellectual interest that cut across area lines. Finally, the post-field research workshops are an These include the politics of economic reform; intel- integral component of the IDRF program. They are intended to provide a lively intellectual environment in which fellows can present and discuss their own and each others’ research projects; compare research strategies and methods; consider the problems associ- ated with linking field knowledge with discipline- based forms of knowledge; identify the broader implications of specific research projects and build and replenish scholarly networks that span discipli- nary and geographical boundaries. The first 1997 fellows’ workshop will be held at the Institute for International Research and Exchange in Amsterdam on October 2-6, 1998; the second will be held at the University of San Francisco on January 8Ð12, 1999. The three- to four-day workshops will be organized around fellows’ presentations and struc- tured discussion sessions. Each workshop will also Notes: feature guest speakers, local tours and a group dinner. Cross-regional refers to projects in which field work will occur in Workshop participants will receive a packet of read- more than one region. ings on issues connected to international field East Asia=China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, research to foster cross-disciplinary exchange. Taiwan South Asia=Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka The deadline for the 1999 competition is November Southeast Asia=Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), 18, 1998. For further information or application mate- Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam rials, please contact the IDRF program. ■

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/55 International Dissertation Field Research Fellowship Program 1998 Fellows

Jessica Allina-Pisano, political sci- Shefali Chandra, history, University University of Chicago. Medicine ence, Yale University. Local of Pennsylvania. The Social Life of as Global/Local Politics in the Power, Institutional Capacity and English Women and Language in Peruvian Selva Informal Constraints: Land British India Melinda Herrold, political science, Reform in the Russian and Matt Childs, history, University of University of California, Ukrainian Chernozem, 1990-97 Texas, Austin. The Aponte Berkeley. Economic Reform, David Attis, history of science, Conspiracy in Cuba, 1812 NGOs and Cranes in Russia Princeton University. The Emiliano Corral, history, University and China Ascendancy of Mathematics: of Chicago. Labor Control, Race Maimuna Huq, anthropology, Mathematics, Politics and and Politics: Mexico and the US Columbia University. Women in Education at Trinity College, South, 1865-1930 Islamic Activism in Bangladesh Dublin Raymond Craib, history, Yale Joseph Jupille, political science, Andrew Baker, political science, University. All the Documents in University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Their Power: State Cartographies Seattle. Institutions, Interests Economic Reform and Voting and Vernacular Landscapes in the and Procedural Politics in the Behavior in Latin America Formation of Postcolonial Mexico European Union Narquis Barak, anthropology, Kathleen Dill, anthropology, Richard Kernaghan, anthropology, Harvard University. Ethnography University of California, Davis. Columbia University. Reforming of Trauma, Shock and Stress in Silent Negotiations: Women, the State, Educating the Frontier: Vietnam Human Rights and Citizenship in Schools and the Moral Ethos of Caroline Beer, political science, Post-War Guatemala “Return” in Peru’s Upper University of New Mexico, Ellen Foley, anthropology, Michigan Huallaga Valley Albuquerque. Democratization State University. In Sickness and in Yong-Sook Lee, urban planning of the Mexican States: Political Health: Responding to Disease and and policy, Rutgers University, Recruitment, Institutional Change Promoting Health in Senegal New Brunswick. Does Geo- and Public Policy Elisa Forgey, history, University of graphical Proximity Matter? Catherine Bogosian, history, Pennsylvania. Confronting The Spatial Dynamics of the University of Pennsylvania. The Germandom: Colonial Law, Japanese and South Korean Deuxième Portion: Forced Labor, African Experience and Identity in Automobile Industry Resistance and Memory in the Germany, 1884-1945 Marc Lerner, history, Columbia French Sudan, 1926-1946 Caroline Fox, history, Harvard University. Liberalism During Sarah Brooks, political science, University. Detention Camps and the Transformation of the Swiss Duke University. Social Protection the Rehabilitation Process during State, 1789-1848 and the Market: Pension Reform the Mau Mau Emergency Susan Levine, anthropology, in the Era of Neoliberalism Kathleen Gallagher, anthropology, Temple University. Children’s Andrew Buck, sociology, Cornell Harvard University. The Politics of Work in the Winelands of the University. Local Renewal or Survival: Squatting, Democracy Cape, South Africa Provincial Relapse? Networks of and the Nepalese State Rick López, history, Yale Informal Governance in Post- Jennifer Gaynor, anthropology and University. Art, Politics and Socialist Russia history, University of Michigan. Culture in the Formation of Daniel Buck, geography, University Liquid Territory and the Place of Mexican Postrevolutionary of California, Berkeley. Construct- “Sea People”: Storied Pasts and Nationalism, 1920-1947 ing China’s Capitalism, Connect- Constructed Spaces in the Straits of David Lurie, literature, Columbia ing Shanghai’s Urban and Rural Tiworo, Indonesia University. A Genealogy of Industries Landon Greene, anthropology, Japanese Inscription: Maníyoshu

