Reconstructing the social sciences: a commentary on university education

Abstract

Faced with the dizzying socio-economic and cultural changes in our current globalized neoliberal world, study plans have been seriously affected in their structure and objectives, mostly negatively - although not in every way. Use of ICTs, didactic tools and strengthening of pedagogical training are among the affirmative changes; but the thinning of the theoretical-methodological area, the invalidity of basic preparation subjects with a view to specialization, and the abandonment of the research area are among the cons. In this era of emptiness (Lipovetsky, 2000), in this risky society (Beck, 2008), in this liquid modernity (Bauman, 2000), where “the certainty of the kingdom of entropy translates into qualitative degradation, in the disappearance of differences, in the loss of effective energy. The history of men… it is the symbolic and the rite, the empire of signs and sacrificial actions that provide the means to maintain order” (Balandier, 1989: 25), How should we rebuild the social sciences from within? How to respond to the declared war on methodology? What does interdisciplinarity pose for us in the reconstruction project?