Normal Science and Indigenization of Social Sciences

Indigenization of social sciences is one of the important issues in scientific development in the Third World countries which has close relations with the developments in the field of modern sociology of science. The main objective of the present paper is to demonstrate that normal science can lead to indigenization of social sciences. For this purpose, in the first place two approaches, i.e. positivist and critical (historicist) to social sciences were explained and their viewpoints about the necessity of indigenization of social sciences were discussed. It was found that contrary to the first approach, the second approach considers indigenization of social sciences a fundamental necessity. In the next step, the conceptual framework of the research, i.e. Thomas Cohen’s theory of scientific revolutions was explained briefly to shed light on the status and meaning of the gradual and revolutionary scientific changes and normal science in scientific research in Cohen’s perspective. Then, by alluding to the five fundamental dimensions of research in social sciences – that is, selection of the subject, selection of research method, exploration, description and explanation – indigenization was discussed in each dimension in positivist and critical approaches. The findings indicate that despite fundamental theoretical differences between the two paradigms, when the advocates of the two approaches practically engage in a serious research, the outcome of their activities are indigenization of social sciences. Therefore, what is important is that the researchers, who follow any of the two approaches, engage in serious, precise critical research and go through all stages of the process of research from selection of the subject to explanation and criticism of theory.