56\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 Writing Systems and their The Kilakkarai Qadiri Sufi University. Communities and Scholarly Reception Center/Madrasah and its Role in Institutions in Movements of Debra McDougall, anthropology, Muslim Women’s Religious Change University of Chicago. The Land Education in Tamil Nadu, South Christina Van Wijnbergen, political Goes through Women: Political India, 1800-1999 science, Northwestern Uni- Agency, Social Value and the Mark Setzler, political science, versity. The Political Dynamics Authority of Kastom in the West University of Texas, Austin. Local of Labor Market Reform: Efforts Solomon Islands Political Elites and Associational at Change in Germany and the Brian McLaren, art and architec- Activity: Accounting for Variable Netherlands, 1982-1995 tural history, Massachusetts Forms of Political Representation Richard Weiss, religious studies, Institute of Technology. and Policy University of Chicago. Charisma Meditteraneita and Modernita: Susan Snyder, history, University of and Science in Tamil Nadu: A Architecture and Culture During California, Santa Barbara. Lay History of Authority in Siddha the Period of Italian Colon- Religiosity and Family Structure in Healing Practice ization of North Africa Late Medieval Bologna and Erica Wortham, anthropology, New Keith McNeal, anthropology, Toulouse York University. Indigenous Emory University. Transforming Jennifer Sowerwine, sociology, Media in Mexico: New Tools of Race in Two Trinidadian University of California, Berkeley. Self-Determination Possession Religions Property, Gender and Power: Yiching Wu, anthropology, Donna Murdock, anthropology, Ideological and Ecological University of Chicago. Taking Emory University. Ethnographic Transformations of Highland the Plunge: The Market and Investigation of State-Supported Vietnam Reconstruction of Intellectual “Women’s Empowerment” in Rolf Str¿m-Olsen, history, North- Identities in Contemporary Medellín, Colombia western University. Courts Without China Paula Pickering, political science, Kings: Crisis and Consensus in Ariel Yablon, history, University of University of Michigan. Minority Early Modern Spain and Burgundy Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Strategies in Post-War Bosnia- Yuka Suzuki, anthropology, Yale Patronage, Corruption and Herzegovina University. State Imaginings and Political Culture in Argentina, Matthew Reed, history, Claremont the Discourse of Wildlife 1880-1916 Graduate School. Making the Management in Zimbabwe Mei Zhan, anthropology, Stanford Case: The Evolution of the Matthew Tomlinson, anthropology, University. Reconfiguring Psychiatric Case Study and the University of Pennsylvania. Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Formation of Modern Identities Religious Language and Modernity Comparative Transnational Susan Schomburg, religious in Kadavu, Fiji Study in China and the United Studies, Harvard University. Bruce Tyler, sociology, Cornell States

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/57 Current Activities at the Council

New Directors and Officers information about careers in Panel of the American Friends refugee and immigrant services, Service Committee; Adventures At its meeting on January 23, the project brings a panel of in Health, Education and 1998, the Council’s board of experts to talk to students at Development (AHEAD); the directors elected Arjun Appadurai selected historically black col- Women’s Commission for of the University of Chicago and leges and universities. Refugee Women and Children Elizabeth Jelin of the University Ms. Bruce has taught at (which she chairs) and the of Buenos Aires as directors-at- Marymount Manhattan College, Women’s Foreign Policy Group. large. They began serving three- The City University of New year terms in June, as did Sidney York, Columbia, Temple, Elsa Dixler joined the profes- Verba of Harvard University, who Harvard, Northeastern and sional staff as SSRC editor on was elected as the representative Howard Universities, as well as March 23. Ms. Dixler, most of the American Political Science at the Universities of Liberia, recently senior editor at The Association. Massachusetts (Boston) and Nation magazine, was also man- The SSRC’s officers for 1998- California (Los Angeles) and at aging editor of The Feminist 99 were elected or re-elected at Wellesley College. Press and managing editor of the board of directors’ meeting Her research centers on the Signs: Journal of Women in on June 12. They are: Paul AME Church and Liberia, West Culture and Society. She received Baltes, Max Planck Institute for Africa, where as a graduate stu- a Ph.D. in American Studies Human Development and dent at Harvard University she from Yale University and taught Education (Berlin), chair of the conducted the research for a dis- U.S. history and women’s studies board; Michelle White of the sertation entitled, “Transcending at Vassar College. Ms. Dixler has University of Michigan, Ann Boundaries: An Anthropological written about women and the left Arbor, treasurer; Kenneth Study of the African Methodist (her dissertation examined the Prewitt, SSRC, president; Episcopal Church in Liberia.” role of women in the Communist Kristine Dahlberg, SSRC, chief Subsequent to her fieldwork, Party of the USA during the financial officer. Iris Berger, Ms. Bruce served in Liberia as 1930s) as well as about American State University of New York, Country Director of the Peace social and cultural politics. Albany, was elected secretary. Corps and as Chief Technical Adviser to the UN Self-Help Centroamérica en restruc- New Staff Appointments Village Development Project in Southeastern Liberia. turación Beverlee Bruce was named Her publications include arti- From July 7Ð10 more than two program director for the Mellon cles about students of color and hundred people from universities, Minority Fellowship Program higher education as well as re- government agencies and NGOs effective June 1. Most recently ports on the situation of refugee as well as interested members of Ms. Bruce, an educator, social women and children around the the public attended presentations anthropologist and international world. Most recently, Ms. Bruce in Guatemala City, San Salvador development specialist, directed was the writer for the Expert and Tegucigalpa, Honduras, of the Mellon Migration Seminars Working Group responsible for the recently-published collection Project housed at Clark Atlanta the theme paper on Peace and of essays on Centroamérica en University, School of Inter- Security for the National Summit restructuración [see p. 64]. The national Affairs and Develop- on Africa. three events provided an occasion ment. Designed to provide Ms. Bruce serves on a number to distribute studies that focused African-American students with of boards including the Africa on issues of fundamental impor-

