Systems of ideas

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Ideas do not circulate on their own. The circulation of ideas and knowledge depends on a series of social factors and the action of cultural intermediaries.

The circulation of ideas can be studied from four main perspectives. We can focus on systems of ideas: paradigms, theories and ideologies, such as the international circulation of Marxism, structuralism and neoliberalism. How were these ideas imported? Who were the actors of this importation and how were they appropriated? What controversies did they raise?

Sometimes, we discover that such theories and paradigms were themselves constructed in transnational and transcultural settings. This was the case for structuralism, which emerged through encounters between migrant refugee scholars Roman Jakobson and Claude Lévi-Strauss, international conferences and the circulation of bodies of work such as Russian formalism.

French theory, another similar example, does not actually exist as such in France. This label encompasses very different thinkers such as Barthes, Derrida and Foucault. In France, they would not be grouped together; but in the United States, they were gathered as thinkers in opposition to the dominant philosophical paradigm. The expression “French theory” was thus coined in the United States in the reception process of these thinkers, in French departments at universities, and circulated from there around the world.

Institutions and key authors

Secondly, we can focus on institutions and organisations that host and contribute to the shaping of intellectual production and consumption. These include university departments, research centres, laboratories, associations and publishers. For example, neoliberal ideas were developed by the Mont Pelerin Society, an international organisation that has gathered thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises and Karl Popper.

Thirdly, we can focus on “authors”, especially those considered “key authors”. Key authors succeed in becoming a reference in their discipline and beyond; their theories circulate across disciplines and across countries. One example is Pierre Bourdieu, whose works have been translated into more than 30 languages across 40 countries.

Reception of Bourdieu

We can observe different stages in the reception of Bourdieu’s work. He was discovered as a specialist in sociology of education, sociology of culture and anthropology, so the reception of his work was fragmented not only across the world but across different specialities. However, at some point after the publication of his book Distinction, which was translated into English by Harvard University Press in 1984, his reception changed. There was a unification of all his work, and he became known across the world as a social theorist.

The mid-1990s marked a new stage of politicisation, as Bourdieu became committed to the struggle against neoliberalism. He became a global public intellectual, widely discussed in the media as well as the academic community. Finally, after his death, Bourdieu has become a classic – he is one of the most cited social scientists in the world today, and his work continues to be translated and discussed.

Material circulation of ideas

The fourth way we can address the circulation of knowledge is by focusing on how ideas circulate materially. If we examine the material channels of the circulation of ideas, we observe that, within the academic field, this circulation occurs in specific settings such as conferences, journals and books. Natural scientists tend to publish more in journals; humanities scholars tend to publish in book form; and social scientists oscillate between these two models. Each of these forms may circulate either nationally or internationally and require economic means. Let’s consider these economic issues.

The circulation of knowledge depends on either or both public and private funding. Knowledge has become a profitable area, with investments made by large publishing groups. These groups have imposed a new economic model to enhance profit.

Consequences of “gold open access”

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Scholars have to pay to participate in conferences or to publish in journals. This is especially true for publishing in open access, which is called “gold open access”, as opposed to “green open access”.

Gold open access is very expensive for the human and social sciences – journals can request €2,000 or €3,000 to publish an article. Many universities and labs in the social sciences and the humanities cannot afford such costs. In addition, many university libraries are unable to pay for subscriptions to these journals.

As a result, a gap between rich and poor universities is created, producing unequal access to knowledge within academia. Beyond this economic injustice, these circumstances lead to another concern: the private appropriation of knowledge and research funding for business interests.

Shouldn’t knowledge be protected as a universal value that anyone can access? We need to find a fair model to pay for the work of the actors of this circulation when they are not funded by public resources. The same applies to the publication and translation of books.

Book publishing and translation

In the Anglo-American world, academic publishing is separate from the trade book market, whereas in European countries like France, Germany and Italy, there is still a tradition of publishing social and human science books within trade publishing.

This tradition has an important consequence – knowledge produced in academia receives attention in the media and participates directly in public debate. Conversely, articles in academic journals, even if they are open access, are too specialised for this.

Furthermore, scholars are often interviewed in the media as experts on current issues. They can exert a critical function as public intellectuals, just as Arendt, Foucault, Bourdieu and Habermas did, and Thomas Piketty and Judith Butler do today.

