An Article Valued More Than a Book?!? On the Destruction of the Interpretative Sovereignty of Serbian Society

Abstract

The article analyzes the consequences of the reductionist application of criteria typical of the natural, mainly laboratory sciences, in the process of evaluation of the results of the work of researchers and institutions in all the other scientific disciplines, mainly in the field of social sciences and humanities, in the Republic of Serbia. As an example of this trend, the analysis focuses on the absurd criteria, currently in effect, for the conducting of PhD studies in the field of social sciences and humanities, which exclude the scientific books written by lecturers and only value articles published in journals. After this, the ignorance, misapprehensions, logical fallacies and interests which might be behind these criteria are analyzed. Special attention in the analysis is given to the reduction of global to fundamental. It is concluded that the application of the criteria currently in effect leads to the loss of interpretative sovereignty, which occurs when institutions, authors, referees and editors who are highly competent experts in regional and national issues are sacrificed in favor of foreign owners, institutions, authors, referees and editors that, by and large, possess less competence and expertise in regional and national issues, and have non-scientific interests and loyalties which don’t necessarily coincide with the interests of Serbian citizens. Finally, the consequences of the ongoing ethnocidal renunciation of scientific interpretative sovereignty are considered, especially the relinquishing of interpretations of history, identity and interconnected cultural issues and social problems to nonscientific discourses in Serbian society. Discourses which inevitably fill the empty room left in the public sphere by the ever-faster extinguishing of journals and publications in Serbian and the languages of ethnic minorities.