Wiener B.E., Divisenko K.S. (2024) Dissertation Loci and Areas: the Case of Soviet and Post-Soviet Ethnology. Sociology of Science and Technology. Vol. 15. No. 3. Pp. 133-156.

Текст статьи на сайте журнала URL: http://sst.nw.ru/Files/2024/2024_3-8.pdf (дата обращения 15.11.2024)

Abstract

Using information about dissertations on ethnography / ethnology prepared in the USSR and postSoviet countries, the authors discuss the zones of contact between the cognitive and social structures of ethnology as a scientific discipline. Such zones are designated as dissertation loci and areas. The dissertation locus refers to the set of dissertations prepared at one institution and the collection of ethnologists who prepared these dissertations. The locus is characterized by a certain assemblage of topics, the totality of which is statistically different from the sets of topics in the other loci. Several dissertation loci may be part of a dissertation area, or a set of ethnological institutions (ethnological divisions of institutions) located in the same city, region or country (former Soviet republic). The concepts of loci and areas make it possible to unite researchers employed in different institutions and localities, and also make it possible to take into account the organizational drift of a locus, for example, during the administrative merger / division of institutions or when locus leaders who act as research advisors and consultants change the institution of employment. The article demonstrates that the methods of vector algebra and mathematical statistics allow to identify confidently for some cases dissertation loci and areas in the course of the analysis of dissertation. Examples of autonomous loci include ethnological departments in Vladivostok and Ivano-Frankovsk. Several autonomous loci which do not form common areas coexist in Izhevsk and Kazan. On the contrary, loci in Saransk, Omsk, and Lvov are united into common areas. At the same time, comparison of loci by topic does not give for most cases, when several ethnological loci are located in one city, an unambiguous answer about the possibility of combining them into common areas such as, for example, in Ufa and Yakutsk. The same can be said about the possibility of combining the Institute of Ethnology and anthropology of the Russia Academy of Sciences and the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences into one area.