58\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 tance for the future of the region. member Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney CGP-SSRC Seminar Series In addition to the editors of the and former committee members In collaboration with the Japan three volumes, participants in the Charles Hirschmann of the Foundation Center for Global panels included leading intellec- University of Washington and Partnership, the SSRC and ACLS tuals from Guatemala, El Sal- James White of the University of have organized a series of work- vador and Honduras. The event North Carolina.1 shops to bring together Abe fel- in Guatemala City was co-spon- Much of the two-and-a half- lows who are researching a sored by FLACSO-Guatemala day meeting was taken up by common theme or set of themes and the Secretaría de Integración lively discussions of individual with Abe Fellowship Program Centroamericana (SIECA) and research projects by small groups Committee members and outside included commentaries by lead- of fellows. This portion of the experts from academia and ers of those institutions and by retreat allows fellows to expose policy circles. Gert Rosenthal (former Secretary- their work to reactions from indi- The first cycle of these theme- General, UN Economic Com- viduals with different discipli- based events has taken place over mission on Latin America). In nary, theoretical, methodological a two-year period. Following up San Salvador, commentary was and national backgrounds, as meetings held in 1997 in the provided by Héctor Dada and well as differing amounts of United States, the two 1998 Roberto Rubio, Directors of international research experience. workshops were entitled “Care FLACSO-El Salvador and Afternoons were devoted to and Meaning in Late Life: FUNDE, respectively. In less structured group discussions. Culture, Policy and Practice in Tegucigalpa, the event featured Methodological problems and Japan and the United States” and remarks by Honduran Finance processes in comparative research “Multilateralism and Trade in Minister Gabriela Nuñez de were the subject of a session led Services” respectively. The intel- Reyes and by Alcides Hernandez, by Charles Hirschmann. James lectual leadership of the work- president of the Colegio White moderated a session focus- shops was provided by both Hondureño de Economistas, ing on the current East Asian eco- active members of the Abe which co-sponsored the event nomic crisis, and Emiko Ohnuki- Fellowship Program Committee along with the local office of the Tierney led one on the question and the fellows themselves. In Pan-American Health Organ- “Is There a Global Culture?” an effort to foster new connec- ization. The books are a product tions of scholars and vary loca- of an initiative designed by the tions, both 1998 workshops were SSRC Joint Committee on Latin held at the Shonan International American Studies and funded by Village, an international confer- the Ford Foundation. ence facility in Hayama, Japan. 1 Participants included: Muthiah Alagappa, East-West Center; William Alford, Harvard Abe Fellows’ Retreat University; Mary Yoko Brannen, University of Michigan; John C. Campbell, University Care and Meaning in Late On January 15Ð18, 1998, the of Michigan; Jay Choi, Columbia University; Life: Culture, Policy and Abe Fellowship Program held its Mark Fruin, University of British Columbia; Michael Gerlach, University of California, Practice in Japan and the second annual retreat at the Berkeley; Kimberly Gould Ashizawa, Center United States Silverado Ranch in Napa, for Global Partnership; Andrew Gordon, Harvard University; Heidi Gottfried, Purdue The task of assembling a California. The retreat is University; Theresa Greaney, Syracuse designed to bring active fellows University; Akiko Hashimoto, University of research volume based on papers together in an informal setting to Pittsburgh; Tsutomo Kono, the Ralph Bunche produced by the first workshop Institute, City University of New York; Satu on health and aging held in Ann exchange ideas about their Limaye, US Institute of Peace; Mark Medish, research and facilitate network- US Treasury Department; Patricia Robinson, Arbor, Michigan in April 1997 ing. Seventeen fellows were New York University; Mark Tilton, Purdue made significant progress at the University; Kenneth West, University of joined in this effort by Abe Wisconsin. Staff: Frank Baldwin, Mary Byrne February 26ÐMarch 1, 1998 Fellowship Program Committee McDonnell, Sheri Ranis and Suzy Kim. workshop in Hayama. Guided by

