What Human and Social Sciences for the 21st Century: Some Perspectives from the South

Cette contribution a été enregistrée dans le cadre du Congrès national du GIS Réseau des MSH qui s'est tenu à Caen les 6 et 7 décembre 2012.

 La recherche en sciences humaines a connu dans le dernier demi-siècle des évolutions considérables. Presque tout en fait a bougé : la réalité des sociétés a considérablement changé, les constructions théoriques, les méthodes, les façons de travailler, l'organisation de la recherche, les institutions qui portent et structurent la recherche ont connu de grandes modifications.

Whilediscussing the human and social sciences in the 21st century we needto first remind ourselves that historical periodisation does not necessarilyfollow 100 year sets. The 19th Century for instance is often seen tocontinue till World War I and  theTwentieth Century is seen to end with the fall of the Berlin wall and thedissolution  of the Soviet Union in December1991. AsI shall argue presently, what this periodisation meant for that  part of the world which we can loosely callthe South did not necessarily match with what it meant for the developed worldagain loosely characterised as the North or perhaps more appropriately theWest. However,  by and large I use thisperiodisation to suggest that many of the new challenges of the 21stcentury emerge in the last decades of the 20th century.