A Manifesto.

Since its beginnings as an independent magazine, EspacesTemps has developed its approach in four different documents known as “manifestos” (1976; 1981; 1995; 2007), all of which have been milestones in the journal’s development. This new manifesto sets out why and how EspacesTemps needs to create something new in order to be more faithful to its project.

The journal is based on the conviction that a science of the social is both necessary and possible. The social exists as a specific reality, it can be thought of as such and, under certain conditions, it can be transformed by all those involved. In fact, those who explore and seek to understand social worlds are all working on more or less the same problems and issues. This observation does not call into question the need for more work on limited and circumscribed subjects. But it also calls for the creation of forums for discussion that allow us to look beyond individual cases and cross-reference the various dimensions of life in society.

However, the permanent disciplinary divisions indented by institutions, defined independently of what each “territory” contains and what each “frontier” fragments, have shown their weaknesses. In fact, innovation almost always takes place on the margins of the most established fields, and if we want to encourage it, we must obviously not create insurmountable barriers. The problem is particularly acute in the French-speaking world, where the French state has tended to confine research within a centralised, rigid and fragmented bureaucratic framework.

Our approach to the science of the social is situated in the more general perspective of contemporary science. The latter are striving to develop the objective component of knowledge through unlimited reflexivity, from the most concrete approaches to those, ever more elaborate, that seek to stand back from the knowledge already constructed. This presupposes that the theoretical and epistemological components of research take their rightful place, which is far from being the case today in the sciences in general and the social sciences in particular. Hence EspacesTemps‘ particular concern to ensure that, beyond the distinctions between the qualitative and the quantitative or the inductive and the deductive, theories and concepts are at the heart of the journal’s attentions.

Moreover, the effectiveness of research also depends on the autonomy of scientific work. EspacesTemps rejects any allegiance to an ideology that would give political opinions or allegiance to a group primacy over the results of research. The ambition to rise to the challenge of objectivity is an integral part of any scientific approach. This goal can be achieved without the slightest naivety: researchers and their environments do not live in a bubble but play a full part in social life. If we are to live up to the contract that the world of research has with society, we need to treat this immersion and researchers’ motivations of all kinds not as a hindrance but as a resource to give research a greater capacity for action and, ultimately, to enable it to become more inventive as well as more rigorous.

Finally, the journal works to maintain a permanent dialogue with other fields of knowledge that are sources of inspiration for the science of the social: social technologies (law, education, urban planning, etc.), mathematics, the sciences of matter and life – with the technologies that are connected to them -, the arts and philosophy. EspacesTemps endeavours to multiply the transitions from one register to another by means of ‘translations’ and ‘transmutations’ that are never self-evident. The resources of other fields, however remote, can create major proximities and convergences, provided that the circulation of ideas does not cause them to lose their initial qualities in the process.

Scientific work consists of a specific combination of reason and truth, and our political commitment is to contribute to the co-production of these raw materials, which are also two public goods. These are components of any development process in contemporary societies, and the world of research has, more than anyone else, a responsibility to protect them and make them prosper.

While the EspacesTemps approach responds to a long-term intellectual project, it also corresponds to an analysis of what already exists.

Certain recent developments are cause for concern. While research work is increasingly suffering from the fragmentation of disciplines within the “social sciences” or “humanities”, countless texts are being written by a growing number of researchers whose careers depend largely on the number of publications they produce. Combined with the risk of innovation being curtailed by peer review, and reinforced by the proliferation of micro-thematic journals, this inflationary phenomenon is condensed into an impoverished mainstream, against which a hierarchy is built not based on the quality of contributions but on other criteria. A standardisation with a hegemonic tendency is taking hold, making the publication system a weak link in scientific invention. Last but not least, “predatory” platforms with little regard for content and journals that claim to have no editorial line are not serving scientific work. As for “portal” approaches, which offer impoverished access to knowledge, their effect is to erase the singularity of journals and make the work required to produce a quality scientific publication invisible.

We therefore believe that it is in the interests of research to have journals that publish articles with an explicit editorial project. EspacesTemps exists to give life and strength to these ideas, these approaches, these horizons. It is a magazine, not a simple website, platform, portal, forum or blog. It does not publish messages or posts, but scientific articles. The journal selects the texts it publishes according to a strict procedure, after supporting their authors in an interactive and iterative process. This is done in the spirit of an editorial line, which this Manifesto expresses.

The journal has adopted a pragmatic approach to implementing this policy. It has sometimes been backed by academic institutions or platforms, on the express condition that this facilitates its work of publishing and disseminating research without in any way weakening its approach.

Since 2022, EspacesTemps has become a totally independent scientific publisher. Thanks to its independence, jthe journal has been able to develop its project by offering the public a unique perspective on the publishing landscape. This identity is built on its intellectual orientations, but also on its original operating mode, with its openness to non-verbal languages and unconventional writing, its double-transparent evaluations and its support for the writing process well upstream of publication. This is how EspacesTemps modestly hopes to influence the dynamics of research in social science.

In return, the magazine must, through an effective economic model, provide itself with the means for its independence – a coherent economic model: it thus develops productive exchanges with institutions, it invites those who care about its existence to give their support… While waiting, perhaps one day soon, for the direct contribution of its readers, without whom, at the end of the day, a magazine is nothing.

Working in the field of research, as much as in any creative process, mediation (whatever name we give it, for example “editing” or “production”) brings, in our opinion, considerable added value. This involves providing a coherent framework on which (in the case of the written word) researchers and the general public can draw to make the most of their reading. It is this demanding mediation that EspacesTemps endeavours to provide, seeing itself on the whole confirmed in the choice it has made since 1975 of a scientific publication that is committed, by all available means and whatever the cost, to publishing work that is likely to advance knowledge. Recent developments have encouraged the journal to move even more decisively in this direction.

EspacesTemps. 1976. « Manifeste ». 4 : 3-17. https://doi.org/10.3406/espat.1976.2930

EspacesTemps. 1981. « Réfléchir les sciences sociales : pour une nouvelle revue ». 21 : 6-14. https://doi.org/10.3406/espat.1981.3150

EspacesTemps. 1995. « Réfléchir infléchir. Le Manifeste d’EspacesTemps ». Tiré à part.

EspacesTemps.net. 2007. « Se projeter, ensemble. EspacesTemps.net, un devenir à construire ». dans la Traverse « L’avenir de la revue en débat ». https://www.espacestemps.net/articles/se-projeter-ensemble/