Arduous Institutionalization in Argentina’s SSH: Expansion, Asymmetries and Segmented Circuits of Recognition

Abstract

Argentina is an interesting case to explore the institutionalization and professionalization of the social sciences and humanities outside the traditional centers of excellence. It is currently a dynamic and dominantly public scientific field, which in the last ten years has experienced an impressive expansion of its research capacities, leading to rapid scientific development and increasing internationalization. As in other historical periods (e.g.: 1958-1966), Argentina arrived to a state of growth that could evolve to become a significant international academic node. Nevertheless, as it happened in the past, expansion phases are interrupted by the alteration of political and economic conditions for scientific activity.The recent assumption of government by a right wing coalition has questioned the expansion of full-time researchers at the main public agency for scientific research (CONICET for its Spanish acronym) and has made a major cut back in the budget for science and technology. In order to understand the singularity of this type of ?peripheral-center?, thus, it is relevant to describe, on one hand, cycles of expansion and contraction, institutionalization and de-institutionalization. On the other hand, it is critical to observe the impact of these cycles in the development of circuits of production and circulationof SSH knowledge: ones clearly internationalized and the others rather nationally-oriented. The main task of this chapter is to describe the current state of the research capacities in the SSH resulting after the recent expansion, in order to analyse the co-existing and diverse principles of legitimation existing in Argentina?s scientific-universitary field. This work is focused on the public National Universities (UUNN, for its Spanish acronym) and the CONICET because these are the main pillars of a dominantly public scientific field. Besides, scientific policies have concentrated human and material resources at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), widening the distance with public Universities located in the hinterlands and increasing the division between research and teaching. Together with the institutional expansion, concentration of resources in traditional and more prestigious universities have reinforced geographical asymmetries and the unequal distribution of scientific power between disciplines, thus deepening the structural heterogeneity of the field. As we analyse in the last part of this text, while natural and exact sciences participate actively in mainstream publishing circuits, the SSH tend to feed the national journals and only an internationalized elite gets involved mainly in regional circuits.