Authors

Katerina Guba¹;  ¹ Personal capacity, Russian Federation

Discussion

This presentation aims to present the preliminary results of the study of the center-periphery model in the production of knowledge about Russia. The popular narrative about the field of post-soviet studies focuses on the global disparities in knowledge production. According to this narrative, Russian researchers are considered as useful resource due to access to local data and cultural identity while international researchers receive the main symbolical recognition as they develop and present hegemonic intellectual narratives based on knowledge of locals. While three decades ago this description might have been accurate, it is reasonable to suggest that the present configuration of knowledge production has be changed. Is it still true that the dominance of Western European and North American academic institutions persists in knowledge production about Russia or imprint of center-periphery relations has been overcome? What are empirical signs of the intellectual (de)colonization of Russian studies? What is the role of local expertise, expressed through an institutional or linguistic connection with Russia? We employed diverse bibliometric methods for identification papers devoted to Russia as empirical object. The use of 1300 keywords relevant to Russia resulted in 23,850 articles stored from Web of Science for the period 1990-2020.