Svetla Koleva
Research Interests: Non-hegemonic theories and practices; Central and Eastern European sociology; Circuits of knowledge production; Social Transformation and Conflicts; Mass Consciousness and Values; & New Forms of Civic Activism
Non-hegemonic theory and post-Western spaces of scientific knowledge production: the case of Central and Eastern European Sociologies
The project is part of the critique of hegemonic Western thought in the social sciences that has been expanding in Africa, Latin America and the Arab world over the past twenty years. The intention is to broaden the reflection on epistemic inequalities including the academic space of Central and Eastern Europe before and after 1989. By comparing two very different socio-historical periods, those of the communist regimes and post-communism, the project examines the national contexts of the practice of sociology in Central and Eastern Europe in order to identify the circuits of knowledge production which through the life of legacies, the trajectories of theories and methods, loci of controversy contribute to creating post-Western spaces of scientific production. It remains to be explored whether these spaces overturn old hierarchies, break down epistemic invisibilities and lead to worldwide recognition and reception independently of the place of knowledge production.
The project is fully in line with the scientific orientations and research concerns of the collaborative project Non-Hegemonic Theory and Post-Western Sociology between Asia and Europe led by Laurence Roulleau-Berger (Research Director Emeritus at CNRS, Triangle UMR 5206, ENS Lyon).
Svetla Koleva, DSc, is a professor of sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, an editor-in-chief of the academic journal Sociological Problems (Bulgaria), a member of the Editorial Board of Brill’s Post-Western Social Sciences and Global Knowledge Series, of Papers of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Humanities and Social Sciences and of Politique et Sociétés (Journal of the Quebec Political Science Society).
She has been a visiting professor in France (Toulouse University Jean Jaurès), Canada (Ottawa University, University of Quebec in Montreal, University of Quebec in Outaouais, Gatineau, University of Moncton, Edmundston campus), and Switzerland (Fribourg University).
Her publications are in the fields of history of sociology, sociology of science and knowledge, epistemology of social sciences, political sociology, and sociology of education. Her book Totalitarian Experience and Knowledge Production. Sociology in Central and Eastern Europe, 1945-1989, Brill Publishers (2018) was awarded the Prize for Excellence by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (2020).