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/59 Abe Fellow Susan O. Long of Multilateralism and Trade in anisms available to aggrieved John Carroll University, who is Services nations and the progress of multi- serving as editor for the multi- lateral agreements and dispute A persistent theme of the May author book, the twenty partici- resolution protocols in service 1997 workshop on US-Japan trade pants considered the common areas such as telecommunications disputes was the strengthening of conceptual and comparative and financial services. The multilateral trade regimes such as themes driving their research on second panel looked at the man- the World Trade Organization the health and care of the elderly agement of the international (WTO), and questions about how in the United States and Japan.1 financial regulatory system, with they would handle trade in ser- They responded to critiques of extensive discussion about the vices as opposed to manufactured draft chapters from other project appropriate forums for multina- goods. Co-convenors Takatoshi Ito members and from outside tion discussions of financial of Hitotsubashi University and experts. market access and the adoption Gary Saxonhouse of the Univer- The volume itself will focus of international or nationally- sity of Michigan organized a on national differences in policy based standards of regulation. second workshop around these concerning elder care and the The third panel looked at questions, which drew scholars of different cultural meanings of multinational organizations and economics, law, business and aging. It will also examine care- their role in instigating or pres- political science as well as mem- giving in the context of the suring for change in domestic bers of the banking and finance patients themselves, the institu- economic policies of Asian communities.2 tions, families and individual nations. With particular attention Driven by the news about the caregivers. Currently titled Who to recent actions by the Inter- East Asian economic crisis, Cares: People, Practices and national Monetary Fund in which caused some not unex- Policy for Late Life in Japan and Thailand and Indonesia, the par- pected attrition among partici- the United States, the book is ticipants considered various pants on call to various ministries being prepared for publication models of international and and global organizations, the sometime in 1999. national capital control and their May 15-17, 1998 workshop was implications for global trade and organized as panel presentations finance. A summary report of dis- on key issues followed by exten- cussions held during the work- sive free discussion. The first shop will be produced by panel on multilateral trade dis- 1 Organizers: Susan Long, John Carroll Leonard Schoppa of the pute resolution focused on the University and Frank Baldwin, SSRC. University of Virginia with a ten- Participants: Kiyoshi Adachi, University of various dispute settlement mech- Kyushu; David Barnard, Milton S. Hershey tative publication date of late Medical Center; Douglas Bradham, Human 1998. Services Research and Developmental Center; John C. Campbell, University of Michigan; Ruth Campbell, Turner Geriatric Clinic; Satoshi Chihara, Seirei Mikatabara Hospital; 2 Organizers: Takatoshi Ito, Hitotsubashi Michael Fetters, University of Michigan University; and Gary Saxonhouse, University of Spanish-American-Cuban Medical Center; Yuko Flaherty, Friedens Michigan. Participants: Geza Feketekuty, War of 1898 Research Haus; Phyllis Braudy Harris, John Carroll Monterey Institute; Tony Freyer, University of University; Akiko Hashimoto, University of Alabama; Mitsuhiro Fukao, Keio University; Workshop Pittsburgh; Shinya Hoshino, Japan Women’s Yoshihisa Hayakawa, Rikkyo University; Robert University; Keiko Ikeda, Doshisha University; Hudec; University of Minnesota; Kazumasa The ACLS/SSRC Working Yukiko Kurokawa; University of Tokyo; Iwata, University of Tokyo; Akira Kojima, Nihon Group on Cuba sponsored a two- Daisaku Maeda, Rissho University; David Keizai Shimbun; Toru Kusukawa, Fuji Research week research workshop for Plath, University of Illinois; Glenda Roberts, Institute; Kazuo Ogawa, Osaka University; University of Tokyo; Masahiko Saito, Leonard Schoppa, University of Virginia; young historians in the Wash- University of Tokyo; Takako Sodei, Yoshihiko Wakumoto, Japan Foundation Center ington, DC area from July Ochanomizu University; Peter Whitehouse, for Global Partnership; Masaru Yoshitomi, LTCB 27ÐAugust 7, 1998. It enabled University Alzheimer Center. Staff: Frank Research Institute. Staff: Frank Baldwin, Sheri Baldwin and Takuya Toda. Ranis and Takuya Toda. five historians from Cuba and

60\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 five from the United States to lows to network, to present their staff and Ford Foundation fellows. conduct research in collections at current research, to benefit from In evaluating the conference, three archives in Washington that presentations by other fellows as 61% of the respondents reported are critical to the study of the well as by senior scholars and to that it met their expectations, as Spanish-American-Cuban War of learn the intricacies of the gradu- in the case of two fellows just 1898. The workshop was coordi- ate experience. entering graduate school who nated by Dr. Louis Pérez, a This year, from June 11Ð14, now find the next six years more member of the Working Group 1998, the seventh annual summer imaginable and less abstract. On and professor of history at the conference was held at Bryn the other hand, a continuing University of North Carolina, Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, graduate student sees the confer- Chapel Hill and Dr. Carmen Pennsylvania.1 Funded by the ence as “a great way to exchange Almodóvar, professor of history Mellon Foundation and adminis- ideas, ask questions and hear at the University of Havana. This tered by the Social Science some exciting work.” activity represents one of the Research Council, the conference ways the working group is link- featured presentations by three ing the scholarly and intellectual senior scholars, six workshops SSRC Higher Education communities in Cuba and North that addressed the practicalities Program America and promoting enduring of graduate school (“Preparing The Program on U.S. Higher networks among Cuban scholars for Qualifying Exams in the Education held its second work- and their counterparts in North Social Sciences and Humanities,” shop on April 3Ð4, 1998 at the America. “Pedagogy for the Teaching SSRC offices in New York City.2 Assistant”), a panel on publishing The workshop explored two cen- and another by recent Ph.D.’s tral themes: the shifting bound- SSRC-Mellon Minority who discussed the transition from aries of higher education institu- Fellowship Summer graduate student to professional. tions and the increasing inter- Conference In addition, 14 fellows who pre- activity of the public and private As a means of addressing the sented their current research were sectors in the U.S. system of underrepresentation of American ranked excellent by 67% of the higher education. Sessions racial minorities in the ranks of respondents to the conference devoted to the first theme consid- Ph.D.’s in the arts and sciences in evaluation [there was a 74% ered the determinants of the size institutions of higher learning response rate]. and scope of colleges and univer- around the country, the Andrew Of the 125 fellows who at- W. Mellon Foundation has tended the conference, 85 are funded, since 1988, the Mellon graduate students, 37 are entering 2 Minority Undergraduate graduate school and 3 are recent Organizers: Charles Goldman, Rand Ph.D.’s. Joining the Mellon fel- Corporation and David F. Weiman, SSRC. Fellowship Program. Identified in Presenters: Irwin Feller, Pennsylvania State the sophomore year, Mellon fel- lows were 16 members of the University; Susan Gates, Rand Corporation; Charles Goldman; Henry Hansmann, Yale lows are encouraged to pursue Bryn Mawr faculty who served as moderators, panelists and work- University; Geraint Johnes, Lancaster Ph.D.’s in the humanities, social University; Scott E. Masten, University of sciences and the physical sci- shop leaders, in addition to Michigan; Richard Nelson, Columbia Mellon Foundation and SSRC University; Andreas Ortmann, Bowdoin ences in preparation for joining College; Sharon Oster, Yale University; and the academy. Each year a Robert Zemsky, University of Pennsylvania. summer conference is held to Other participants: Jesse H. Ausubel, the Sloan Foundation and Rockefeller University; which Mellon fellows who have Thomas Bailey, Columbia University; Norman entered doctoral programs in one 1 Presenters: John Stewart, University of Bradburn, NORC; Clare M. Burnett, TIAA- of the Mellon fields are invited. California, Davis; Russell Thornton, CREF; Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University; University of California, Los Angeles; Arthur Patricia J. Gumport; Stanford University; and The purpose of the conference is B.C. Walker II, Stanford University. Staff: Perry Mehrling, Barnard College. Staff: David to provide opportunities for fel- Beverlee Bruce and Sara Robledo. Weiman, Sheri Ranis and George Samuels.

