Our series of seminars addresses the complex role of science in the semi-peripheries—zones considered to play a crucial transmitting function between the center and the peripheries of science. Today, in the networked and globalized world of science, such a bridging function of economic and scientific semi-peripheries seems to be disappearing.
We do not want to limit our understanding of these semi-periphery functions by narrowly focusing on their functional aspect for either the center or the peripheries. Our interest in the global semi-peripheral science systems and organizational modes of scientific enterprise stems from recognizing the creative potential of alternative methods of modernizing (alter-modernization) science and modernizing through science. As both modes were historically present in the global semi-peripheries, we want to explore how their potential may be revitalized and recovered.
Therefore, in our seminars, we will grapple with the issues of alternative approaches to modernization through science, measuring science, and experiencing science present at the peripheries. We will focus on the positive and tangible aspects of the materiality of semi-peripheral scientific enterprise, whether institutionalized or lived through different epistemological projects. We encourage participants and guest speakers to go beyond the simplistic neither/nor false alternative and explore the alter-modern character of the overlooked semi-peripheral science.