Knowledge production in the Humanities in Argentinaand its link with society: how do researchears conptualize contribution, intervention an social utlily based on their own academic practices?

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MARIÁNGELA NAPOLI, MAURO ALONSO, MELISA CUSCHNIR, JUDITH NAIDORF This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8204640/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 3 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The purpose of this article is to reflect on how researchers from different humanistic disciplines conceptualize the ways in which their research contributes to society, within the framework of debates on the social function of science. In this way, the article allows us to account for the meanings of the utility of humanistic knowledge assumed by researchers based on their own practices as a topic-problem that is infrequently addressed and not associated with these disciplines. To this end, two levels of analysis are proposed: the first presents the meanings attributed to the ways in which humanistic knowledge contributes to and intervenes in society, which allow for the description of concrete and specific scientific practices; the second systematizes the meanings of utility that emerge from this. The methodology adopted is qualitative in nature, as it allows for the description of the complex conceptual structures on which the practices, ideas, and beliefs of the actors investigated in the research are based. The results of an empirical study ared based on interviews with 43 humanities researchers from the Argentine science and technology complex, conducted during the period 2022–2024. The sample is an intentional non-probabilistic selection of researchers and contains parity in terms of academic age and gender. The article's findings and results highlight the suspended category of symbolic-cultural intervention of the humanities based on specific forms of articulation to intervene concretely in society through different practices. Likewise, they uphold the potential social value of the concept of utility as a suspended meaning that may or may not generate concrete uses in ways that are not necessarily identifiable in the process of knowledge production and that is sustained in clear opposition to purely economic and instrumental logics. Social science/Anthropology Social science/Education Humanities/Language and linguistics Social science/Language and linguistics Humanities/Philosophy Social science/Sociology Introduction Humanities are commonly regarded as a field of knowledge related to the study and approach of human culture. At the beginning of their history, rather than as a field of knowledge, they were understood as a set of teaching techniques aimed at improving intellectual precision, verbal skills, and the capacity for discussion through dialectical argumentation. During the Renaissance—the studia humanitatis —they were established to differentiate themselves from ancient theological studies and to focus on the teaching of humanistic subjects. From the Enlightenment onwards, the field acquired a liberal-humanist character based on a philosophical ethos concerning human progress and the emphasis on rational knowledge. It was thus proposed to objectify "reality," that is, to create objects of study and specific knowledge, which also had to be "useful" (Reglado de Hurtado, 2007, p. 2). Simultaneously, with the development and attempt to differentiate the social sciences from the humanities, the latter had to rediscover their own object of study. Speculation and non-experimental approaches lost prestige and became objects of scrutiny. The process of institutionalizing the humanities as fields of knowledge consequently involves addressing their transition through the disciplinary era, which equated rationality with the natural sciences developed from the 16th and 17th centuries, following the establishment of the “human being” as an object/subject of study (Foucault, 2010). Based on different literature about the characteristics of the humanities as disciplines (Kristeller, 1990; Franyutti, 2013), we highlight a specific work which gathered what researchers themselves consider to be the current features of the humanities in relation to the prevailing positivist hegemonic model (Napoli & Cuschnir, 2025). To this end, it is systematized three emergent dimensions that synthesize the specificity of humanistic thought. First of all, the authors point out the interpretative, reflective and comprehensive nature that operates on the thoughts, actions and experiences of other subjects and their discourses as epistemological and methodological ways of producing knowledge. This characterization leads to a certain struggle for legitimacy, requiring convergent articulations between ontological, epistemological, and methodological discussions. We argue that an oscillation still persists today regarding whether to label them as sciences or as a distinct form of knowledge. Secondly, the imaginative and prospective character—understood as their incursion into speculative and creative domain—is highlighted as necessary and closely linked to their mediating role and temporal differentiation from other sciences. From this perspective, the humanities are proposed as lenses or perspectives not merely for empirically verifying facts but as approaches for reading and understanding reality. A further key aspect is the capacity to denaturalize established norms, producing concrete effects through the construction of critical thought, which simultaneously builds values while deconstructing sedimented meanings. In this way, the humanities serve a function in examining the discourses of others, including other sciences and institutions, as means of interrogating existing logics (Louis, 2022). Finally, the conception of the humanities presented embodies a function that challenges the instrumentalist approach in terms of purely economic profitability, producing forms of “distinctive knowledge”. The idea that research must preserve contributions not immediately beneficial to humanity reveals a political perspective on the human being, which society demands in its constitution as such (Napoli, 2025). At the same time, it is highlighted the importance of positioning against the commercial logic of imposed agendas oriented toward profitability, which undermines not only academic freedom but also the interpretative character of the humanities. In this sense, improved professionalization of these fields was emphasized, which could provide leverage to influence state policy; in this way, epistemological and methodological approaches could help establish a scientific policy beyond the logic of “self-marginalization.” Thereby, the scientific-academic map has imposed as eutral and objective ideal of the sciences, demanding certain values, records, validation, and scientific authority to which all sciences, and therefore the humanities, had to conform. These demands placed them at a crossroads, confronting the tension of establishing themselves as a stronghold of the imaginative center of knowledge, and revealed the complexity of their epistemological configuration and their status as "human sciences," which remains unresolved. In this context, the prevalence of positivism in the academic landscape postulates a subordinate position for the humanities due to their supposed lack of capacity to contribute to economic development, along with accusations of being "pre-scientific," lacking method and predictive ability (Alonso, 2021). This debate allows us to delve into current disputes regarding the new science-society contract, which revisits its role in the current scientific system, challenged by questions and debates about its social function. The role of the humanities within the scientific system is challenged by questions and debates concerning their use and utility, issues that also affect other sciences. As a central aspect of these questions in this article, we aim to contribute by proposing the meanings of contribution and intervention of the humanities. This concern allows us to ask what meanings are currently attributed to these concepts by humanities researchers and how they translate them into research practices within a given academic culture. Today, this is considered under the premise that the social perspective on science is part of the culture in which people live, with its historical and national roots and influences (Ziman, 2003). Within the framework of dominant approaches in current science policies (Naidorf & Perrota, 2015; Naidorf, Perrotta, Gómez & Riccono, 2015; Napoli & Naidorf, 2021), it is not easy to find an agreed-upon role for the humanities. This problem has manifested itself in multiple interventions by scientific policymakers around the question: how can the humanities “produce something that benefits society”? In this sense, the concept of social utility allows us to encompass some of these debates. Following Zabala and Vaccarezza (2002), social utility is considered a socially constructed quality of knowledge: the possible meanings that knowledge’s utility can assume result from socially interactive processes and are therefore sociologically problematic. This relative magnitude enables the analytical framework that allows us to analyze the significations that various agents attribute to the object involved in the process of meaning-making (Alonso, 2021). Notably, the work of the aforementioned authors highlights the character of social utility as a suspended category arising from social interactions, not attributable solely to a knowledge object to be subsequently “transferred” from academia to a productive or market context. Therefore, we are interested in a concept of social utility derived from the meaning-making capacity that researchers themselves attribute to it, to consider potential uses of humanistic knowledge that do not necessarily follow a market-driven or immediate logic. Furthermore, society as a whole, in a broad sense, constitutes the primary recipient of knowledge, simultaneously serving as both subject and object of study for the humanities. Indeed, society is assumed to be the audience not only for whom knowledge is directed, but also as the central focus of humanistic concerns. Following this idea, there are external conditions that shape possible uses, recipients, and demanders, based on specific experiences (concrete practices) carried out by the subjects themselves. Once again, the notion of social utility is a concept that can be endowed with meanings by the agents themselves; in the case of the humanities, it is associated with their history of critical intervention across different formats and territories, as well as their intrinsic value in producing critical thinking. Humaniistc knowledge is considered useful if it can account for a certain circulation and controversial, disruptive attribution, allowing reception by society from multiple angles, sectors, and historical contexts (Napoli, 2025). At this point, justifying their value is, undoubtedly, a way to maintain not only prestige, equivalence, and standing in universities and regulatory and knowledge promotion bodies, but primarily to contest their share in the allocation of research funding, whether from states, supranational organizations, or civil society sectors. The humanities have the capacity to engage in critical and transformative thinking, maintaining a close link to a social function that can be associated with specific forms of intervention in reality, while also being able to interact with the ruling powers, making the internal disputes within the humanities relevant in today’s global context. The challenge lies in documenting and systematizing the current meanings that the evolving Argentine academic culture attributes to the social function of the humanities. In this discussion of their social function, it is clear that assuming that academic freedom and mere curiosity naturally translate into contributions or transformative inputs is insufficient to grasp the entirety of scientific practice. As Derrida (2002) notes, academic freedom comes with the freedom to propose and dissent, highlighting a key instance of critical knowledge in the humanities, linked to real transformation, presupposing a self-defined agenda, research lines, potential recipients, and forms of appropriation. From this critical perspective, in The Social Function of Philosophy (1974), Horkheimer analyzed the position of philosophy—through the reformulations proposed by the Frankfurt School—in relation to the validation of scientific knowledge from a positivist standpoint. He proposed a critical utility of the humanities as a negative force, grounded in an ontological-epistemological reflection on their place in society. Philosophy, he argued, does not possess an a priori definition or guide that can be associated—as is the case with other sciences—with a degree of applicability of its results to social problems and needs. Instead, the illumination function is valued as a form of rejecting scientific truths, social ways of life, and established cultural habits as natural tendencies to be uncritically accepted; this is the essence of critical thinking. The so-called “scientific-technological revolution” did not produce the same quantity and quality of human progress as it did in its specific domain. Horkheimer argued that thinking cannot proceed independently without considering the broader course of society and must therefore determine the ends of social rationalization processes. Hence, if critical theory of society and science aims to reconsider the current conditions in which they occur, it necessarily conceives itself as negative with respect to the prevailing order. Accordingly, “the critical function of philosophy is pedagogical in guiding humans to perceive that social conditions are neither natural, fixed, nor eternal, and in pursuing the improvement of the social whole” (Horkheimer, 1974, p. 285). From this perspective, utilitarian reasoning has overflowed the realm of technical activity and penetrated all areas of life in society. Utility, in this case, responds to the social function of science, yet it is far from being inherently positive; on the contrary, it develops as a function of the social domination necessary to maintain the capitalist system (Di Bello, 2010). The various notions of social utility of knowledge often reside in the tension between producing purely applied knowledge, purely basic knowledge, and the failure to consider how each era and context conceives specific ways to rethink the social function of science. Sarewitz (2016) had already pointed out the problem of granting science a free pass to decide what constitutes “progress” without reference to the real world; thus, pursuing research from a neutral position, pure academic “freedom,” and associated with isolated decisions of “scientists” (the mertonian ethos ) turns scientific knowledge into elite knowledge. For the humanities, this issue becomes even more complex, as positions clash between persuing knowledge production for its own sake and advocating for knowledge with utility and/or intervention in reality, while still preserving epistemological specificity, critical function, and a constructivist perspective on scientific knowledge (Alonso, 2021). The first position, supporting the intrinsic value of the humanities, is well-known. Authors associated with the idea of retreating to arguments about the intrinsic value of humanistic knowledge—such as its potential for individual spiritual or aesthetic enrichment (the hedonistic view of knowledge)—include literary critic Stanley Fish (2008), who tends to assert that the humanities “do nothing, if by ‘doing’ we mean producing effects in the world, and if they produce no effects in the world, they can only be justified in relation to the pleasure they provide to those who practice them” (Vasen, 2012). Other perspectives propose a broader view, reconsidering the role of the humanities in an attempt to decouple their function from mere theoretical knowledge production for its own sake. It is possible to consider their active, propositional role in the debate on science as a factor and instrument of social change. In this way, reflecting on the social intervention meanings of the humanities and their relationship to the concept of use and utility in debates on the function of science remains a viable and significant problem. Methods The paper is framed within the perspective of interpretative sociology (Giddens, 1989). This theoretical framework allows to analyze the research problem by combining the macro-social (in structural terms) and micro-social levels, where the emphasis is placed on the process of the production of meaning not only on their own practices but also on the meaning attributed to the structural elements and the perceived influence on their practices. The proposed methodology is primarily qualitative, as it allows for the description of the complex conceptual structures underlying the practices, ideas, and beliefs of the actors under investigation, in this case, for research in the humanities. Thus, the first step was to frame and systematise the theoretical production that serves as the basis for the analysis. Following Hernández Sampieri (2010), the review and systematisation of the literature is useful for identifying key concepts, enriching the work with new conceptualisations, and delving deeper into previous approaches to the problem. To investigate these meanings, an intentional sample of 43 researchers—the units of analysis—in the humanities belonging to different institutes and/or