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/61 sities and the extent of their workshop targets those students poverty, development and competitive and complementary whose work is especially promis- democracy; civil society and interactions. Those focusing on ing or ambitious, who seem par- human rights; and postconflict the second theme examined dif- ticularly in need of critical feed- reconstruction and international ferences and similarities in the back or who do not attend intervention. corporate form and governance universities with major Japan Fellows had the opportunity structure of higher education Studies centers. to participate in discussions institutions and private, for- The twelve students selected on the program’s new NGO profit firms as well as the from a highly competitive pool Fellowship and a workshop increasing competition between of nearly forty applicants for the panel on Research Methods and public (including private, non- 1998 workshop represented both Approaches to Security as well profit) and private, for-profit traditional and interdisciplinary as to deliver seminar presenta- higher education institutions. fields, and ten institutions. tions about their own research Recognizing the convergence of During the four-day workshop, and training activities. More discussions on the public-pri- held from January 8Ð12 at the than 50 people attended the vate theme during the first two Asilomar Conference Center in conference, including 1996 workshops, the Steering Monterey, California, these stu- and 1998 SSRC-MacArthur Committee decided to continue dents, in varying stages of the Foundation Fellowship recipi- the conversation through subse- dissertation process, engaged ents, local speakers and pan- quent workshops on the chang- each other and four faculty mem- elists, members of the Com- ing role of community colleges bers in critiquing and debating mittee on International Peace in the higher education system substantive issues and method- and Security, MacArthur and on the growth of business ologies. Each year time is allo- Foundation officers and SSRC education—both under- and cated to allow for concentrated staff.2 postgraduate. discussions of each dissertation, Immediately following the small-group sessions for those in Fellows’ Conference in El closely related fields and large- Salvador, on May 24Ð27, the group, multidisciplinary discus- International Peace and Security Japan Studies Dissertation sions on both intellectual issues Program sponsored a Summer Workshop and practical fieldwork, writing Institute on Failing States in The SSRC Japan Studies and job search techniques. Antigua, Guatemala. The insti- Dissertation Workshop is con- tute was co-organized by Tom vened annually to nurture the Callaghy from the University of development of a multidiscipli- International Peace and Pennsylvania and co-sponsored nary network of advanced grad- Security Program Fellows’ uate students and senior fac- Conference and Summer ulty.1 It is designed to address Institute the needs of students in creating 2 On May 17Ð23, 1998, the Speakers, panelists, and local partici- innovative and insightful re- pants: Andrés Fontana, Undersecretary of search, in planning, executing International Peace and Security State for Strategic Policies, Argentina; Raúl Program sponsored it 12th Benitez, Centro de Investigaciones Inter- and analyzing fieldwork. The disciplinarias en Ciencias y Humanidades, annual SSRC-MacArthur UNAM, Mexico; Salvador Samayoa, Fellows’ Conference in San Roberto Rubio, FUNDE; Carlos Briones, Salvador, El Salvador. The con- FLACSO; Mario Lungo, OPAMSS; Carolina 1 Faculty: Hugh Patrick, Columbia Alas de Franco, FUSADES; Alberto University School of Business; Mariko ference featured several plenary Enríquez, FUNDE; Héctor Dada, FLACSO; Tamanoi, University of California, Los presentations and highlighted a Benjamin Guellar, UCA; Herman Rosa Angeles; Stephen Vlastos, University of number of security issues facing Chávez, PRISMA; Oscar Campos Anaya, Iowa; Janet Walker, Rutgers University. CAEE; Alfredo Aly Parker, FUNDACAEE. Staff: Mary Byrne McDonnell, Frank El Salvador and the region such Staff: Robert Latham, Amy Frost and Mark Baldwin and Jennifer Winther. as military demobilization; Shoffner.

