Rigas Arvanitis

Science in Africa: An overview of mainstream scientific output

The total scientific output of mainstream articles for the 15 most productive African countries for the period 1991 to 1997 was 45,080, with South Africa and Egypt publishing 15,725 and 10,433, respectively. The productions of these two top ranked countries varied little from 1991-1997 while others such as the Maghreb countries increased between 75-102%. Total contributions were mainly in the fields of Clinical Medicine (36%), Biology (17%), Chemistry (14%), and Biomedical Research (12%). Papers in international collaboration were overriding in Biomedical Research, Biology, Earth and Space Science, and Physics. Institutions in the US were the principal collaborators followed closely by those in France.

Science in Africa: A Bibliometric Panorama Using PASCAL Database

PASCAL, whose troublesome artefacts we highlight, also has its strong points (multidisciplinarity, codification of the topic of each article, better coverage of some countries). As other sources, it shows that the current decade is one of crisis in African research. However, developments are highly contrasted, depending on the discipline and the regions. To the north of Africa, the Maghreb is witnessing an unprecedented gain in power. Nigerian science is in quite the contrary situation, imploding. In the rest of Africa, classification of countries brings to evidence very striking changes in order. Basic science declines. The Agricultural and the Medical sciences are stagnating. Conversely, the Engineering sciences are growing, in particular to the North of the Sahara.

Who frames the debate on the Arab uprisings? Analysis of Arabic, English, and French academic scholarship

Since 2010, there has been a proliferation of literature (newspaper articles and scholarly publications) on the recent uprisings in some Arab countries. This article focuses on the way the academic articles have perceived the Arab uprisings and the ways in which we portray them in scientific discourse, taking into account the social forces that come into play in the production of knowledge. In line with Bruno Latour, this study analyzes (1) what knowledge on the Arab uprisings is made of; (2) who produces and who frames the debate (network of authors); (3) semiotic analysis; and (4) quantitative measures of ‘sociological markers,’ such as discipline, language, and institutional affiliation. The study is based on a database of around 519 articles (from Web of Science, Scopus, E-Marefa, Cairn) dealing with the Arab uprisings from January 2011 up to now.

Cooperation between France and Venezuela in the field of catalysis

Rigas Arvanitis is a researcher at the Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD, ex-ORSTOM), 32 av. H. Varagnat, 93143 Bondy cedex, France. Hebe Vessuri is senior researcher in the Department of Science Studies at the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research, Carretera Panamericana, Km 11, Caracas, Venezuela. Both authors are interested in problems of scientific and technological learning in developing countries.

The marginalization of the Arab language in social science: Structural constraints and dependency by choice

This article aims at questioning the relationship between Arab social research and language by arguing that many factors including the political economy of publication, globalization, internationalization and commodification of higher education have marginalized peripheral languages such as Arabic. The authors demonstrate, on the one hand, that this marginalization is not necessarily structurally inevitable but indicates dependency by choice, and, on the other hand, how globalization has reinforced the English language hegemony. This article uses the results of a questionnaire survey about the use of references in PhD and Master’s theses. The survey, which was answered by 165 persons, targeted those who hold a Master’s or PhD degree from any university in the Arab world or who have dealt with a topic related to the Arab world, no matter in which discipline.