research spaces belonging to universities in Argentina was constructed. The units of analysis were identified using the snowball technique (Sautu, 2009). We conducted 43 in-depth interviews with a thematic guide, carried out in virtual and face-to-face formats during the period 2022-2024; these were transcribed and then analysed. The sample was intentional non-probabilistic and contains parity with regard to academic age and gender. The empirical groundwork sought to problematise conceptual tensions on two levels: how researchers in the humanities understand – give meaning to – contribution and intervention as part of a collective, and what they identify as intervention in their everyday practices. Within this, we consider how different humanisitic disciplines conceptualise research use. The data was then analysed using content analysis techniques, guiding the study with a grounded interpretation based on the data. In this way, the responses that emerged from reflection and systematisation on their own knowledge production were evaluated in relation to the concept of intervention, contribution and social utility. The limitations includes the sample and does not involved the whole universe of Institutions but they are the most important in terms on number, history and impact on research in the country were selected. These are distributed according to their institutional affiliation, with national universities and CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council – Argentina) being the two main circuits of knowledge production with which the interviewees identify; and with the aim of providing different perspectives and realities that can be contributed by the different nodes of knowledge production in the country The selected institutes and/or academic spaces are: The Institute of Humanities at the National University of Córdoba. The Laboratory of Human Sciences at the National University of San Martín. The Institute of Critical Studies in Humanities CONICET-National University of Rosario. The Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Litoral CONICET - National University of the Litoral. The Patagonian Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences Studies National University of Comahue. The Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of the National University of La Plata. Institutes of Humanities of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires. Results 1- Towards a construction of the concept of intervention and its multiple meanings The concept of knowledge intervention proposed in this article is articulated with an analytical perspective that we term knowledge mobilization . Knowledge mobilization entails a series of strategies, processes, and actions identified in the daily work of scientists, as well as a set of normative recommendations aimed at addressing the processes of linking knowledge producers and users. Numerous published studies provide diagnoses that attempt to define: the actors involved in production, the different morphologies that mobilized knowledge assumes, and the challenges presented by dialogue channels between producers and users of so-called scientific knowledge (Naidorf & Alonso, 2018). In this regard, the concept of knowledge mobilization assumes various perspectives and definitions: the use of evidence and research results for public policy decision-making (Nutley et al., 2007); a method or tool that facilitates the translation of research results into action (Bennett et al., 2007); efforts to share research results with potential users (Levin, 2011). Recognizing the importance of promoting capacities for knowledge appropriation, much of the literature treats knowledge production and use as a continuum , often overlooking one analytical dimension: researchers’ practices and the processes that operate upon them. Analyses of knowledge mobilization do not account for the structural dimensions influencing scientists’ practices, which enable and constrain the possible courses of action, especially in peripheral contexts in developing countries (Naidorf & Alonso, 2018). Furthermore, in line with recent discussions regarding the role of values in scientific practice, Da Silva (2016) proposes reconsidering the socially constructed and contingent nature of the categories through which scientists, particularly in social sciences and humanities, conceive. The concept of intervention has generally been associated with applications in social sciences and public policy aimed at promoting concrete social change. In the case of anthropology and cultural studies, Carlos Restrepo (2012), from Colombia, understands intervention as praxis theoretically oriented toward transformation. It can operate on different levels: interrupting certain concrete links of common sense and collective imaginaries; interventions as actions derived from concrete research; and contextually-based theoretical inputs aimed at achieving structural transformations. Restrepo (2012) critiques the forms of knowledge production in the humanities, primarily concerning what he perceives as the confinement of researchers under the productivity logic and academic bureaucracy imposed by universities. However, he also highlights an anti-academic and anti-theoretical logic that celebrates an “epistemic relativism in which all knowledge is equally valid in terms of intervention in power structures” (Restrepo, 2012, p. 167). We therefore propose converging the previously developed meanings concerning appropriation, linkage, and interaction with society, uniting them as forms of intervention in society. Based on debates on the third mission of the university (Alonso, Cuschnir & Napoli, 2021) and the conditions of humanistic knowledge production, researchers construct and enact intervention in the social world (Polanyi, 1968), beginning by questioning the classical model of knowledge production. This intervention derived from possible definitions of the third mission, implies the multiplication of mechanisms deployed by research to fulfill its function. It is thus not only possible to refer to technological transfer or university-industry linkages, as previously mentioned, but it is also essential to recognize the diversity of actions universities undertake with their environments, often aimed at addressing social problems through alternative modalities (Alonso, Cuschnir & Napoli, 2021). Furthermore, this concept allows inquiry into social issues such that its interpretive method not only investigates human concerns but also enables denunciation and collaboration in the remediation of injustice, revealing the contingent nature of cultural discourses and the possibility of modifying them: there persists a desire to intervene in the socio-political reality. Following Deleuze and Guattari (2001), one can insist on this “creative epistemology” that establishes a new image of thinking by questioning dogma. Creative epistemic inquiry, as conceptual creation, relates to political elements suggested by this new image of thinking. This has entailed a methodological gesture to practice philosophy away from mere contemplation and “reflection on” (Deleuze & Guattari, 2001), revealing a positive and disruptive stance. Hence, this article addresses the concept of intervention as a dimension within definitions of knowledge mobilization and debates on the university’s third mission in the science-society relationship. The concept refers to a materialization of knowledge that translates into concrete knowledge production, but simultaneously—and here lies its novelty—it is approached through the epistemological complexity of knowledge production in the humanities. This entails understanding how knowledge produced in the humanities can result in outputs that are not solely contemplative or interpretive, but enable incursions and approaches in various ways; in other words, it can produce, in light of the aforementioned debates, a call to modify the investigated reality. 2-On the current forms of knowledge intervention in the Humanities from the voice of researchers As previously noted, intervention as a concept allows the convergence of multiple meanings of mobilized knowledge. For the humanities, it becomes evident that these meanings do not necessarily result in direct or immediate actions of appropriation; however, their reflective, imaginative, and denaturalizing nature implies laying the groundwork for knowledge always in dialogue with a reality being questioned. With these assumptions, humanities researchers identified different meanings associated with these forms of intervention, systematized below in T able 1 . 2.1. Symbolic-Cultural Intervention as potential or possibility Firstly, researchers indicate that the concept of contribution and intervention (hereafter referred to as intervention) is constituted as a possibility within their research work. Furthermore, they highlight that the ways to demonstrate the uses and effects of their practices are not easily identifiable or measurable: "The important thing is the potential of a practice to generate something. Generating something does not imply a transformation that leads to a radical social revolution of living conditions, but that it generates the potential for a possibility different from the existing conditions of life" (INTERVIEW INV. 15). "The humanities produce for the possibility of intervention; so that it may serve someone someday" (INTERVIEW INV. 10). "No basic science research has its immediate correlate in applied science, or in social, economic, environmental issues, but it may have it; all have the possibility of having it" (INTERVIEW INV. 29). In this sense, the concept of intervention is understood through the possibility that generating disruptive and dialogical thinking can question the reality in which any scientific practice is embedded. It is not expressed in terms of direct and structural modification of society: research is conducted for the possibility of intervention. Reflexivity, the ability to form opinions and common sense through the development of expertise, are the meanings most frequently emphasized in the interviews, aligning with less immediate forms of circulation and, therefore, with a diffuse character in measuring effects. Some research serves to “illuminate” key aspects of decision-makers’ problems through concepts or new approaches without providing evident tools for intervention. The concept is thus constructed as a category in suspense, whose meanings fall under the idea of symbolic-cultural intervention as potential or possibility. This concept functions as a guiding principle of the disciplines, adopting the meanings proposed by most researchers and associated with the epistemological-political nature of knowledge production. This potential social value may or may not be directly used by social audiences (Benneworth, 2015) and is therefore connected to the imagination of scientific knowledge utility, and more strictly, “to the association between scientific knowledge production and the fulfillment of an explicit social function that assumes that research practice has the capacity to improve people’s social living conditions; at this level, there is no explicit reference to the effects of knowledge use but rather to its transformative potential ” (Alonso, Cuschnir & Napoli, 2021, p. 10). "Intervention is symbolic and cultural. All the time we are elaborating and re-elaborating how to build a national tradition, which are fully operational concepts for a society" (INTERVIEW INV.1). "To intervene is to produce a symbolic difference that may be highly mediated but different from a way of seeing things, of how we understand a law, for example; but in a school, it is useful" (INTERVIEW INV. 36). "I believe we have, even if small, this function of public intervention. From my team, we went out to show history wherever possible: in the library, in demonstrations. So, it’s like taking structures to the streets, with the body, the face, the hands, with everything" (INTERVIEW INV. 39). "Intervention in the transformation of mentalities, which are the hardest things to change" (INTERVIEW INV. 4). "The exercise of imagination is a sine qua non condition for action. It is not true that action comes first and then imagination; imagination nourishes action. But the humanities do not put you in contact with the heavens, Platonic-style; they work with what exists, with that source of desire" (INTERVIEW INV. 5). This form of symbolic intervention, transversal to all disciplines, is described as linked to the reality being questioned through different forms of articulation. The interviews account for the concrete ways in which these intervention possibilities manifest, depending on the need to articulate these mediations. Researchers propose consolidating the modes of directly materializing intervention through various actions. In this sense, the legitimacy of the humanities is constructed beyond defending its epistemological-political character; the capacity for intervention is inferred as potentially useful and is shaped through the connections and articulations described. This “reality,” in which sedimented meanings, reflections, and conceptual creation operate, produces effects of denaturalization, creation, and displacement of common sense circulating implicitly. Nevertheless, researchers emphasize the need to articulate this inherent function of the humanities with institutional forms that allow concrete intervention with different societal actors, even if the effects are not fully measurable. This is supported by the fact that indicators to map these activities either do not yet exist or are not sufficiently institutionalized (Alonso, Cuschnir & Napoli, 2021, p. 99). 2.2. Forms of Articulation: material intervention practices in the Humanities i) Teaching Practice This form of articulation is recognized by researchers primarily as a means of disseminating and transmitting the knowledge produced in their research. While this mode of knowledge engagement is considered one of the historical missions of the university as an institution, interviewees assert that the training instance allows for anchoring the critical thinking of the humanities and simultaneously constitutes a form of research that feeds back into their own development. It is described as a fundamental element of the humanities (as opposed to other sciences), driving the production of knowledge as valuable in both the production and reproduction of concepts and theory. It is important to note that these teaching activities are confined to the university academic environment: undergraduate and graduate students; non-traditional teaching modes directed at other audiences and non-academic spaces are not included. However, university teaching practice is highlighted as the seed that later enables the adaptation of content into other formats. University teaching, therefore, emerges as a transversal and essential activity. The proposed form of articulation involves transmitting, imparting, and creating knowledge embodied in future graduates and potential researchers. Teaching is thus defined as the clearest form of intervention for the interviewees, related to the “first dimension of third mission activities, which is Professional Training” (Alonso, Cuschnir & Napoli, 2021, p. 97): "My territorial work is being in the University office. My territory today is undergraduate teaching, which professionalization drives me toward" (INTERVIEW INV. 29). "Teaching, for example, which is not counted as production and which I think should be, is a very clear and direct way to reach the community" (INTERVIEW INV. 6). "Teaching is pedagogical dissemination, but at the higher education level pedagogy and didactics are invisible, as if they did not exist; from the elitist perspective of the teacher. We also teach it as scientific dissemination, because you research in order to teach. It’s not the same" (INTERVIEW INV. 35). In summary, teaching is exemplified as a practice of transmission or dissemination of thought that articulates symbolic and cultural intervention through class delivery. It is presented as a way to reach a broad audience of learners seeking to formalize their education. This conception is also primarily associated with the social commitment implied by university teaching (Benneworth, 2009). ii) Dissemination, outreach, and communication actions Activities that involve a general non-academic audience can be grouped under dissemination, outreach, and public communication of research. While literature conceptualizes these as distinct approaches, for this study they operate at the same level of articulation, circulating in spaces of intervention within public debate. These actions are mostly associated with engagement in mass media (today, including the Internet and social media) or in teaching spaces differentiated from traditional classrooms. "I never say no to a radio interview, a newspaper interview, and if there are activities where I can communicate my research results, I do it, because I find it profitable both in the school context and in broader social reflection" (INTERVIEW INV.1). "I have been working in outreach for many years, in radios, two years as a radio columnist and co-producer, but since it was unpaid work I could not sustain it. I have also been invited several times to university radio programs and TV, to talk about science fiction" (INTERVIEW INV. 18). "Different researchers started appearing in the public philosophy arena. There is a disciplinary prejudice about dissemination as secondary knowledge. In my case, my teaching role prompted me to communicate the discipline in an accessible way, showing