62\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 by CIRMA in Antigua. Parti- Migration Program’s first fellows conclusions they draw from their cipants gathered to discuss the conference, titled “Transform- research. increasing number of flailing and ations: Immigration and Immi- The extent to which immigra- failing states in the world, gration Research in the United tion is transforming the social addressing in particular the fol- States,” took place on June backgrounds of immigration lowing topics: states in crisis and 11Ð14, 1998 at Columbia researchers was explored by flux; political forms of crisis and University. The conference was committee member Rubén G. flux; security and violence in coordinated by Nancy Foner Rumbaut in a presentation of the failing and reconfiguring states; (anthropology, State University findings of a survey conducted the political economy of failure of New York at Purchase) and by the program of over 700 and reconfiguration; new and Rubén G. Rumbaut (sociology, immigration scholars who are alternative forms of governance Michigan State University) and members of the American and social reality; external and organized by Josh DeWind and Anthropological Association, domestic aspects of conflict set- Christian M. Fuersich of the American Sociological tlement and reconstruction; and SSRC. Association and the Immigration normative, policy and discipli- Attended by 24 of the pro- History Society, or who have nary implications. Participants gram’s predoctoral and postdoc- applied to the SSRC for research included current and former toral fellows whose research has fellowships. The survey found SSRC-MacArthur Foundation been supported between 1996 that nearly half of these scholars fellows, members of the and 1998, the conference’s focus (48 percent) are either first- or Committee on Peace and on “transformations” covered not second-generation immigrants. Security; and leading local and only the contributions of the fel- The impact of this phenomenon international researchers.3 lows’ research to immigration on the nature of the field will be studies but also the evolving further explored in future analy- backgrounds and perspectives of ses of the survey and essays Transformations in Immi- the newest generation of immi- being prepared by committee gration and Immigration gration scholars. The research members on the relation of immi- Research: A Research findings were presented within gration studies to social science Fellows Conference thematic sessions that looked at disciplines. Focusing on new research and economic incorporation and mar- The conference organizers the changing backgrounds of kets; transnational networks; will edit a special issue of the scholars in the field of immigra- political incorporation and state American Behavioral Scientist tion studies, the International policies; and ethnicity, race, cul- and a book, which will include ture and community. selections revised from presenta- A concluding address by tions at the conference. Herbert J. Gans (sociology, Columbia University) presented 3 Outside participants: Tom Callaghy, The Aral Sea Basin University of Pennsylvania; Jeffery Herbst, an overview of topics for future Princeton University; Carolyn Nordstrom, research including: people who On May 19-21, the Eurasia University of Notre Dame; William Reno, Florida International University; and do and do not migrate; how Program sponsored on three- William Stanley, University of New Mexico. immigrants and their children are day workshop in Tashkent, Local participants: Tani Adams, CIRMA, faring; the role of macro factors Uzbekistan on the Aral Sea Guatemala; Licdo. Bernardo Arevalo; Demetrio Cojti Cuxil; Victor Galvez; Juan in shaping immigrant adaptation Basin. Heavy water divergence Mendez; Edelberto Torres-Rivas; and Helen and the role of funders in shaping during the Soviet era has drained Mack. SSRC-MacArthur Fellows: Abiodun research. He also suggested that Alao; Kanchan Chandra; Helen Kinsella; the Aral Sea to only 30% of its Darini Rajasingham; Amy Ross; Shannon researchers’ own social identities original size. The resulting health Speed; Dan Wessner; and Vadim Volkov. and values as immigrant group and policy issues pose a chal- Committee: Jack Snyder; Charlie Hale; “insiders” or “outsiders” shape Kathryn Sikkink; and Steve Smith. Staff: lenge for the new independent Robert Latham and Mark Shoffner. their selection of topics and the Central Asian states. The SSRC

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/63 workshop was designed to bring Central Asia” followed by a presen- national private corporation to participants in the Council’s tation of the “Competing Water help the various states manage former Committee on Global Needs” of the different states, their scarce water resources. Environmental Change and other “Water, Health and the Quality of The workshop concluded with scholars together with Central Life,” “How Principal Institutions a brainstorming session which Asian water experts and Govern Water Allocation” and generated new directions for activists.1 “Water Issues in Comparative future social science research in The workshop was organized Perspective.” There was a lively four main areas that were deemed around seven formal papers. discussion of “Strategic Choices critical: water economics and Participants first reviewed “The and Socio-economic Prerequisites,” pricing, institution building, his- Historical and Cultural Per- centered on a controversial pro- torical/comparative cases and spective on Water Regimes in posal to create a new type of inter- human health and ecology.

