Events
[CSSL@CUHK Webinar] The Space of Chinese Sociologists and the Opinions on the Localization of Chinese Social Sciences: An Inquiry Through Machine Learning (Geometrical Data Analysis)
29 Jul 2025
9:30 am to 11:00 am (UTC+8,HKT)
Prof. Aurélien Boucher
Aurélien Boucher is an Assistant Professor (Teaching) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, where he teaches General Education and Computational Social Sciences (MPhil-PhD). He obtained his Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR) from the University of Paris Cité in 2025 and his PhD in Sociology in 2013 from the University of Nantes, France.
Since the mid-1920s, Chinese sociologists have explored different paths toward the localization/sinicization of social sciences. While sociologists are now invited by the Chinese government to develop “social sciences with Chinese characteristics” and an “autonomous system of knowledge” to “tell beautiful stories about China,” vigorous academic debates are ongoing. Based on the International Chinese Sociologists Value survey, our article explores the possible structural homology between the position of Chinese sociologists and their position taking on the localization debate by using geometrical data analysis, that are methods belonging to “Machine Learning” and widely used by Pierre Bourdieu for its capacity to investigate the “relational nature” of societies.
While focusing on the specific cases of Chinese sociologists, this seminar will be an opportunity for computational social scientists to become more familiar with Geometrical Data Analysis, also named Correspondence Analysis and Related Methods.
For details: https://linktr.ee/cssl.cuhk