In this way, knowledge does not only serve the dominant governments or companies that require expertise but can also be appropriated to criticise the dominant ideology or public policies.

Books still play a major role in the social and human sciences, especially in history, sociology, philosophy, anthropology and literary studies. It is worth noting that there is a significant production of books on economics by heterodox economists, as opposed to orthodox economists, who principally publish articles.

Scholarly books in translation

If we study the flows of translation of scholarly books from one language to another, we can observe some patterns that highlight the uneven power relations between languages and intellectual traditions, as well as the role of cultural intermediaries in the selection process – including translators, publishers, literary agents, academics and State representatives.

These uneven power relations should be interpreted in light of six different factors. The first is power relations between languages and cultures. Books written in a central language like English, French or German are more likely to get translated than those written in peripheral languages. This is even more the case if we take into account the prestige – or symbolic capital – of a specific intellectual tradition such as German philosophy.

The second factor is symbolic capital and other properties of the author. Some classical authors, like Hobbes, Kant and Rousseau, or modern classics, like Arendt, Foucault and Lévi-Strauss, hold a great amount of symbolic capital enclosed in their very names, which function like a brand, meaning their books are more likely to get translated than those of unknown authors.

The opportunity for authors deprived of international symbolic capital to be translated depends on other properties such as the prestige of the institutions where they were educated, and of those they belong to, and also gender. It appears that a female author is less likely to be translated than a male one; the same applies to minorities.

The third factor is properties of the book itself. For unknown authors on the international scene, properties such as the originality of the topic, timeliness (relevance to political issues or fashionable topics), style (publishers prefer more narrative books to address a larger audience) and length are key.

Publishers, networks and funding

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Fourthly, the symbolic capital of the publisher(s) – both the publisher of the original book and that of the publisher of the translation – attest to the role of intermediaries. Dominant publishers such as Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Harvard University Press or Princeton University Press are able to export their books more than smaller publishers; the same is true for large trade publishers in Europe such as Le Seuil, Gallimard or Suhrkamp.

However, it is less the size of the publishing house and more its reputation in the area of the social and human sciences that is determinant. For instance, the small publisher Galilée has acquired a reputation as Derrida’s publisher and has been able to transfer this symbolic capital to other authors. The publisher of the translation also plays a major role. In 1984, Harvard University Press published Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction, which then became an international reference. In addition to publishers, literary agents have started to play a major role in the social sciences and humanities.

The fifth factor is networks. Both academic and publishing networks facilitate the circulation of books in translation. Academic networks materialise international social capital; publishing networks are professional but often involve more personal relationships.

Funding is the sixth factor. Due to the economic crisis of the book market since the 1990s, the translation of scholarly books increasingly depends on funding. Access to funding may depend on the author’s reputation and that of the publisher.

Cultural intermediaries

Ideas do not circulate randomly. They depend on the materiality of specific channels and on symbolic and social capital, which is unevenly distributed. They also depend on the role of cultural intermediaries.

These intermediaries may have various interests – political, economic and cultural. Although these interests can be intertwined, sometimes one prevails over the others. As an example of political interests, the circulation of Marxist thought has been favoured by (but not limited to) Marxist networks and publishers.

Publishers and agents may have economic interests in translating (or choosing not to translate) a scholarly book. Some books become best-sellers, like Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The interest of intermediaries in this book was not only commercial – its success was due to the context of the economic crisis and the debate surrounding the wealthiest 1%.

To give an example of cultural interests, some scholars may invest in translation for free, either to promote certain ideas, theories or paradigms, or to get recognition, or both.

Thus, intermediaries not only select but also label the books they import, as Bourdieu underscored.

Discover more about

how knowledge circulates

Sapiro, G., Santoro, M., & Baert, P. (Eds.). (2020). Ideas on the Move in the Social Sciences and Humanities: The International Circulation of Paradigms and Theorists. Palgrave Macmillan.

Sapiro, G. (2018). What Factors Determine the International Circulation of Scholarly Books? The example of translations between English and French in the era of globalization. In Heilbron, J., Sora, G., & Boncourt, T. (Eds), The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations (pp. 59-93). Palgrave MacMillan.

Sapiro, G. (2017). On the Social Life of Ideas and the Persistence of the Author in the Social and Human Sciences. Sociologica, 2017(1).

Bridging cultures and questioning the canon