1 USA: Heather Carlisle, Netherlands Affairs, U.S. Embassy, Tashkent; Jennifer Utrata, Sea and Amu Darya, Nukus; Akhmal Organization for International Development Development Alternatives, Inc., Tashkent; Erika Karimov, Irrigation Institute, Tashkent; Cooperation; William Davoren, Aral Sea Weinthal, Stanford University; Jim Wescoat, Jusipbek Kazabekov, TIEIAM, Tashkent; International Committee; William Fierman, University of Colorado. Abdurakhim Khasanov, Tadjik State Uni- Indiana University; Greg Gleason, University EUROPE/RUSSIA: Elisa Chait, London versity; Igor Dushanbe Khodjanuberdoev, of New Mexico; Dale Henry, Tashkent School of Economics; Thomas Dorenwendt, Ecologist Club, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; Said Institute of Engineers of Irrigation & Agri- OSCE Liaison Office in Central Asia, Tashkent; Mirzaev, TIEIAM, Tashkent; Sapar cultural Mechanization (TIEIAM), Tashkent; Luis Viega da Cunha, Scientific and Environ- Ospanov, Academy of Sciences, Almaty, Roger Kasperson, Clark University; Jeff mental Affairs Division, NATO, Belgium; Andre Kazakhstan; Abdulkhakim Salokhiddinov, Klaucke, Resource Exchange International, Ptichnikov, Russian Academy of Sciences, TIEIAM, Tashkent; Eksender Trushen, Tashkent; Daene McKinney, University of Institute of Geography, Moscow; Jochen Renger, Macroeconomics and Social Research Texas; John McNeill, Georgetown University; Robert Bosch Foundation, Germany; Rainer Institute, Ministry of Macroeconomics and Philip Micklin, Western Michigan University; Reissl, Aerospace Center, Germany. Statistics of Uzbekistan, Tashkent; Oleg Ian Small, Doctors Without Borders; Adam CENTRAL ASIA: Arustan Joldasov, Center Tsaruk, Law and Environment Eurasia Smith Albion, Institute of Current World for Social and Marketing Research, Tashkent; Partnership, Tashkent. Staff: Judith Sedaitis Affairs; Robert Sorenson, Environmental Yusup Kamalov, Union for Defense of the Aral and Hazel Boyd.

64\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 Recent Council Publications

Centroamérica en restruc- reviving regional efforts to pro- essays by leading social scientists turación. San José: Facultad mote economic integration and from Central America as well as Latinoamericana de Ciencias other forms of cooperation. A from elsewhere in the Americas Sociales (FLACSO)-Costa Rica. majority of the population con- and Europe. Sponsored by the Joint Com- tinues to live in poverty and lacks Designed by the SSRC Joint mittee on Latin American Studies access to adequate health care, Committee on Latin American (1959-96). Vol. 1, Mercado lab- education and social protection, Studies and funded by the Ford oral y pobreza en Centroa- but for the first time there Foundation, the projects ad- mérica, edited by Edward appears to be a consensus, at dressed three areas of fundamen- Funkhouser and Juan Pablo least rhetorically, that the bene- tal importance for the future of Pérez-Sáinz. ix + 373 pp. Vol. 2, fits of economic development the region, each of which is the Integración Regional en should accrue to all. focus of a volume. Volume 1, Centroamérica, edited by Victor These impressive signs of edited by Juan Pablo Pérez Sáinz Bulmer Thomas. viii + 349 pp. progress are all the more remark- and Edward Funkhouser and orga- Vol. 3, Ciudadanía y Política able considering the economic nized jointly by the Council and Social, edited by Bryan Roberts. circumstances that have con- FLACSO, analyzes the impact of viii + 380 pp. fronted Central America over the structural adjustment programs on As the 20th century draws to a past decade. Structural adjust- labor markets and, through close, Central American societies ment programs in each of the five employment, on distribution. are undergoing changes unprece- principal countries of the region The second volume, edited by dented both in their scope and in have coincided with an overall Victor Bulmer-Thomas, assesses the speed with which they are decline in living standards. Mag- the problems and prospects of taking place. Many of these nifying these programs’ impact, efforts to advance Central developments are positive, and economic aid to the region American regional integration. indeed, advances in the region declined in the 1990s and re- The final volume, edited by during the 1990s exceed even the mains too low to have a signifi- Bryan Roberts, considers the most optimistic predictions. The cant impact on development. All implications of trends in social achievement of historic peace of this takes place in the context policy in a region where social accords in Nicaragua, El Sal- of processes of economic global- exclusion formerly precluded vador and Guatemala has put an ization that undermine many meaningful debates about social end to protracted and destructive productive sectors, in Central citizenship. hostilities in those countries, and America as elsewhere, that tradi- throughout the isthmus there has tionally provided opportunities Community Conflicts and the been a dramatic decline in human for steady employment. State in India, edited by Amrita rights violations. Freely elected The desire to contribute to Basu and Atul Kohli. Sponsored leaders now govern throughout deeper conceptualizations of this by the Joint Committee for South the region, opposition parties watershed moment in Central Asia (1970-1996). Delhi: Oxford exert influence through legisla- American history, and to assist in University Press, 1998. xii + 287 tive bodies and subnational the formation of a cohort of pages. administrations, and legitimate highly trained junior researchers Political conflicts around reli- authorities face few explicit con- dedicated to basic research, led gion, caste and regional identities straints from military or civilian the Social Science Research have multiplied in India. This elites. Thanks in part to the Council and FLACSO to orga- volume brings together original restoration of political stability, nize the research projects that essays by eminent analysts of Central American governments gave rise to this three-volume Indian society and politics that have taken tentative steps toward collection. The books contain focus on changes in the expres-

