Positioning Post-Soviet Sociology in Global Sociology: Between the Global South and the Global North

Abstract

Sociology in today's world often seeks to internationalise research and globalise problem solving. However, the so-called ‘global sociology’ is far away from being actually global as it involves in the discussion only specific regions and communities. The voice of other regions, as a rule, is not heard in the established system of connections and positions, and the regions themselves act as passive objects of (re)positioning, which is determined by the needs of specific research carried out by the nominally ‘global’ sociological community. The goal of the current study is to position one of the excluded sociological communities – post-soviet sociology – in global sociology using the North-South analytical framework that is frequently applied in discussions of global academic inequalities. The findings suggest that post-soviet sociology is positioned closer to the Global South, though significant country-based differences are observed. Post-soviet sociology functions as fragmented and disconnected, and this is facilitated by its orientation towards the ‘northern’ standards of knowledge production, which is professed even to the detriment of originality and independence.

Keywords

• global south
• global north
• post-soviet sociology
• global sociology
• academic inequalities