Making science international: Chilean journals and communities in the world of science.

Drawing on the evolution of socio-geographical imaginaries of scholarly journals published in Chile, this article provides a picture of the socio-historical trajectories of internationalization of scholarly journals and communities in that part of the (semi-)periphery of science. In order to break with the presentism of many contemporary discussions, the analysis covers a relatively long period of time, from the end of the nineteenth century until the first decades of the twenty-first century. However, based on an inductive analysis of the journals, the article particularly focuses on the rise of nationalist and regionalist orientations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the intensification of the pressures for internationalization in more recent decades. Building on the findings, the article concludes highlighting key elements and making some general observations on the internationalization processes in the semi-periphery of science.

Who Had Faith in Sociology? Scholarly and Ideological Divergences in Belgium around 1900.

ArgumentThis paper examines the early institutionalization of sociology in Belgium. It displays how different intellectual and social contexts bred their own research interests and research approaches. It shows, more particularly, how ideological affiliations and divisions defined the setting within which this new discipline had to develop in Belgium in the decades around 1900. As a consequence of the ideological controversies, sociology had difficulty gaining legitimacy as a theory-driven analysis of society. Most scholars in Belgium could not avoid taking an explicitly normative position on society. This paper also displays how secularization and the reinforcement of the international level and its infrastructure gradually allowed for more academic autonomy for sociology in Belgium.

Disciplined by the discipline: a social-epistemic fingerprint of the history of science.

ARGUMENT: The scientific system is primarily differentiated into disciplines. While disciplines may be wide in scope and diverse in their research practices, they serve scientific communities that evaluate research and also grant recognition to what is published. The analysis of communication and publication practices within such a community hence allows us to shed light on the dynamics of this discipline. On the basis of an empirical analysis of Isis, we show how the process of discipline-building in history of science has led its practitioners to be socialized and sensitized in relatively strong intra-disciplinary terms--with minimal interdisciplinary openness.

Exploring historical conflicts between midwives and nurses: a perspective from Chile.

This article explores issues of historical disputes between nurses and midwives based in Chile. The interaction of these two professions in that country has become an arena of competition which leads to conflicts periodically, such as those related to the ownership of the care of new-borns, and that of projects aimed at relieving nurse shortages by enhancing midwives' nursing skills. Specifically, this article aims to build on historical and contemporary resources analysed from a sociological perspective, and present comparatively a rationale concerning nursing/midwifery jurisdictional conflicts through a social history account. Our analysis suggests that nurses/midwives interaction has been shaped by social-historical transformations and the continuous evolution of the healthcare system as a whole, resulting in a race towards technologisation. These interprofessional conflicts can be explained partly by mechanisms of boundary expansion within an organisational/interpretive domain, as well as varying degrees of medicalisation; and partly by a competition possibly originating from a middle-class consciousness. An eventual merger of the two professions might lead to the enhancement of the political power of the caring professions and integrated care.

Prompting professional prerogatives: new insights to reopen an old debate about nursing.

A profession is defined by neither a set of structural qualities nor a description idiosyncratic to a single culture. Rather, a profession detects problems in an area of work, intellectualizes that work, and offers solutions, developing a logic of competition with coexisting occupations. The best that structural explanations can offer to nursing is rigid, unmovable definitions such as "a semi-profession," whereas the ecological theory of the professions regards the continuous interplay among occupations cohabiting in an interacting system as the fundamental process of gaining or losing professional status. In this theoretically driven article we draw upon the notion of "social ecology of nursing" as a vector of development, arguing that nursing's professional status lies in its ability to adapt to "landscape" transformations and to protect its jurisdiction from competitors, equating fully established professions. In discussing the application of this theory, we invite readers to reopen a debate about the professional nature of nursing, considering cross-national versions of nursing for more comprehensive definitions of the profession.

Academisation of nursing: An ethnography of social transformations in Chile.

BACKGROUND: Nursing in Chile is considered to be the leading example of professional development in Latin America - nurses must undertake five years of university education on a full-time programme. Academisation of nursing education is a key aspect in the evolution into professional status. The consequences of education, however, are commonly related to the replication of social institutions and structures that perpetuate social inequalities. OBJECTIVE: The study's aim was to comprehend the consequences of nursing academisation and its relationships with the social transformations which that country has witnessed. METHODS: We draw upon ethnographic data, gathered between 2010 and 2011 in a 500-bed, high-quality university hospital in Chile. Participants were nurses ranging from beginners to experienced professionals and recruited from wards representing technically expert nursing and caring-oriented nursing. The data were organised to allow the development of concepts and patterns, using the Grounded Theory approach. RESULTS: Despite the fact that Chilean nursing originated from the educated elite class, today's nurses share a middle-class consciousness, and a sense of class distinction is encouraged throughout academic training - the 'eliteness' of professional groups. This discourse antagonises middle-class people who 'should' adopt a professional-class identity. A tension among nurses surfaced, based on a competition for a scarce resource: social mobility. Furthermore, an antagonist stratification between university-trained nurses and auxiliary nurses has developed, and in the process the title 'nurse' and the practice of 'nursing' have been monopolised by university-trained nurses, resulting in a relationship of domination-subordination. CONCLUSIONS: The academisation process followed by Chilean nursing is rooted in the social-class transformations of that country. Such process has been ineffective in preventing social inequalities, resulting in the reproduction of earlier historical class differences in nursing, inhibiting nurses' individual development. Class differences are manifest in the socially constructed distinction between the nurse and the auxiliary nurse, resulting in a schism of the nursing family. By reconstituting a broken-up occupation, the political power of nursing could be strengthened.