Lost in translation

This paper discusses the ongoing process of internationalisation of scientific research, and its peculiar implications for the field of architecture and planning. I first consider this field's traditional ability of translating and code-switching, as well as the recent experience of adjusting its research practices to academic assessment systems. I then explore some views about the global spread of modern science, from the ideal of a scientific community to the recognition of a political economy of internationalised science, which defines central and peripheral positions, and the kind of knowledge we produce, how we do it and what for. Finally, I propose that in architecture and planning, unlike in most other scientific fields, the nodes of international research networks tend to have different empirical objects, i.e., their own geographical regions. Peripheral research aiming at international relevance can hardly avoid complying with agendas and theoretical frameworks derived from very different socio-spatial environments, thus focusing on problems of minor importance for its own context. Yet architecture, as a weak-science with a tradition of code-switching, still holds the possibility of international collaboration on other terms, stressing differences rather than similarities, and the thorough debate of concepts, methods and theories.