Social science as a public fact: publishing, legitimisation, consecration

Abstract

The article explores a constitutive and denied dimension of the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH): their interdependence with systems of interests rooted in non-academic spaces of social life, such as cultural markets, the political, religious or journalistic fields. To this end, we analize the transformation of SSH products as they become symbolic goods that can be communicated to and appropriated by anonymous audiences. Book publishing, the most highly valued format among those who practice any of the disciplines in this great area of knowledge circunscribes the terrain of an exploration such as the one we propose. The publishing system is the laboratory for understanding how the legitimisation and consecration of the ideas generated in the SSH is mediated by agents active outside the circle of specialists. Through practices such as translation or reedition, some of the mechanisms for the duration of ideas over time and their extension in the transnational space are highlighted.