that you do philosophy but introduce people unfamiliar with academic rules" (INTERVIEW INV. 27). "I had the sense that there were many ways to articulate knowledge with productions that did not necessarily appear in academic papers, which allowed me to use an essayistic tone, reflections on daily life, humor, and texts attractive to a general audience; I found in newspaper columns a testing ground to publish short pieces and experiment" (INTERVIEW INV. 10). These activities often originate from an external “request” or a topic of social interest for which experts are consulted; to a lesser extent, they come from emerging initiatives by universities or institutes. This process highlights how researchers navigate non-linear interventions by contributing to societal debates: "I like interacting outside the Academy, I learn a lot from participating in spaces that are not strictly university-based. You are often invited by other educational sectors. I am not a communicator nor do I study communication, but philosophy always has a topic to contribute" (INTERVIEW INV. 10). "Through a student, I was invited to a radio interview. I realized I needed preparation, and my research helped. The format evolved into a column where I read and interpret songs, interacting with listeners for 40 minutes; now it’s also a podcast and pedagogical material" (INTERVIEW INV. 27). "Sometimes the best visibility strategies are unplanned. Environmental problems challenge everyone differently, and not all researchers will respond the same way" (INTERVIEW INV. 18). Thus, experts are expected to participate in public debate, yet participation is not mandatory. These practices expand the reach of research outputs to non-specialist audiences, via local media, radio, TV, podcasts, non-traditional magazines, audiovisual content, workshops, and other knowledge-sharing activities. iii) Extension and knowledge transfer actions The concept of transfer is debated and ambiguous in the humanities and social sciences, with its meaning still contested, particularly as “social transfer” (Llomovate et al., 2009). Traditionally, it refers to a researcher linking with an “external” non-scientific environment to transfer knowledge (Estébanez & Korsunsky, 2003). University extension, inherited from the 1918 Córdoba Reform, emphasizes social justice and community-oriented missions rather than economic goals. While the two concepts are not interchangeable, researchers treat them under the same umbrella as institutionalized activities connecting universities with non-academic spaces. These activities often stem from personal motivation but align with academic research, enriching it and allowing non-linear inquiry paths. Extension activities include: "I taught in prison for many years. I would never have accessed that world without university mediation. I found my space of activism through extension work. I see it as integral to my university teaching" (INTERVIEW INV. 9). "All civil organizations, NGOs, unions, magazines outside academia—moving from mainstream logic to concrete societal connections" (INTERVIEW INV. 29). "In my course, I propose extension work, making our output circulate. In 2018, we aimed to circulate classical texts from a sophistic perspective, publishing a book and addressing translation and language issues beyond academic spaces" (INTERVIEW INV. 20). Extension practices rely on university mediation, which formalizes links and institutionalizes activities. While valued historically, researchers note these practices are underappreciated. Extensionist approaches often emerge from pre-existing relationships with social organizations, unions, or political activism. Knowledge transfer experiences include: "Transfer lines respond not only to social demands but also to capitalist pressures; it’s a kind of umbrella under which many things hide" (INTERVIEW INV. 9). "As a group, we engage in linkage and transfer activities, translating expertise into accessible language, connecting problems with everyday life" (INTERVIEW INV. 12). "We conducted a study for the Buenos Aires Ombudsman on healthcare access. An anthropology team formed, and the results were used by the Ombudsman" (INTERVIEW INV. 34). Transfer is mostly associated with public policies, often mediated by the state, reflecting the challenge of legitimizing humanities knowledge for concrete use. Researchers perceive a double challenge: their own self-marginalization and the state’s limited recognition of humanities’ epistemological potential. iv) Academic-scientific activities Researchers’ interventions in this domain are primarily with peers, facilitating expert dialogue, reinforcing critical capacity, and informing their own production. These activities include conference presentations, publications, and workshops in academic institutions. They align with prevailing scientific production standards, linked to academic prestige and recognition: "I attend small conferences to listen and gather ideas" (INTERVIEW INV. 1). "I present at conferences and academic events to share work with colleagues" (INTERVIEW INV. 11). "I communicate with specialists to circulate specific research that may not fit mainstream exchanges" (INTERVIEW INV. 10). While valuable, these interactions often remain within closed academic circles, limiting societal reach. Yet conferences and debate sessions differ from other interventions, as they foster critical discussion in relation to peers’ ideas. This raises questions about the university’s role as a space for disruptive knowledge addressing social interests and alternative methodologies. 3. The Role of the Other in Knowledge Production in the Humanities: Constructing Notions of Usefulness Building on the discussion in the previous section, researchers recognize that humanistic knowledge is directed toward society as an undefined entity, whose engagement is always potential; it constitutes an act of intervention for future appropriations or uses. To account for these concrete uses, they point to the necessity of forms of articulation with their environment. In this sense, each of the forms of articulation described allows for different degrees of proximity or distance to potential recipients and indicates different dynamics of interaction. Moreover, they evoke different notions of usefulness, revisiting its conceptualization as a suspended category that is context-dependent. The following points systematize these issues: 1) Social notions of utility in the Humanities a) Utility related to potential social value One notion, aligned with symbolic-cultural intervention, is the potential social value of humanistic knowledge, which does not possess a specific application and may or may not be used by social audiences (Boekholt, 2010). This idea connects to the broader imagination of the utility of scientific knowledge in general, and more specifically, to the association between scientific knowledge production and the fulfillment of an explicit social function, assuming that research practices can improve people’s living conditions. At this level, explicit reference is not made to the effects of use but to its transformative potential (Alonso et al., 2021): "Philosophy has changed the world: half the world was socialist because they read Karl Marx. Jacques Cousteau or Carl Sagan, that is, scientists who generated a vast movement of imaginations around what they did" (INTERVIEW INV. 4). "Utility conceived as direct products that improve quality-of-life indices doesn’t work; but it has a direct impact on citizenship, on the argumentative capacity of the population; if philosophy functions as an argumentative practice, its impact is enormous, but it cannot be measured or evaluated in the same way" (INTERVIEW INV. 27). "What one does is useful, but one does not really know how, in what way, or for whom; I imagine one generates conditions so that it may become useful to someone. We do not know the utility. We do not know what will happen to others; it cannot be controlled, and this makes it more interesting" (INTERVIEW INV. 10). "Utility for whom… eventually things arrive, directly or indirectly. Someone studies Argentine cinema and discovers a film, which leads to producing a new copy and showing it to people who had no prior knowledge. Society may consider it unproductive if it does not interest them; there is always this minor scale, now more visible" (INTERVIEW INV. 3). In this sense, utility is defined as a “possibility for”—a suspended notion that may or may not generate concrete uses in ways not necessarily identifiable during knowledge production. This indeterminacy, and the impossibility of predefining concrete uses (i.e., specifying in advance who will receive the knowledge and what impact it will have), is also associated with the imaginative and interrogative capacity of humanistic knowledge, which distinguishes it from other fields or sciences. However, these indeterminate paths can sometimes transform knowledge and produce unforeseen concrete uses. This potential value is intrinsic to humanistic research and links to future transformations without a predetermined purpose. Its potential exists precisely through indeterminacy, constructing a suspended notion of usefulness that implies a criterion of surprise, novelty, or creativity in its applications. b) Utility related to the production of critical thinking in its anti-comercial function This conception is closely linked to a central characteristic of the humanities: their epistemological-political stance as anti-comercial. Notions of utility, from this perspective, are associated with forms of resistance to positivist modes of production through so-called “critical thinking,” understood as opposing logics that reduce usefulness to a product whose sole goal is economic gain. Researchers emphasize that the humanities generate alternative avenues of potential use for audiences that are not equally valued because they are not measurable in terms of “productivity” or “impact” as in other sciences. This value is mainly associated with “transforming minds” (aligned with social value) as a central activity for disseminating critical thinking, providing tools for potential appropriation by knowledge users to understand, interact with, and intervene in the world: "If utility is reduced to a commercial question, or potential profits from selling this book, it seems to me irrelevant to any scientific discipline in principle" (INTERVIEW INV. 35). "There is an important contemplative dimension because reducing everything to praxis has its issues; keeping an ‘useless’ dimension in human life is important. The work on rare or minor topics matters—they have a right to exist. Studying the 52nd verse of Virgil’s Aeneid? Yes, I want it to exist. Confronted with other forms of knowledge, the term ‘impact’ is awful, it’s academic capitalism" (INTERVIEW INV. 33). "We need to distinguish between community-driven questions and our methodological and epistemological inquiries within disciplines, defending public knowledge so it is not subordinated to economic or productivity demands" (INTERVIEW INV. 6). "Instrumentality is one thing, the potential of a practice is another, and utility yet another; from a negativist and modern tradition, one might assert the uselessness of practice, resisting the productivist logic of capitalism. Unproductive ‘uselessness’ sustains alternative markets, generating sales and hegemonic cultural practices funded and empowered, even if anti-market thinkers end up being co-opted by multinationals" (INTERVIEW INV. 15). This highlights the opposition to instrumental rationality, asserting critical thinking as knowledge escaping the entrenched logics of dominant power centers that define scientific fields and academic communities. Research without specific recipients—more general or abstract—maintains a zone of indeterminacy as a line of escape (Deleuze & Guattari, 2001) from prevailing positivist and capitalist models, challenging agendas imposed with perceived higher “value” than those not directly demanded. From an analysis of the material conditions of knowledge production, what is considered productive at a given time also allows circulation within the system, e.g., through prestigious publishing houses. Anti-market logics may still contribute to elitist niches, producing outputs aligned with the system despite an anti-utilitarian stance. c) Utility associated with constructing notions of relevance for the Humanities Researchers emphasize that even when their studies are not “on the agenda,” their willingness to link them to concrete uses generating relevant knowledge often stems from personal motivation; in other words, they transform knowledge to make it usable, beyond whether it is instrumental or symbolic. Thus, potential use depends less on topic choice and more on the researcher’s ability or willingness to visualize and mobilize this potential, engaging actors within scientific production spaces, such as policymakers or evaluative institutions. While some topics are more aligned with current urgencies, and others more marginal, these divisions often produce “neglected” lines of study, challenging existing agendas. As noted in knowledge mobilization (Naidorf & Alonso, 2018), agendas are not constructed freely but are shaped by funding, evaluation, or meta-societal interests, reproducing power discourses (Brunner & Sunkel, 1993). According to Louis (2022), the scientific community’s reactions to challenges against their assumed identity reveal values influencing academic practice, tied to ideological and political structures and national cultural apparatuses. Humanities occupy a central, yet contested, role, with researchers reflecting on their relevance. Usefulness is constructed through self-reflection on topic relevance, potential users, and articulation methods, requiring legitimization beyond an intrinsic social value: "Today, major problems concern character education; the classical world seems irrelevant, but it still offers insights. For example, Seneca’s discussion of suicide could inform public euthanasia policy" (INTERVIEW INV. 18). "Unexpected utility: archaeology research on the Falklands war, using field methods, contributed to a mental health project for veterans, with clear societal benefit" (INTERVIEW INV. 2). "Topics attract interest beyond philosophy or the university; digitalization, Big Data, algorithms, AI—all make it relevant to broader audiences" (INTERVIEW INV. 10). "Researchers often underestimate the relevance of their topics. Studying Borges, for instance, is part of cultural heritage, even if not immediately ‘relevant’" (INTERVIEW INV. 2). "Humanities work produces concrete, even economic, societal uses. Geography informs regional psychology; protocols influence indigenous public policies; tourism markets Buenos Aires as South America’s cultural capital" (INTERVIEW INV. 7). These excerpts highlight that even seemingly “useless” topics may impact concrete problem-solving. Questions about how research problems become socially recognized or debated remain central. All research topics emerge from socially situated issues, filtered through trajectories, personal histories, and subjective factors (scientific freedom, personal tastes). Evaluating relevance in terms of agendas requires considering academic cultures, local production contexts, knowledge-power relations, and funding mechanisms. Moreover, reflecting on how citizens create, impose, or demand topics as public debates offers insight into the humanities’ role, fostering collaborative, interdisciplinary, or co-productive knowledge (Jasanoff, 2004). Researchers show clear motivation to engage in dialogic, collaborative practices with non-academic sectors, suggesting a mutual interest in connecting with broader society. The challenge remains whether this ethos can be formalized at the disciplinary level and how these perceptions can mobilize hegemonic academic practices. Discussions In this article, we have defined how the ways of understanding symbolic-cultural intervention and its meanings derived from the humanities are unique and differ from more traditional conceptualisations in the literature on the subject. Symbolic-cultural intervention stands as the cross-cutting meaning across all humanistic disciplines with the aim of producing knowledge always directed at “society” as a rather abstract entity. However, the power of intervention lies in the creation of concepts, ideas, imaginaries, or meanings that circulate, in general, in unexpected and indirect ways. At first glance, like basic knowledge, it is not plausible to be appropriated in terms of use in its purely instrumental sense or to generate an immediate visible ‘impact.’ The attribution of a social and symbolic value to its production of knowledge, that is, ‘making’ others reflect through critical thinking, would allow that other person to access that knowledge and think for themselves in order to analyse their surroundings. Bearing in mind that the object/subject is the subject itself and that contexts are always differentiated, the results also tend to be differentiated and unexpected. However, faced with this indeterminacy, understood as necessary—since it constitutes a first instance of autonomous and critical thinking required by the humanities—researchers point out at other times that this knowledge produced is articulated with more specific audiences and functions. Therefore, they recognise that their practices include traditional criteria for the production and circulation of scientific work, such as publications, researcher training, teaching, and participation in meetings and conferences, as possible ways of operationalising its cultural symbolic power in its most classic forms. However, they also recognise other ways of questioning, transferring or transforming this knowledge in ways that allow it to be circulated and appropriated by non-academic sectors, which are more closely linked to practical uses. The existence of different modes of knowledge production coexists in tension and is delimited by the scientific community in which researchers are always embedded. Consequently, this allowed us to address a novel area for the humanities which, in the face of discussions about their epistemological-political status associated with ideas of futility, posits debates about the usefulness of knowledge in tension with positions associated with a purely commercial use, but which does not remain outside this perspective. The objective has been to focus on the forms of intervention, usefulness and use that conceive of humanistic knowledge in its emancipatory variants of knowledge that serve as evidence for society, knowledge institutions and scientific policy makers. Declarations Data availability : The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Competing interest : The author(s) declare no competing interests. Ethical approval: The study was approved by CONICET. In Argentina, the ethical framework for qualitative studies involving interviews in the social sciences is based on universal principles such as autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice, focusing on continuous informed consent (IC), confidentiality, and protection against harm (physical, psychological, or social). The local ethic committee of CONICET is based on Decrees Nos. 1661/96, 1256/03, 1427/05, 310/06 y 982/06 y and CONICET Board Resolutions Nos. 346/02, 671/04 y 766/06 and the Resolution D. N° 257/2006 and RESOL-2023-527-APN-DIR#CONICET. The link to the complete declaration and ethical principles is here: https://evaluacion.conicet.gov.ar/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/REGLAMENTO-DE-COMITE-DE-ETICA.pdf Informed consent : The consent was obtained from all participants prior to their involvement in the study between 2022-2024 orally orally from the approved recording of all interviews.- All participants have been fully informed that their anonymity is assured, why the research is being conducted, how their data (the transcripts and interprtation of their dialogues) was utilised, and that there is no risks to them of participating. The all accepted orally and was recorded for more security. Script: Have you noticed any changes in the way knowledge is produced between the beginning of your career as a researcher and today? Briefly describe your academic career. With regard to research in the humanities, what do you consider to be the main difference between the production of knowledge in the humanities and other ‘sciences’? What specific characteristics do you find? What is the source of the vitality of the supposedly unproductive—in light of the debates about its status as a field of knowledge—for this specific form of knowledge production? On the other hand, I am working on the concept of intervention to think about research in the humanities. How do you understand the meaning of this concept? How do you think the humanities can intervene through debates or productions in reality? We work with the concept of knowledge mobilisation, so we wanted to know: What other activities do you do at the Institute/in your research team in relation to establishing links with society? What place do they have in the evaluation or how are they weighted by the scientific system? It is assued that the responsibility of researchers in HSS comprises three dimensions: with regard to the persons who are subjects of research; to society in general; and to their own work. The Resolution is RESOL-2023-527-APN-DIR#CONICET. Decrees N° 1661/96, 310/07, 371/19, 730/19, 681/20, 4/22, 333/22, 134/23 y 166/23 y las Resoluciones de Directorio RESOL-2021-1257-APN-DIR#CONICET, RESOL-2022-304-APN-DIR#CONICET y RESOL-2023-125-APN-DIR# CONICET The link to the complete declaration aof the infomr consent is here: 1) https://www.conicet.gov.ar/wp-content/uploads/RD-20061211-2857.pdf 2) Author Contribution The three authors of the paper have worked together to aligned their academic interests. We work together as a research team and we have all contributed equally to generate the ideas, results and to propose analitic dimensions (in different levels) for the article.MN has conducted most of the interviews and then analized their data ( reviewing interviews transcripts), as a part of her field work to obtain her Phd degree . She has also been working with humanities disciplines (as her primary carreer) and their link to society as a novel topic proposed in this article. She has contributed especifically to of create the analytal dimentions that constitutes table 1 and resumes and systematize the main results of the article.MA has developed the accurate framework on the social function of science as a relevant issue of his research topic. This work also emerges from his multiple analysis about social sciences within an interpretative pespective (as and epistemolical decision) that was carried out in the present text and espcifically to the concept of social utility for social sciences, as a result his both MA and PhD degrees.MC has analized the interviews within the given perspective. She has also contributed with analitical dimentions that emerges form her previous research work about "linking patterns" between Universiry (and different discplines ) and society as a part of her MA degree.JN has conducted the team as a senior researcher with years of contributon to the topic (more than 15 years) and in this case, she has been supervisor for MN PhD degree aiming to conceptualize use and intervention of humanities as a novel contribuion to the core team. All the authors have gathered to the conclutions and final comments. All authors reviewed the manuscript. Acknowledgement CONICET- UBA References Alonso, M. (2021). Los significados de la utilidad social del conocimiento científico en ciencias sociales en el marco de los Proyectos de Desarrollo Tecnológico y Social (PDTS). Tesis de doctorado. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Alonso, M., Cuschnir, M., & Nápoli, M. (2021). 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Table Table 1: Characteristics of the Humanities research intervention Symbolic-Cultural Intervention as potential or possibility Forms of articulation– Material intervention practices in the Humanities Teaching Practice (gradute and posgradute) Dissemination, outreach, and communication actions Extension and knowledge transfer actions Academic-scientific activities Characteristics Transmitting expert knowledge as a way of commitment to the University. Expert knowledge is proposed for the training of potential researchers. Making knowledge visible as a way of contributing to public debate. Expert knowledge can be understandable to a wider audience. . Institutionalise activities that are preliminary and/or required to address a specific social need. Forms of engagement with the environment (identified civil society institutions). Weak links with public policies. . Generate opportunities for dialogue with national and international peers to enrich one's own knowledge production. Modalities of permanence in the scientific system. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 10 Dec, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 09 Dec, 2025 First submitted to journal 09 Dec, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. 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07:33:57","extension":"html","order_by":5,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":112423,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"earlyproof.html","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8204640/v1/3127f7bb881d42d9e5865a88.html"},{"id":98797598,"identity":"f90fcabd-aa89-41fd-a49f-ef2c538a32a9","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-22 13:33:31","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":896938,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8204640/v1/1b8756be-163b-48d5-a7df-6e99f994ce3d.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"\u003cp\u003eKnowledge production in the Humanities in Argentinaand its link with society: how do researchears conptualize contribution, intervention an social utlily based on their own academic practices?\u003c/p\u003e","fulltext":[{"header":"Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eHumanities are commonly regarded as a field of knowledge related to the study and approach of human culture. At the beginning of their history, rather than as a field of knowledge, they were understood as a set of teaching techniques aimed at improving intellectual precision, verbal skills, and the capacity for discussion through dialectical argumentation. During the Renaissance—the \u003cem\u003estudia humanitatis\u003c/em\u003e—they were established to differentiate themselves from ancient theological studies and to focus on the teaching of humanistic subjects. From the Enlightenment onwards, the field acquired a liberal-humanist character based on a philosophical \u003cem\u003eethos\u003c/em\u003e concerning human progress and the emphasis on rational knowledge. It was thus proposed to objectify \"reality,\" that is, to create objects of study and specific knowledge, which also had to be \"useful\" (Reglado de Hurtado, 2007, p. 2). Simultaneously, with the development and attempt to differentiate the social sciences from the humanities, the latter had to rediscover their own object of study. Speculation and non-experimental approaches lost prestige and became objects of scrutiny. The process of institutionalizing the humanities as fields of knowledge consequently involves addressing their transition through the disciplinary era, which equated rationality with the natural sciences developed from the 16th and 17th centuries, following the establishment of the “human being” as an object/subject of study (Foucault, 2010).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBased on different literature about the characteristics of the humanities as disciplines\u0026nbsp;(Kristeller, 1990; Franyutti, 2013), we highlight a specific work which gathered what researchers themselves consider to be the current features of the humanities in relation to the prevailing positivist hegemonic model (Napoli \u0026amp; Cuschnir, 2025). To this end, it is systematized three emergent dimensions that synthesize the specificity of humanistic thought. First of all, the authors point out\u0026nbsp;the interpretative, reflective and comprehensive nature that operates on the thoughts, actions and experiences of other subjects and their discourses as epistemological and methodological ways of producing knowledge. This characterization leads to a certain struggle for legitimacy, requiring convergent articulations between ontological, epistemological, and methodological discussions. We argue that an oscillation still persists today regarding whether to label them as sciences or as a distinct form of knowledge. Secondly, the imaginative and prospective character—understood as their incursion into speculative and creative domain—is highlighted as necessary and closely linked to their mediating role and temporal differentiation from other sciences. From this perspective, the humanities are proposed as lenses or perspectives not merely for empirically verifying facts but as approaches for reading and understanding reality. A further key aspect is the capacity to denaturalize established norms, producing concrete effects through the construction of critical thought, which simultaneously builds values while deconstructing sedimented meanings. In this way, the humanities serve a function in examining the discourses of others, including other sciences and institutions, as means of interrogating existing logics (Louis, 2022).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFinally, the conception of the humanities presented embodies a function that challenges the instrumentalist approach in terms of purely economic profitability, producing forms of “distinctive knowledge”. The idea that research must preserve contributions not immediately beneficial to humanity reveals a political perspective on the human being, which society demands in its constitution as such (Napoli, 2025). At the same time, it is highlighted the importance of positioning against the commercial logic of imposed agendas oriented toward profitability, which undermines not only academic freedom but also the interpretative character of the humanities. In this sense, improved professionalization of these fields was emphasized, which could provide leverage to influence state policy; in this way, epistemological and methodological approaches could help establish a scientific policy beyond the logic of “self-marginalization.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThereby, the scientific-academic map has imposed as eutral and objective ideal of the sciences, demanding certain values, records, validation, and scientific authority to which all sciences, and therefore the humanities, had to conform. These demands placed them at a crossroads, confronting the tension of establishing themselves as a stronghold of the imaginative center of knowledge, and revealed the complexity of their epistemological configuration and their status as \"human sciences,\" which remains unresolved. In this context, the prevalence of positivism in the academic landscape postulates a subordinate position for the humanities due to their supposed lack of capacity to contribute to economic development, along with accusations of being \"pre-scientific,\" lacking method and predictive ability (Alonso, 2021). This debate allows us to delve into current disputes regarding the new science-society contract, which revisits its role in the current scientific system, challenged by questions and debates about its social function.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe role of the humanities within the scientific system is challenged by questions and debates concerning their use and \u0026nbsp;utility, issues that also affect other sciences. As a central aspect of these questions in this article, we aim to contribute by proposing the meanings of contribution and intervention of the humanities. This concern allows us to ask what meanings are currently attributed to these concepts by humanities researchers and how they translate them into research practices within a given academic culture. Today, this is considered under the premise that the social perspective on science is part of the culture in which people live, with its historical and national roots and influences (Ziman, 2003).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWithin the framework of dominant approaches in current science policies (Naidorf \u0026amp; Perrota, 2015; Naidorf, Perrotta, Gómez \u0026amp; Riccono, 2015; Napoli \u0026amp; Naidorf, 2021), it is not easy to find an agreed-upon role for the humanities. This problem has manifested itself in multiple interventions by scientific policymakers around the question: \u003cem\u003ehow can the humanities “produce something that benefits society”?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this sense, the concept of social utility allows us to encompass some of these debates. Following Zabala and Vaccarezza (2002), social utility is considered a socially constructed quality of knowledge: the possible meanings that knowledge’s utility can assume result from socially interactive processes and are therefore sociologically problematic. This relative magnitude enables the analytical framework that allows us to analyze the significations that various agents attribute to the object involved in the process of meaning-making (Alonso, 2021). Notably, the work of the aforementioned authors highlights the character of social utility as a suspended category arising from social interactions, not attributable solely to a knowledge object to be subsequently “transferred” from academia to a productive or market context. Therefore, we are interested in a concept of social utility derived from the meaning-making capacity that researchers themselves attribute to it, to consider potential uses of humanistic knowledge that do not necessarily follow a market-driven or immediate logic.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFurthermore, society as a whole, in a broad sense, constitutes the primary recipient of knowledge, simultaneously serving as both subject and object of study for the humanities. Indeed, society is assumed to be the audience not only for whom knowledge is directed, but also as the central focus of humanistic concerns. Following this idea, there are external conditions that shape possible uses, recipients, and demanders, based on specific experiences (concrete practices) carried out by the subjects themselves. Once again, the notion of social utility is a concept that can be endowed with meanings by the agents themselves; in the case of the humanities, it is associated with their history of critical intervention across different formats and territories, as well as their intrinsic value in producing critical thinking. Humaniistc knowledge is considered useful if it can account for a certain circulation and controversial, disruptive attribution, allowing reception by society from multiple angles, sectors, and historical contexts (Napoli, 2025).