Knowledge production and the Arab revolutions :an exploratory study -

Abstract

Knowledge production is an area of study that is often overlooked, particularly with regards to the social sciences and humanities, and even more so with regards to the Arab world. The earliest works in the field are rooted in Karl Mannheim’s work on the Sociology of Knowledge in the first half of the 20th century, which focused on the inter-relations between human knowledge and social contexts. In 1962 Thomas Kuhn published a book entitled “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” which set the stage for the consequent interdisciplinary reflexive study of scientific practice. Today, much of the research dedicated to the production of knowledge is limited to the study of the sciences, and on science and technology studies (STS) in particular. Recent advances in the field have encouraged the expansion of the study of scientific practice to include the production of knowledge in the social sciences and humanities. In a similar vein, new perspectives on the sociology of knowledge have suggested discourse analysis as a means through which knowledge can be understood. In addition, the impact of geography and language, as well as the impact of the political economy on the institutionalization and internationalization of knowledge production and research practice is beginning to emerge. This research study uses content analysis to explore knowledge produced on the Arab Revolutions, published between 2011 and 2012 in both international and Arab refereed journals. The purpose of this study is to delineate differences and similarities in knowledge production practices and discourses across different disciplines, geographies, and languages. It also attempts to explore the ways in which internationalization affects knowledge production on local issues. This research is less focused on the Arab Revolutions as such but rather on the ways in which we as academics and researchers perceive these events and the ways in which we portray them in scientific discourse, taking into account the social forces that c