JUNE/SEPTEMBER 1998 ITEMS/65 sion of community identity in ism” favored by international comprador historicism and col- relationship to changes in the agencies, trade creation and trade laborationist aesthetics. Sitanshu character of the state. They diversion, intraindustry trade, and Yashaschandra examines the his- address such questions as: Why intraregional trade in agricultural tory of modern Gujarati prose is there apparently more violent products and the impact of trade and literary production under conflict around identity politics liberalization in the agricultural colonialism. Mahasweta in India today than at any time sector. Sengupta’s contribution on since independence? To what Bengali literary historiography extent do the character and inten- Social Scientist, Volume 23, shows how literary history is the sity of recent conflicts differ Numbers 10Ð12, October- critical arena within which the from those of the past? What are November 1995. story of the nation is narrated. the implications of caste, ethnic In December 1993 the Joint Jancy James demonstrates the and religious nationalist move- Committee on South Asia orga- complex histories to be excavated ments for democracy? What mea- nized a workshop, “New Litera- through a reading of women’s lit- sures might alleviate the wide- ture, New Power: Literary erature in Malayam. spread destruction of life and History, Region and Nation in property and create the sense of South Asia” in Hyderabad, India. Serials: predictability on which all social The workshop resulted in a spe- order rests? cial issue of Social Scientist Abe News, vol. 8, Spring 1998. Most of the essays originated (Delhi) on literary history in Produced by the Abe Fellowship as papers at a conference on South Asia. In his introduction Program Tokyo office. “Political Violence in India: The to the issue, Sheldon Pollock State and Community Conflicts” explores the movement in histo- SSRC-MacArthur Foundation held at Amherst College on ries of literature to recognize the Newsletter, vol. 10, February September 23Ð24, 1995, and sev- fundamental sociality of litera- 1998. “Technology and the eral of them appeared as a special ture. In “Coconut and Honey: Future of Security.” Produced by issue of the Journal of Asian Sanskrit and Telugu in Medieval the SSRC-MacArthur Foundation Studies (vol. 56, no. 2, May 1997). Andhra,” Velcheru Narayana Rao Program on International Peace Amrita Basu is professor of shows how the question of what and Security. political science and women’s language to adopt for making lit- and gender studies at Amherst erature in the Vijayangar empire Also noted: College. Atul Kohli is professor helped shape the consciousness at the Woodrow Wilson School of the ruling elites. Pollock’s Our Babies, Ourselves: How and Department of Politics, “Literary History, Indian History, Biology and Culture Shape the Princeton University. World History” explores the use Way We Parent, by Meredith F. of Sanskrit in western and north- Small. New York: Anchor Books, “Regional Integration in ern India at the beginning of the 1998, 336 pp. Our Babies, Central America.” Special sec- common era and Kannada at the Ourselves brings the insights of tion of World Development. Vol. kingly centers. The essay by ethnopediatrics to the general 26, no. 2, February 1998. Victor S. Nagaraju, “Emergence of reader. The book was inspired by Bulmer Thomas, guest ed. Spon- Regional Identity and Beginnings several activities of the Ethno- sored by the project on Central of Vernacular Literature,” uncov- pediatrics Working Group of the America, Latin American Pro- ers the social history in which to Committee on Culture, Health gram. These four essays focus on locate the first literizations of and Human Development. In dis- the economic dimension of the Telugu poetry. The essay by cussing “how biology and culture new Central American Common Shamsur Rahman Faruqi on shape the way we parent,” Small Market. They cover the transfor- Muhammad Hussain Azad acknowledges the ideas of the mation of the old CACM in the explores the origins and influ- working group’s co-directors, 1990s into the “open regional- ence of what might be called Carol Worthman and Ron Barr.

66\ITEMS VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3 SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL 810 SEVENTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10019 (212) 377-2700 FAX (212) 377-2727 WEB http://www.ssrc.org

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Directors, 1998−99: ARJUN APPADURAI, University of Chicago; PAUL B. BALTES, Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin); IRIS B. BERGER, State University of New York, Albany; NANCY BIRDSALL, Inter-American Development Bank; ALBERT FISHLOW, Council on Foreign Relations; SUSAN FISKE, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; ELIZABETH JELIN, University of Buenos Aires; SHIRLEY LINDENBAUM, The Graduate Center, City University of New York; CORA B. MARRETT, University of Massachusetts; KENNETH PREWITT, Social Science Research Council; BURTON H. SINGER, Princeton University; NEIL SMELSER, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; SIDNEY VERBA, Harvard University; KENNETH W. WACHTER, University of California, Berkeley; MICHELLE J. WHITE, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Officers and Staff: KENNETH PREWITT, President; KRISTINE DAHLBERG, Chief Financial Officer; MARY BYRNE MCDONNELL, Executive Program Director; ELSA DIXLER, Editor; ITTY ABRAHAM,BEVERLEE BRUCE,JOSH DEWIND,DIANE DI MAURO,ERIC HERSHBERG,RONALD KASSIMIR,FRANK KESSEL,ROBERT LATHAM,ELLEN PERECMAN,SHERI H. RANIS,JUDITH B. SEDAITIS,DAVID WEIMAN,KENTON W. WORCESTER.

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68\ITEMS ISSN 0049-0903 VOLUME 52, NUMBERS 2/3