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt this point, justifying their value is, undoubtedly, a way to maintain not only prestige, equivalence, and standing in universities and regulatory and knowledge promotion bodies, but primarily to contest their share in the allocation of research funding, whether from states, supranational organizations, or civil society sectors. The humanities have the capacity to engage in critical and transformative thinking, maintaining a close link to a social function that can be associated with specific forms of intervention in reality, while also being able to interact with the ruling powers, making the internal disputes within the humanities relevant in today’s global context. The challenge lies in documenting and systematizing the current meanings that the evolving Argentine academic culture attributes to the social function of the humanities. In this discussion of their social function, it is clear that assuming that academic freedom and mere curiosity naturally translate into contributions or transformative inputs is insufficient to grasp the entirety of scientific practice. As Derrida (2002) notes, academic freedom comes with the freedom to propose and dissent, highlighting a key instance of critical knowledge in the humanities, linked to real transformation, presupposing a self-defined agenda, research lines, potential recipients, and forms of appropriation. From this critical perspective, in \u003cem\u003eThe Social Function of Philosophy\u003c/em\u003e (1974), Horkheimer analyzed the position of philosophy—through the reformulations proposed by the Frankfurt School—in relation to the validation of scientific knowledge from a positivist standpoint. He proposed a critical utility of the humanities as a negative force, grounded in an ontological-epistemological reflection on their place in society. Philosophy, he argued, does not possess an \u003cem\u003ea priori\u003c/em\u003e definition or guide that can be associated—as is the case with other sciences—with a degree of applicability of its results to social problems and needs. Instead, the illumination function is valued as a form of rejecting scientific truths, social ways of life, and established cultural habits as natural tendencies to be uncritically accepted; this is the essence of critical thinking. The so-called “scientific-technological revolution” did not produce the same quantity and quality of human progress as it did in its specific domain. Horkheimer argued that thinking cannot proceed independently without considering the broader course of society and must therefore determine the ends of social rationalization processes. Hence, if critical theory of society and science aims to reconsider the current conditions in which they occur, it necessarily conceives itself as negative with respect to the prevailing order. Accordingly, “the critical function of philosophy is pedagogical in guiding humans to perceive that social conditions are neither natural, fixed, nor eternal, and in pursuing the improvement of the social whole” (Horkheimer, 1974, p. 285).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom this perspective, utilitarian reasoning has overflowed the realm of technical activity and penetrated all areas of life in society. Utility, in this case, responds to the social function of science, yet it is far from being inherently positive; on the contrary, it develops as a function of the social domination necessary to maintain the capitalist system (Di Bello, 2010). The various notions of social utility of knowledge often reside in the tension between producing purely applied knowledge, purely basic knowledge, and the failure to consider how each era and context conceives specific ways to rethink the social function of science. Sarewitz (2016) had already pointed out the problem of granting science a free pass to decide what constitutes “progress” without reference to the real world; thus, pursuing research from a neutral position, pure academic “freedom,” and associated with isolated decisions of “scientists” (the mertonian\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;ethos\u003c/em\u003e) turns scientific knowledge into elite knowledge. For the humanities, this issue becomes even more complex, as positions clash between persuing knowledge production for its own sake and advocating for knowledge with utility and/or intervention in reality, while still preserving epistemological specificity, critical function, and a constructivist perspective on scientific knowledge (Alonso, 2021). The first position, supporting the intrinsic value of the humanities, is well-known. Authors associated with the idea of retreating to arguments about the intrinsic value of humanistic knowledge—such as its potential for individual spiritual or aesthetic enrichment (the hedonistic view of knowledge)—include literary critic Stanley Fish (2008), who tends to assert that the humanities “do nothing, if by ‘doing’ we mean producing effects in the world, and if they produce no effects in the world, they can only be justified in relation to the pleasure they provide to those who practice them” (Vasen, 2012).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOther perspectives propose a broader view, reconsidering the role of the humanities in an attempt to decouple their function from mere theoretical knowledge production for its own sake. It is possible to consider their active, propositional role in the debate on science as a factor and instrument of social change. In this way, reflecting on the social intervention meanings of the humanities and their relationship to the concept of use and utility in debates on the function of science remains a viable and significant problem.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Methods ","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe paper is framed within the perspective of interpretative sociology (Giddens, 1989). This theoretical framework allows to analyze the research problem by combining the macro-social (in structural terms) and micro-social levels, where the emphasis is placed on the process of the production of meaning not only on their own practices but also on the meaning attributed to the structural elements and the perceived influence on their practices. The proposed methodology is primarily qualitative, as it allows for the description of the complex conceptual structures underlying the practices, ideas, and beliefs of the actors under investigation, in this case, for research in the humanities. Thus, the first step was to frame and systematise the theoretical production that serves as the basis for the analysis. \u0026nbsp;Following Hernández Sampieri (2010), the review and systematisation of the literature is useful for identifying key concepts, enriching the work with new conceptualisations, and delving deeper into previous approaches to the problem. To investigate these meanings, an intentional sample of 43 researchers—the units of analysis—in the humanities belonging to different institutes and/or research spaces belonging to universities in Argentina was constructed. \u0026nbsp; The units of analysis were identified using the snowball technique (Sautu, 2009). We conducted 43 in-depth interviews with a thematic guide, carried out in virtual and face-to-face formats during the period 2022-2024; these were transcribed and then analysed. The sample was intentional non-probabilistic and contains parity with regard to academic age and gender. The empirical groundwork sought to problematise conceptual tensions on two levels: how researchers in the humanities understand – give meaning to – contribution and intervention as part of a collective, and what they identify as intervention in their everyday practices. Within this, we consider how different humanisitic disciplines conceptualise research use. The data was then analysed using content analysis techniques, guiding the study with a grounded interpretation based on the data. In this way, the responses that emerged from reflection and systematisation on their own knowledge production were evaluated in relation to the concept of intervention, contribution and social utility. The limitations includes the sample and does not involved the whole universe of Institutions but they are the most important in terms on number, history and impact on research in the country were selected. These are distributed according to their institutional affiliation, with national universities and CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council – Argentina) being the two main circuits of knowledge production with which the interviewees identify; and with the aim of providing different perspectives and realities that can be contributed by the different nodes of knowledge production in the country The selected institutes and/or academic spaces are: The Institute of Humanities at the National University of Córdoba. The Laboratory of Human Sciences at the National University of San Martín. The Institute of Critical Studies in Humanities CONICET-National University of Rosario. The Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Litoral CONICET - National University of the Litoral. The Patagonian Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences Studies National University of Comahue. The Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of the National University of La Plata. Institutes of Humanities of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1- Towards a construction of the concept of intervention and its multiple meanings\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe concept of knowledge intervention proposed in this article is articulated with an analytical perspective that we term \u003cem\u003eknowledge mobilization\u003c/em\u003e. Knowledge mobilization entails a series of strategies, processes, and actions identified in the daily work of scientists, as well as a set of normative recommendations aimed at addressing the processes of linking knowledge producers and users. Numerous published studies provide diagnoses that attempt to define: the actors involved in production, the different morphologies that mobilized knowledge assumes, and the challenges presented by dialogue channels between producers and users of so-called scientific knowledge (Naidorf \u0026amp; Alonso, 2018). In this regard, the concept of knowledge mobilization assumes various perspectives and definitions: the use of evidence and research results for public policy decision-making (Nutley et al., 2007); a method or tool that facilitates the translation of research results into action (Bennett et al., 2007); efforts to share research results with potential users (Levin, 2011).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRecognizing the importance of promoting capacities for knowledge appropriation, much of the literature treats knowledge production and use as a \u003cem\u003econtinuum\u003c/em\u003e, often overlooking one analytical dimension: researchers’ practices and the processes that operate upon them. Analyses of knowledge mobilization do not account for the structural dimensions influencing scientists’ practices, which enable and constrain the possible courses of action, especially in peripheral contexts in developing countries (Naidorf \u0026amp; Alonso, 2018). Furthermore, in line with recent discussions regarding the role of values in scientific practice, Da Silva (2016) proposes reconsidering the socially constructed and contingent nature of the categories through which scientists, particularly in social sciences and humanities, conceive.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe concept of intervention has generally been associated with applications in social sciences and public policy aimed at promoting concrete social change. In the case of anthropology and cultural studies, Carlos Restrepo (2012), from Colombia, understands intervention as praxis theoretically oriented toward transformation. It can operate on different levels: interrupting certain concrete links of common sense and collective imaginaries; interventions as actions derived from concrete research; and contextually-based theoretical inputs aimed at achieving structural transformations. Restrepo (2012) critiques the forms of knowledge production in the humanities, primarily concerning what he perceives as the confinement of researchers under the productivity logic and academic bureaucracy imposed by universities. However, he also highlights an anti-academic and anti-theoretical logic that celebrates an “epistemic relativism in which all knowledge is equally valid in terms of intervention in power structures” (Restrepo, 2012, p. 167). We therefore propose converging the previously developed meanings concerning appropriation, linkage, and interaction with society, uniting them as forms of intervention in society. Based on debates on the third mission of the university (Alonso, Cuschnir \u0026amp; Napoli, 2021) and the conditions of humanistic knowledge production, researchers construct and enact intervention in the social world (Polanyi, 1968), beginning by questioning the classical model of knowledge production.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis intervention derived from possible definitions of the third mission, implies the multiplication of mechanisms deployed by research to fulfill its function. It is thus not only possible to refer to technological transfer or university-industry linkages, as previously mentioned, but it is also essential to recognize the diversity of actions universities undertake with their environments, often aimed at addressing social problems through alternative modalities (Alonso, Cuschnir \u0026amp; Napoli, 2021). Furthermore, this concept allows inquiry into social issues such that its interpretive method not only investigates human concerns but also enables denunciation and collaboration in the remediation of injustice, revealing the contingent nature of cultural discourses and the possibility of modifying them: there persists a desire to intervene in the socio-political reality. Following Deleuze and Guattari (2001), one can insist on this “creative epistemology” that establishes a new image of thinking by questioning dogma. Creative epistemic inquiry, as conceptual creation, relates to political elements suggested by this new image of thinking. This has entailed a methodological gesture to practice philosophy away from mere contemplation and “reflection on” (Deleuze \u0026amp; Guattari, 2001), revealing a positive and disruptive stance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHence, this article addresses the concept of intervention as a dimension within definitions of knowledge mobilization and debates on the university’s third mission in the science-society relationship. The concept refers to a materialization of knowledge that translates into concrete knowledge production, but simultaneously—and here lies its novelty—it is approached through the epistemological complexity of knowledge production in the humanities. This entails understanding how knowledge produced in the humanities can result in outputs that are not solely contemplative or interpretive, but enable incursions and approaches in various ways; in other words, it can produce, in light of the aforementioned debates, a call to modify the investigated reality.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2-On the current forms of knowledge intervention in the Humanities from the voice of researchers\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs previously noted, intervention as a concept allows the convergence of multiple meanings of mobilized knowledge. For the humanities, it becomes evident that these meanings do not necessarily result in direct or immediate actions of appropriation; however, their reflective, imaginative, and denaturalizing nature implies laying the groundwork for knowledge always in dialogue with a reality being questioned. With these assumptions, humanities researchers identified different meanings associated with these forms of intervention, systematized below\u0026nbsp;in \u003cstrong\u003eT\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eable 1\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2.1. Symbolic-Cultural Intervention as potential or possibility\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirstly, researchers indicate that the concept of contribution and intervention (hereafter referred to as intervention) is constituted as a possibility within their research work. Furthermore, they highlight that the ways to demonstrate the uses and effects of their practices are not easily identifiable or measurable:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"The important thing is the potential of a practice to generate something. Generating something does not imply a transformation that leads to a radical social revolution of living conditions, but that it generates the potential for a possibility different from the existing conditions of life\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 15).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"The humanities produce for the possibility of intervention; so that it may serve someone someday\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 10).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"No basic science research has its immediate correlate in applied science, or in social, economic, environmental issues, but it may have it; all have the possibility of having it\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 29).