Project Launch and International Collaboration
Since April 2026, the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (IAI) has been coordinating the Franco-German research project "TRANSUR: Transformed by the South. The Circulation of Latin American Social Sciences in France and Germany". The co-applicant is the Sociétés, Acteurs, Gouvernement en Europe(SAGE (external link, opens in a new window)) Research Center at the Université de Strasbourg (external link, opens in a new window). Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG (external link, opens in a new window)) and the Agence nationale de la recherche(ANR) (external link, opens in a new window), the project will run through March 2029 and will also be carried out in collaboration with the Institut des Hautes Études de l'Amérique latine (external link, opens in a new window) at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (external link, opens in a new window) in Paris.
The project kicked off with a hybrid kick-off meeting held at the IAI in Berlin on April 21, 2026. A total of twelve researchers from Germany, France, and Latin America are collaborating within the TRANSUR consortium to examine key issues related to the international circulation of knowledge. The first annual workshop will take place at the IAI from 14 to 16 September 2026. Participants will also gain access to the IAI’s extensive library and archive collections, which serve as a key resource for research on Latin America.
During the kick-off event, Prof. Dr. Capucine Boidin (external link, opens in a new window), Vice President for Research at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle and a project partner, emphasized the particular importance of robust structures for Franco-German cooperation. She highlighted that information infrastructures are becoming increasingly sensitive and, at the same time, crucial for future generations of researchers.
Research Approach and Central Questions
TRANSUR focuses on a perspective that has received little attention to date: the circulation of knowledge in the social sciences from the Global South to the Global North. The project will conduct a comparative analysis of how Latin American thought has been received in France and Germany from the 1950s to the present.
The project explores three key questions: How has this South-North circulation evolved over time? What factors promote or hinder it? And how do Latin American approaches shape academic debates and fields of research in Europe?
Three dimensions and an interdisciplinary approach
The research is structured along three closely interconnected dimensions, which at the same time form the project’s work packages:
First, institutionalisation, that is, the creation and development of research structures, programmes and infrastructures; second, reception and exchange, that is, the concrete appropriation, modification or even rejection of ideas; and third, translation, which plays a key role in the international dissemination and transformation of knowledge.
These dimensions are analyzed from the perspectives of the sociology of knowledge and the history of ideas, and supplemented by approaches from political science, anthropology, science and technology studies, and information and library science.
Objectives and expected outcomes
TRANSUR pursues three overarching objectives:
- The provision of comparable empirical data on the hitherto under-researched circulation of knowledge from the Global South to the Global North.
- The further development of theoretical and methodological perspectives on global asymmetries in knowledge production.
- The strengthening of cooperation and complementarity between French and German research institutions with a focus on Latin America.
The results will be published in various formats, including articles in indexed journals, compilations, and policy papers, and will be made available in multiple languages and as open access. In addition, the findings will be presented at international conferences, and portions of the research data will be made available for further use.
Through TRANSUR, the IAI strengthens its role as a key platform for international, interdisciplinary research on Latin America and at the same time sets new impulses for the analysis of global knowledge entanglements.
