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Ivan Tchalakov (University of Plovdiv) |
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Is it all change? No: "We have a lot of stability in the world."
Why do you think, from your very personal involvement with cultural thinking, that a topological approach can help understand contemporary cultural dynamics? Frankly speaking, I do not know what 'the culture' is, neither what 'the nature' is. We are living in a pre-modern heterogeneous world (yet packed with much more artefacts and modified natural entities than before). So what was appealing to me in this project was to see what topological approach could offer a better understanding of the dynamics of the heterogeneous nature/culture/technologies/texts etc. we are living in. It proved to be very successful in the natural sciences, so why should it not be applied in our 'soft' fields, too?
What does that mean concretely? In particular, it is interesting to see the comparative advantages of topological approach towards other approaches I used until now for a similar research task. Possible examples here might be the combined use of cluster analysis and correspondence analysis/homogeneity analysis, as well as some types of network analyses and networks visualisation software (for instance, Reseau Lu, Usinet).
What might your involvement in this project be? First, me and my colleague Donka Keskinova would like to listen and read a little more. Then it is the comparative aspects between topological approach and the approaches I mentioned before that is most interesting for me. At a later stage, I would be glad to apply some sort of topological approach to some of my current research projects.
Which crossdisciplinary combinations do you expect to profit particularly from the topological approach? I am studying sociology of science and technology, but also a more interdisciplinary field of sociology/economic of creative industries. I got quite significant databases in these industries, including time series.
If change is one main feature of culture today, why is this approach helpful in conceptualizing or understanding cultural change? I do not fully agree with this. Rather, it only seems that change is a main feature today. In fact, however, we have a lot of stability in the world we are leaving in. So in my view it is not the change, but the stability underlying these changes that allows for the application of the topological approach. And as I said, since early 1990s, I have never been treating cultural change independently of changes in nature and of technologies.
Can everything in culture really be measured in numbers? Of course it can! It all depends on what kind of numbers and mathematical models behind you are applying! (laughs)
One idea of the approach is that it avoids normative judgements. Is that not risky, or might it lead to a "neutral" and ultimately empty understanding of culture? Yes, this is the most appealing feature of the topological approach. But it is not unique to it. Correspondence analysis, as it was initially intended and developed by Bensecri, for instance, was 'neutral' with respect to its data, too. So when I say 'neutral', I mean that a method should allow for a clear distinction between what is coming 'from the data' on the one hand and what 'you kick off', your own conceptual schemes and value judgments, on the other. The latter are always there, too. This is normal. The scientific 'culture' does involve a certain 'perspectiveness' to the world. The trick is to control it.
CV: Ivan Tchalakov is the head of the Sociology Department at Plovdiv University. He has become Associate Professor there in 1997. Before, he had completed his Habilitation at the University of Sofia's Institute of Sociology in 1996. He also wrote his PhD at that institute. Ivan Tchalakov is president of the foundation "Institute for Financial Studies and Innovation", an NGO promoting development of innovative entrepreneurs and high technologies in Bulgaria (www.innovation-bg.com). His main fields of research are the sociology of science and technology, and the sociology of knowledge.
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