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this sense, the concept of intervention is understood through the possibility that generating disruptive and dialogical thinking can question the reality in which any scientific practice is embedded. It is not expressed in terms of direct and structural modification of society: research is conducted for the possibility of intervention. Reflexivity, the ability to form opinions and common sense through the development of expertise, are the meanings most frequently emphasized in the interviews, aligning with less immediate forms of circulation and, therefore, with a diffuse character in measuring effects. Some research serves to “illuminate” key aspects of decision-makers’ problems through concepts or new approaches without providing evident tools for intervention.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe concept is thus constructed as a category in suspense, whose meanings fall under the idea of symbolic-cultural intervention as potential or possibility. This concept functions as a guiding principle of the disciplines, adopting the meanings proposed by most researchers and associated with the epistemological-political nature of knowledge production. This potential social value may or may not be directly used by social audiences (Benneworth, 2015) and is therefore connected to the imagination of scientific knowledge utility, and more strictly, “to the association between scientific knowledge production and the fulfillment of an explicit social function that assumes that research practice has the capacity to improve people’s social living conditions; at this level, there is no explicit reference to the effects of knowledge use but rather to its transformative potential\u003cem\u003e”\u003c/em\u003e (Alonso, Cuschnir \u0026amp; Napoli, 2021, p. 10).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Intervention is symbolic and cultural. All the time we are elaborating and re-elaborating how to build a national tradition, which are fully operational concepts for a society\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV.1).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"To intervene is to produce a symbolic difference that may be highly mediated but different from a way of seeing things, of how we understand a law, for example; but in a school, it is useful\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 36).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"I believe we have, even if small, this function of public intervention. From my team, we went out to show history wherever possible: in the library, in demonstrations. So, it’s like taking structures to the streets, with the body, the face, the hands, with everything\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 39).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Intervention in the transformation of mentalities, which are the hardest things to change\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 4).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"The exercise of imagination is a sine qua non condition for action. It is not true that action comes first and then imagination; imagination nourishes action. But the humanities do not put you in contact with the heavens, Platonic-style; they work with what exists, with that source of desire\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 5).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis form of symbolic intervention, transversal to all disciplines, is described as linked to the reality being questioned through different forms of articulation. The interviews account for the concrete ways in which these intervention possibilities manifest, depending on the need to articulate these mediations. Researchers propose consolidating the modes of directly materializing intervention through various actions. In this sense, the legitimacy of the humanities is constructed beyond defending its epistemological-political character; the capacity for intervention is inferred as potentially useful and is shaped through the connections and articulations described. This “reality,” in which sedimented meanings, reflections, and conceptual creation operate, produces effects of denaturalization, creation, and displacement of common sense circulating implicitly. Nevertheless, researchers emphasize the need to articulate this inherent function of the humanities with institutional forms that allow concrete intervention with different societal actors, even if the effects are not fully measurable. This is supported by the fact that indicators to map these activities either do not yet exist or are not sufficiently institutionalized (Alonso, Cuschnir \u0026amp; Napoli, 2021, p. 99).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2.2. Forms of Articulation: material intervention practices in the Humanities\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ei) Teaching Practice\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis form of articulation is recognized by researchers primarily as a means of disseminating and transmitting the knowledge produced in their research. While this mode of knowledge engagement is considered one of the historical missions of the university as an institution, interviewees assert that the training instance allows for anchoring the critical thinking of the humanities and simultaneously constitutes a form of research that feeds back into their own development. It is described as a fundamental element of the humanities (as opposed to other sciences), driving the production of knowledge as valuable in both the production and reproduction of concepts and theory.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is important to note that these teaching activities are confined to the university academic environment: undergraduate and graduate students; non-traditional teaching modes directed at other audiences and non-academic spaces are not included. However, university teaching practice is highlighted as the seed that later enables the adaptation of content into other formats.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUniversity teaching, therefore, emerges as a transversal and essential activity. The proposed form of articulation involves transmitting, imparting, and creating knowledge embodied in future graduates and potential researchers. Teaching is thus defined as the clearest form of intervention for the interviewees, related to the “first dimension of third mission activities, which is Professional Training” (Alonso, Cuschnir \u0026amp; Napoli, 2021, p. 97):\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"My territorial work is being in the University office. My territory today is undergraduate teaching, which professionalization drives me toward\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 29).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Teaching, for example, which is not counted as production and which I think should be, is a very clear and direct way to reach the community\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 6).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Teaching is pedagogical dissemination, but at the higher education level pedagogy and didactics are invisible, as if they did not exist; from the elitist perspective of the teacher. We also teach it as scientific dissemination, because you research in order to teach. It’s not the same\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 35).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn summary, teaching is exemplified as a practice of transmission or dissemination of thought that articulates symbolic and cultural intervention through class delivery. It is presented as a way to reach a broad audience of learners seeking to formalize their education. This conception is also primarily associated with the social commitment implied by university teaching (Benneworth, 2009).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eii) Dissemination, outreach, and communication actions\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eActivities that involve a general non-academic audience can be grouped under dissemination, outreach, and public communication of research. While literature conceptualizes these as distinct approaches, for this study they operate at the same level of articulation, circulating in spaces of intervention within public debate. These actions are mostly associated with engagement in mass media (today, including the Internet and social media) or in teaching spaces differentiated from traditional classrooms.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"I never say no to a radio interview, a newspaper interview, and if there are activities where I can communicate my research results, I do it, because I find it profitable both in the school context and in broader social reflection\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV.1).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"I have been working in outreach for many years, in radios, two years as a radio columnist and co-producer, but since it was unpaid work I could not sustain it. I have also been invited several times to university radio programs and TV, to talk about science fiction\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 18).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Different researchers started appearing in the public philosophy arena. There is a disciplinary prejudice about dissemination as secondary knowledge. In my case, my teaching role prompted me to communicate the discipline in an accessible way, showing that you do philosophy but introduce people unfamiliar with academic rules\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 27).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"I had the sense that there were many ways to articulate knowledge with productions that did not necessarily appear in academic papers, which allowed me to use an essayistic tone, reflections on daily life, humor, and texts attractive to a general audience; I found in newspaper columns a testing ground to publish short pieces and experiment\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 10).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese activities often originate from an external “request” or a topic of social interest for which experts are consulted; to a lesser extent, they come from emerging initiatives by universities or institutes. This process highlights how researchers navigate non-linear interventions by contributing to societal debates:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"I like interacting outside the Academy, I learn a lot from participating in spaces that are not strictly university-based. You are often invited by other educational sectors. I am not a communicator nor do I study communication, but philosophy always has a topic to contribute\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 10).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Through a student, I was invited to a radio interview. I realized I needed preparation, and my research helped. The format evolved into a column where I read and interpret songs, interacting with listeners for 40 minutes; now it’s also a podcast and pedagogical material\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 27).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Sometimes the best visibility strategies are unplanned. Environmental problems challenge everyone differently, and not all researchers will respond the same way\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 18).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThus, experts are expected to participate in public debate, yet participation is not mandatory. These practices expand the reach of research outputs to non-specialist audiences, via local media, radio, TV, podcasts, non-traditional magazines, audiovisual content, workshops, and other knowledge-sharing activities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eiii) Extension and knowledge transfer actions\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe concept of transfer is debated and ambiguous in the humanities and social sciences, with its meaning still contested, particularly as “social transfer” (Llomovate et al., 2009). Traditionally, it refers to a researcher linking with an “external” non-scientific environment to transfer knowledge (Estébanez \u0026amp; Korsunsky, 2003). University extension, inherited from the 1918 Córdoba Reform, emphasizes social justice and community-oriented missions rather than economic goals. While the two concepts are not interchangeable, researchers treat them under the same umbrella as institutionalized activities connecting universities with non-academic spaces. These activities often stem from personal motivation but align with academic research, enriching it and allowing non-linear inquiry paths.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eExtension activities include:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"I taught in prison for many years. I would never have accessed that world without university mediation. I found my space of activism through extension work. I see it as integral to my university teaching\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 9).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"All civil organizations, NGOs, unions, magazines outside academia—moving from mainstream logic to concrete societal connections\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 29).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"In my course, I propose extension work, making our output circulate. In 2018, we aimed to circulate classical texts from a sophistic perspective, publishing a book and addressing translation and language issues beyond academic spaces\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 20).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eExtension practices rely on university mediation, which formalizes links and institutionalizes activities. While valued historically, researchers note these practices are underappreciated. Extensionist approaches often emerge from pre-existing relationships with social organizations, unions, or political activism.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKnowledge transfer experiences include:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Transfer lines respond not only to social demands but also to capitalist pressures; it’s a kind of umbrella under which many things hide\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 9).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"As a group, we engage in linkage and transfer activities, translating expertise into accessible language, connecting problems with everyday life\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 12).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"We conducted a study for the Buenos Aires Ombudsman on healthcare access. An anthropology team formed, and the results were used by the Ombudsman\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 34).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTransfer is mostly associated with public policies, often mediated by the state, reflecting the challenge of legitimizing humanities knowledge for concrete use. Researchers perceive a double challenge: their own self-marginalization and the state’s limited recognition of humanities’ epistemological potential.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eiv) Academic-scientific activities\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eResearchers’ interventions in this domain are primarily with peers, facilitating expert dialogue, reinforcing critical capacity, and informing their own production. These activities include conference presentations, publications, and workshops in academic institutions. They align with prevailing scientific production standards, linked to academic prestige and recognition:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"I attend small conferences to listen and gather ideas\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 1).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"I present at conferences and academic events to share work with colleagues\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 11).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"I communicate with specialists to circulate specific research that may not fit mainstream exchanges\"\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 10).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile valuable, these interactions often remain within closed academic circles, limiting societal reach. Yet conferences and debate sessions differ from other interventions, as they foster critical discussion in relation to peers’ ideas. This raises questions about the university’s role as a space for disruptive knowledge addressing social interests and alternative methodologies.