Proceedings of The 7th World Conference on Social Sciences
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Critical Research and Science in Chile (2000-2022): The Construction of Facticity
Claudio Ramos-Zincke
ABSTRACT:
Critical social thinking maintains an ambivalent relationship with science. Substantial criticism of it has come, in recent decades, from feminism and decolonialism. This presentation addresses the way in which Chilean critical social research uses the tools of science for the construction of facticity, its validation procedures and the notion of truth that it applies in its construction process, seeking to see how such a relationship is manifested in the practice and in the appreciation of researchers. It is based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of 167 critical texts published between 2000 and 2022, and interviews with 55 of their authors. Among its results, the following stand out as characteristics of critical investigative practice: an evasive treatment of the truth; a high appreciation of empirical evidence; a significant change in theoretical tools and epistemological assumptions; the dissemination of new metanarratives; the exploration of new participatory methodological tools, but by small groups, with operational limitations and little irradiation; the lack of effective roots of the notion of “catalytic validity” and a tacit, unacknowledged adherence to a Habermasian notion of truth.
keywords: critical social science, participatory methodology, diffraction, situated knowledge, catalytic validity