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e3. The Role of the Other in Knowledge Production in the Humanities: Constructing Notions of Usefulness\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBuilding on the discussion in the previous section, researchers recognize that humanistic knowledge is directed toward society as an undefined entity, whose engagement is always potential; it constitutes an act of intervention for future appropriations or uses. To account for these concrete uses, they point to the necessity of forms of articulation with their environment. In this sense, each of the forms of articulation described allows for different degrees of proximity or distance to potential recipients and indicates different dynamics of interaction. Moreover, they evoke different notions of usefulness, revisiting its conceptualization as a suspended category that is context-dependent. The following points systematize these issues:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1) Social notions of utility in the Humanities\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ea) Utility related to potential social value\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne notion, aligned with symbolic-cultural intervention, is the potential social value of humanistic knowledge, which does not possess a specific application and may or may not be used by social audiences (Boekholt, 2010). This idea connects to the broader imagination of the utility of scientific knowledge in general, and more specifically, to the association between scientific knowledge production and the fulfillment of an explicit social function, assuming that research practices can improve people\u0026rsquo;s living conditions. At this level, explicit reference is not made to the effects of use but to its transformative potential (Alonso et al., 2021):\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;Philosophy has changed the world: half the world was socialist because they read Karl Marx. Jacques Cousteau or Carl Sagan, that is, scientists who generated a vast movement of imaginations around what they did\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 4).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;Utility conceived as direct products that improve quality-of-life indices doesn\u0026rsquo;t work; but it has a direct impact on citizenship, on the argumentative capacity of the population; if philosophy functions as an argumentative practice, its impact is enormous, but it cannot be measured or evaluated in the same way\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 27).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;What one does is useful, but one does not really know how, in what way, or for whom; I imagine one generates conditions so that it may become useful to someone. We do not know the utility. We do not know what will happen to others; it cannot be controlled, and this makes it more interesting\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 10).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;Utility for whom\u0026hellip; eventually things arrive, directly or indirectly. Someone studies Argentine cinema and discovers a film, which leads to producing a new copy and showing it to people who had no prior knowledge. Society may consider it unproductive if it does not interest them; there is always this minor scale, now more visible\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 3).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this sense, utility is defined as a \u0026ldquo;possibility for\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;a suspended notion that may or may not generate concrete uses in ways not necessarily identifiable during knowledge production. This indeterminacy, and the impossibility of predefining concrete uses (i.e., specifying in advance who will receive the knowledge and what impact it will have), is also associated with the imaginative and interrogative capacity of humanistic knowledge, which distinguishes it from other fields or sciences. However, these indeterminate paths can sometimes transform knowledge and produce unforeseen concrete uses. This potential value is intrinsic to humanistic research and links to future transformations without a predetermined purpose. Its potential exists precisely through indeterminacy, constructing a suspended notion of usefulness that implies a criterion of surprise, novelty, or creativity in its applications.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eb) Utility related to the production of critical thinking in its anti-comercial function\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis conception is closely linked to a central characteristic of the humanities: their epistemological-political stance as anti-comercial. Notions of utility, from this perspective, are associated with forms of resistance to positivist modes of production through so-called \u0026ldquo;critical thinking,\u0026rdquo; understood as opposing logics that reduce usefulness to a product whose sole goal is economic gain. Researchers emphasize that the humanities generate alternative avenues of potential use for audiences that are not equally valued because they are not measurable in terms of \u0026ldquo;productivity\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;impact\u0026rdquo; as in other sciences. This value is mainly associated with \u0026ldquo;transforming minds\u0026rdquo; (aligned with social value) as a central activity for disseminating critical thinking, providing tools for potential appropriation by knowledge users to understand, interact with, and intervene in the world:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;If utility is reduced to a commercial question, or potential profits from selling this book, it seems to me irrelevant to any scientific discipline in principle\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 35).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;There is an important contemplative dimension because reducing everything to praxis has its issues; keeping an \u0026lsquo;useless\u0026rsquo; dimension in human life is important. The work on rare or minor topics matters\u0026mdash;they have a right to exist. Studying the 52nd verse of Virgil\u0026rsquo;s Aeneid? Yes, I want it to exist. Confronted with other forms of knowledge, the term \u0026lsquo;impact\u0026rsquo; is awful, it\u0026rsquo;s academic capitalism\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 33).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;We need to distinguish between community-driven questions and our methodological and epistemological inquiries within disciplines, defending public knowledge so it is not subordinated to economic or productivity demands\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 6).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;Instrumentality is one thing, the potential of a practice is another, and utility yet another; from a negativist and modern tradition, one might assert the uselessness of practice, resisting the productivist logic of capitalism. Unproductive \u0026lsquo;uselessness\u0026rsquo; sustains alternative markets, generating sales and hegemonic cultural practices funded and empowered, even if anti-market thinkers end up being co-opted by multinationals\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 15).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis highlights the opposition to instrumental rationality, asserting critical thinking as knowledge escaping the entrenched logics of dominant power centers that define scientific fields and academic communities. Research without specific recipients\u0026mdash;more general or abstract\u0026mdash;maintains a zone of indeterminacy as a line of escape (Deleuze \u0026amp; Guattari, 2001) from prevailing positivist and capitalist models, challenging agendas imposed with perceived higher \u0026ldquo;value\u0026rdquo; than those not directly demanded.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom an analysis of the material conditions of knowledge production, what is considered productive at a given time also allows circulation within the system, e.g., through prestigious publishing houses. Anti-market logics may still contribute to elitist niches, producing outputs aligned with the system despite an anti-utilitarian stance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ec) Utility associated with constructing notions of relevance for the Humanities\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eResearchers emphasize that even when their studies are not \u0026ldquo;on the agenda,\u0026rdquo; their willingness to link them to concrete uses generating relevant knowledge often stems from personal motivation; in other words, they transform knowledge to make it usable, beyond whether it is instrumental or symbolic. Thus, potential use depends less on topic choice and more on the researcher\u0026rsquo;s ability or willingness to visualize and mobilize this potential, engaging actors within scientific production spaces, such as policymakers or evaluative institutions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile some topics are more aligned with current urgencies, and others more marginal, these divisions often produce \u0026ldquo;neglected\u0026rdquo; lines of study, challenging existing agendas. As noted in knowledge mobilization (Naidorf \u0026amp; Alonso, 2018), agendas are not constructed freely but are shaped by funding, evaluation, or meta-societal interests, reproducing power discourses (Brunner \u0026amp; Sunkel, 1993). According to Louis (2022), the scientific community\u0026rsquo;s reactions to challenges against their assumed identity reveal values influencing academic practice, tied to ideological and political structures and national cultural apparatuses.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHumanities occupy a central, yet contested, role, with researchers reflecting on their relevance. Usefulness is constructed through self-reflection on topic relevance, potential users, and articulation methods, requiring legitimization beyond an intrinsic social value:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;Today, major problems concern character education; the classical world seems irrelevant, but it still offers insights. For example, Seneca\u0026rsquo;s discussion of suicide could inform public euthanasia policy\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 18).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;Unexpected utility: archaeology research on the Falklands war, using field methods, contributed to a mental health project for veterans, with clear societal benefit\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 2).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;Topics attract interest beyond philosophy or the university; digitalization, Big Data, algorithms, AI\u0026mdash;all make it relevant to broader audiences\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 10).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;Researchers often underestimate the relevance of their topics. Studying Borges, for instance, is part of cultural heritage, even if not immediately \u0026lsquo;relevant\u0026rsquo;\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 2).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u0026quot;Humanities work produces concrete, even economic, societal uses. Geography informs regional psychology; protocols influence indigenous public policies; tourism markets Buenos Aires as South America\u0026rsquo;s cultural capital\u0026quot;\u003c/em\u003e (INTERVIEW INV. 7).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese excerpts highlight that even seemingly \u0026ldquo;useless\u0026rdquo; topics may impact concrete problem-solving. Questions about how research problems become socially recognized or debated remain central. All research topics emerge from socially situated issues, filtered through trajectories, personal histories, and subjective factors (scientific freedom, personal tastes). Evaluating relevance in terms of agendas requires considering academic cultures, local production contexts, knowledge-power relations, and funding mechanisms. Moreover, reflecting on how citizens create, impose, or demand topics as public debates offers insight into the humanities\u0026rsquo; role, fostering collaborative, interdisciplinary, or co-productive knowledge (Jasanoff, 2004). Researchers show clear motivation to engage in dialogic, collaborative practices with non-academic sectors, suggesting a mutual interest in connecting with broader society. The challenge remains whether this \u003cem\u003eethos\u003c/em\u003e can be formalized at the disciplinary level and how these perceptions can mobilize hegemonic academic practices.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Discussions","content":"\u003cp\u003eIn this article, we have defined how the ways of understanding symbolic-cultural intervention and its meanings derived from the humanities are unique and differ from more traditional conceptualisations in the literature on the subject. Symbolic-cultural intervention stands as the cross-cutting meaning across all humanistic disciplines with the aim of producing knowledge always directed at \u0026ldquo;society\u0026rdquo; as a rather abstract entity. However, the power of intervention lies in the creation of concepts, ideas, imaginaries, or meanings that circulate, in general, in unexpected and indirect ways. At first glance, like basic knowledge, it is not plausible to be appropriated in terms of use in its purely instrumental sense or to generate an immediate visible \u0026lsquo;impact.\u0026rsquo; The attribution of a social and symbolic value to its production of knowledge, that is, \u0026lsquo;making\u0026rsquo; others reflect through critical thinking, would allow that other person to access that knowledge and think for themselves in order to analyse their surroundings. Bearing in mind that the object/subject is the subject itself and that contexts are always differentiated, the results also tend to be differentiated and unexpected. However, faced with this indeterminacy, understood as necessary\u0026mdash;since it constitutes a first instance of autonomous and critical thinking required by the humanities\u0026mdash;researchers point out at other times that this knowledge produced is articulated with more specific audiences and functions. Therefore, they recognise that their practices include traditional criteria for the production and circulation of scientific work, such as publications, researcher training, teaching, and participation in meetings and conferences, as possible ways of operationalising its cultural symbolic power in its most classic forms. However, they also recognise other ways of questioning, transferring or transforming this knowledge in ways that allow it to be circulated and appropriated by non-academic sectors, which are more closely linked to practical uses. The existence of different modes of knowledge production coexists in tension and is delimited by the scientific community in which researchers are always embedded.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eConsequently, this allowed us to address a novel area for the humanities which, in the face of discussions about their epistemological-political status associated with ideas of futility, posits debates about the usefulness of knowledge in tension with positions associated with a purely commercial use, but which does not remain outside this perspective. The objective has been to focus on the forms of intervention, usefulness and use that conceive of humanistic knowledge in its emancipatory variants of knowledge that serve as evidence for society, knowledge institutions and scientific policy makers.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData availability\u003c/strong\u003e: The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCompeting interest\u003c/strong\u003e: The author(s) declare no competing interests.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthical\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eapproval:\u003c/strong\u003e The study was approved by CONICET. In Argentina, the ethical framework for qualitative studies involving interviews in the social sciences is based on universal principles such as autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice, focusing on continuous informed consent (IC), confidentiality, and protection against harm (physical, psychological, or social). The local ethic committee of CONICET is based on Decrees Nos. 1661/96, 1256/03, 1427/05, 310/06 y 982/06 y and CONICET Board Resolutions Nos. 346/02, 671/04 y 766/06 and the Resolution D. N\u0026deg; 257/2006 and RESOL-2023-527-APN-DIR#CONICET. The link to the complete declaration and ethical principles is here: https://evaluacion.conicet.gov.ar/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/REGLAMENTO-DE-COMITE-DE-ETICA.pdf\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInformed consent\u003c/strong\u003e:\u0026nbsp;The consent was obtained from all participants prior to their involvement in the study between 2022-2024 orally\u0026nbsp;orally from the approved recording of all interviews.- All participants have been fully informed that their anonymity is assured, why the research is being conducted, how their data (the transcripts and interprtation of their dialogues) was utilised, and that there is no risks to them of participating. The all accepted orally and was recorded for more security.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eScript:\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eHave you noticed any changes in the way knowledge is produced between the beginning of your career as a researcher and today? Briefly describe your academic career.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eWith regard to research in the humanities, what do you consider to be the main difference between the production of knowledge in the humanities and other \u0026lsquo;sciences\u0026rsquo;? What specific characteristics do you find? \u0026nbsp;\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eWhat is the source of the vitality of the supposedly unproductive\u0026mdash;in light of the debates about its status as a field of knowledge\u0026mdash;for this specific form of knowledge production?\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eOn the other hand, I am working on the concept of intervention to think about research in the humanities. How do you understand the meaning of this concept? How do you think the humanities can intervene through debates or productions in reality?\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eWe work with the concept of knowledge mobilisation, so we wanted to know: What other activities do you do at the Institute/in your research team in relation to establishing links with society? What place do they have in the evaluation or how are they weighted by the scientific system?\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is assued that the responsibility of researchers in HSS comprises three dimensions: with regard to the persons who are subjects of research; to society in general; and to their own work. \u0026nbsp;The Resolution is RESOL-2023-527-APN-DIR#CONICET. Decrees N\u0026deg; 1661/96, 310/07, 371/19, 730/19, 681/20, 4/22, 333/22, 134/23 y 166/23 y las Resoluciones de Directorio RESOL-2021-1257-APN-DIR#CONICET, RESOL-2022-304-APN-DIR#CONICET y RESOL-2023-125-APN-DIR# CONICET The link to the complete declaration aof the infomr consent is here: 1) https://www.conicet.gov.ar/wp-content/uploads/RD-20061211-2857.pdf 2)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe three authors of the paper have worked together to aligned their academic interests. We work together as a research team and we have all contributed equally to generate the ideas, results and to propose analitic dimensions (in different levels) for the article.MN has conducted most of the interviews and then analized their data ( reviewing interviews transcripts), as a part of her field work to obtain her Phd degree . She has also been working with humanities disciplines (as her primary carreer) and their link to society as a novel topic proposed in this article. She has contributed especifically to of create the analytal dimentions that constitutes table 1 and resumes and systematize the main results of the article.MA has developed the accurate framework on the social function of science as a relevant issue of his research topic. This work also emerges from his multiple analysis about social sciences within an interpretative pespective (as and epistemolical decision) that was carried out in the present text and espcifically to the concept of social utility for social sciences, as a result his both MA and PhD degrees.MC has analized the interviews within the given perspective. She has also contributed with analitical dimentions that emerges form her previous research work about \u0026quot;linking patterns\u0026quot; between Universiry (and different discplines ) and society as a part of her MA degree.JN has conducted the team as a senior researcher with years of contributon to the topic (more than 15 years) and in this case, she has been supervisor for MN PhD degree aiming to conceptualize use and intervention of humanities as a novel contribuion to the core team. All the authors have gathered to the conclutions and final comments. All authors reviewed the manuscript.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eAcknowledgement\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCONICET- UBA\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAlonso, M. (2021). Los significados de la utilidad social del conocimiento cient\u0026iacute;fico en ciencias sociales en el marco de los Proyectos de Desarrollo Tecnol\u0026oacute;gico y Social (PDTS). Tesis de doctorado. Facultad de Filosof\u0026iacute;a y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAlonso, M., Cuschnir, M., \u0026amp; N\u0026aacute;poli, M. (2021). La tercera misi\u0026oacute;n de la universidad y sus m\u0026uacute;ltiples sentidos en debate: extensi\u0026oacute;n, transferencia, vinculaci\u0026oacute;n, compromiso, coproducci\u0026oacute;n e impacto social de las pr\u0026aacute;cticas acad\u0026eacute;micas y los modos de producci\u0026oacute;n de conocimiento. Revista Del IICE, (50), 91-130. https://doi.org/10.34096/iice.n50.11268 \u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBennet, A., Bennet, D., Fafard, K., Fonda, M., Lomond, T., Messier, L., \u0026amp; Vaugeois, N. (2007). Knowledge mobilization in the social sciences and humanities. Frost, WV: Mqi Press.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBenneworth, P. (2015) \u0026ldquo;Tracing how arts and humanities research translates, circulates and consolidates in society. How have scholars been reacting to diverse impact and public value agendas?\u0026rdquo; Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 14 (1) pp. 45-60.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBrunner, J. y Sunkel, G (1993). \u003cem\u003eConocimiento, Sociedad y Pol\u0026iacute;tica, FLACSO, Santiago, Chile\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDa Silva, R. S. (2016). A Relev\u0026acirc;ncia da Epistemologia para o Pensamento Cr\u0026iacute;tico. Revista Lus\u0026oacute;fona de Educa\u0026ccedil;\u0026atilde;o, 32, 17-29.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDerrida, J. (2002). La universidad sin condici\u0026oacute;n. Madrid: Editorial Trotta.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDeleuze, G., Guattari, P. F. (2001) \u0026iquest;Qu\u0026eacute; es la filosof\u0026iacute;a? Barcelona, Anagrama.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDi Bello, M. E. (2010). EL PROBLEMA DE LA UTILIDAD SOCIAL DEL CONOCIMIENTO CIENT\u0026Iacute;FICO EN LOS ESTUDIOS SOCIALES DE LA CIENCIA Y LA TECNOLOG\u0026Iacute;A. Question/Cuesti\u0026oacute;n, 1(27). Recuperado a partir de https://perio.unlp.edu.ar/ojs/index.php/question/article/view/1017\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEst\u0026eacute;banez, M. E., \u0026amp; Korsunsky, L. (2003). Medici\u0026oacute;n de actividades de vinculaci\u0026oacute;n y transferencia de conocimientos cient\u0026iacute;ficos y tecnol\u0026oacute;gicos. RICYT: El estado de la ciencia. Principales indicadores deficiencia y tecnolog\u0026iacute;a iberoamericanos/interamericanos, 83-92.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFish, S. (2008). Academic Freedom Is Not a Divine Right. Chronicle of Higher Education, 55(2).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFoucault, M. (2010) Las palabras y las cosas. Una arqueolog\u0026iacute;a de las Ciencias Humanas. Siglo XXI Editores.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFranyutti, A. (2013). \u0026iquest;Qu\u0026eacute; son hoy las humanidades y cu\u0026aacute;l ha sido su valor en la universidad? \u003cem\u003eRevista de educaci\u0026oacute;n superior\u003c/em\u003e. Issn: 0185-2760. Vol. XLII (3), No. 167 julio - septiembre de 2013; (4), No. 168 Octubre - Diciembre de 2013, pp. 81 - 100.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGiddens, A (1989) Las nuevas reglas del m\u0026eacute;todo sociol\u0026oacute;gico; Amorrortu, B. Aires\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHorkheimer, M. (1974) \u0026quot;La funci\u0026oacute;n social de la filosof\u0026iacute;a\u0026quot; (\u0026quot;The Social Function of Philosophy\u0026quot;[1940] en Max Horkheimer, Kritische Theorie. Eine Dokumentation, hrsg. von Alfred Schmidt, Frankfurt; 1968) en M.Horkheimer,Teor\u0026iacute;a Cr\u0026iacute;tica, trad. E.Albizu y C.Luis, Amorrortu, Buenos Aires, pp.272-289.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJasanoff, S (2004). The idiom of co-production. States of knowledge: The co-production of science and social order: 1-12.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKristeller, P. O. (1990). Renaissance thought and the arts: Collected essays. Princeton University Press.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLevin, B. (2011). Mobilizing research knowledge in education. London Review of Education.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLlomovatte, S., Naidorf, J. y Pereyra, K. (2009). La Universidad cotidiana. Reflexiones te\u0026oacute;ricas y experiencias de transferencia Universidad-Sociedad. Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLouis, A. (2022). Sin objeto. Por una epistemolog\u0026iacute;a de la disciplina literaria. Colihue Universidad\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNaidorf, J., Perrotta, D., G\u0026oacute;mez, S., \u0026amp; Riccono, G. (2015). Pol\u0026iacute;ticas universitarias y pol\u0026iacute;ticas cient\u0026iacute;ficas en Argentina pos-2000.: Crisis, innovaci\u0026oacute;n y relevancia social. Revista Cubana de Educaci\u0026oacute;n Superior, 34(1), 10-28.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNaidorf, J., \u0026amp; Perrotta, D. (2015). La ciencia social politizada y m\u0026oacute;vil de una nueva agenda latinoamericana orientada a prioridades. Revista de la educaci\u0026oacute;n superior, 44(174), 19-46\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNaidorf, J., \u0026amp; Alonso, M. (2018). La movilizaci\u0026oacute;n del conocimiento en tres tiempos. Revista: Lus\u0026oacute;fona de Educa\u0026ccedil;\u0026atilde;o. Editorial: Edi\u0026ccedil;\u0026otilde;es Universit\u0026aacute;rias Lus\u0026oacute;fonas.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNapoli, M, \u0026amp; Naidorf, J. (2021). Sobre la propuesta preliminar del Plan Nacional de CTI 2030 de Argentina. Ciencia, Tecnolog\u0026iacute;a Y Pol\u0026iacute;tica, 4(7), 066. https://doi.org/10.24215/26183188e066\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNapoli, M. (2025). Comprender, imaginar y alentar la revuelta frente a una ontolog\u0026iacute;a cr\u0026iacute;tica del presente. Un an\u0026aacute;lisis sobre los procesos de producci\u0026oacute;n, movilizaci\u0026oacute;n e intervenci\u0026oacute;n del conocimiento de la investigaci\u0026oacute;n en humanidades en la ArgentinaTesis de doctorado. FFyL, UBA.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNapoli, M. y Cuschnir, M. (2025). Sentidos sobre la dimensi\u0026oacute;n epistemol\u0026oacute;gica-pol\u0026iacute;tica de la producci\u0026oacute;n de conocimiento en humanidades desde la voz de investigadores/as de Argentina. Revista Polifon\u0026iacute;as. UNLU.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNutley, S. M., Walter, I., \u0026amp; Davies, H. T. (2007). What does it mean to \u0026lsquo;use\u0026rsquo; research evidence?. In Using evidence (pp. 33-60). Policy Press.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePolanyi, M. (1968) \u0026ldquo;The Republic of Science. Its Political and Economic Theory\u0026rdquo; en Shils, E. (ed.) Criteria for Scientific Development. Public Policy and National Goals (Cambridge: MIT Press)\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eReglado de Hurtado, L. (2007). La funci\u0026oacute;n social de las humanidades: un antiguo y nuevo desaf\u0026iacute;o. Ponencia presentada en El futuro de las humanidades las humanidades del futuro: Coloquio interdisciplinario de Humanidades de la Pontificia Universidad Cat\u0026oacute;lica del Per\u0026uacute;. Lima: agosto de 2007.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRestrepo, C. (2012). Antropolog\u0026iacute;a y Estudios culturales. Disputas y confluenias desde la periferia. SIGLO XXI.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSarewitz, D. (2016). Saving science. The New Atlantis, 49(37), 4-40.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHern\u0026aacute;ndez Sampieri, R., Fern\u0026aacute;ndez, C., \u0026amp; Baptista, P. (2010). Metodolog\u0026iacute;a de la Investigaci\u0026oacute;n.(Quinta Edici\u0026oacute;n). M\u0026eacute;xico DF.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStake, R. (1998) Investigaci\u0026oacute;n con estudios de caso. Madrid: Morata.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eVasen, Federico (2012). \u0026iquest;Qu\u0026eacute; pol\u0026iacute;tica cient\u0026iacute;fica para las humanidades?; Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosof\u0026iacute;a y Letras; Espacios de cr\u0026iacute;tica y producci\u0026oacute;n; 48; 6-2012; 43-\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eZabala, J. P., \u0026amp; Vaccarezza, L. S. (2002). \u003cem\u003eLa construcci\u0026oacute;n de la utilidad social de la ciencia: Investigadores en biotecnolog\u0026iacute;a frente al mercado\u003c/em\u003e. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eZiman, J. (2003). Ciencia y sociedad civil. \u003cem\u003eRevista iberoamericana de ciencia tecnolog\u0026iacute;a y sociedad\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e1\u003c/em\u003e(1), 177-188.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"},{"header":"Table","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 1:\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003eCharacteristics of the Humanities research intervention\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"711\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 128px;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd colspan=\"4\" style=\"width: 583px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSymbolic-Cultural Intervention as potential or possibility\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd height=\"82\" style=\"width: 0px;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd rowspan=\"3\" style=\"width: 128px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eForms of articulation\u0026ndash;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;Material intervention practices in the Humanities\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd rowspan=\"3\" style=\"width: 123px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTeaching Practice\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u0026nbsp;(gradute and posgradute)\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd rowspan=\"3\" style=\"width: 159px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDissemination, outreach, and communication actions\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd rowspan=\"3\" style=\"width: 137px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eExtension and knowledge transfer actions\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd rowspan=\"3\" style=\"width: 164px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAcademic-scientific activities\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd height=\"82\" style=\"width: 0px;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd height=\"106\" style=\"width: 0px;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd height=\"106\" style=\"width: 0px;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd rowspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 128px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCharacteristics\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd rowspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 123px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTransmitting expert knowledge as a way of commitment to the University. Expert knowledge is proposed for the training of potential researchers.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd rowspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 159px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMaking knowledge visible as a way of contributing to public debate. Expert knowledge can be understandable to a wider audience.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd rowspan=\"2\" style=\"width: 137px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eInstitutionalise activities that are preliminary and/or required to address a specific social need. Forms of engagement with the environment (identified civil society institutions). Weak links with public policies.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 164px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGenerate opportunities for dialogue with national and international peers to enrich one\u0026apos;s own knowledge production.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd height=\"172\" style=\"width: 0px;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 164px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eModalities of permanence in the scientific system.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd height=\"30\" style=\"width: 0px;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"humanities-and-social-sciences-communications","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"palcomms","sideBox":"Learn more about [Humanities \u0026 Social Sciences Communications](http://www.nature.com/palcomms/)","snPcode":"41599","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/41599/3","title":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Nature AJ","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8204640/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8204640/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThe purpose of this article is to reflect on how researchers from different humanistic disciplines conceptualize the ways in which their research contributes to society, within the framework of debates on the social function of science. In this way, the article allows us to account for the meanings of the utility of humanistic knowledge assumed by researchers based on their own practices as a topic-problem that is infrequently addressed and not associated with these disciplines. To this end, two levels of analysis are proposed: the first presents the meanings attributed to the ways in which humanistic knowledge contributes to and intervenes in society, which allow for the description of concrete and specific scientific practices; the second systematizes the meanings of utility that emerge from this. The methodology adopted is qualitative in nature, as it allows for the description of the complex conceptual structures on which the practices, ideas, and beliefs of the actors investigated in the research are based. The results of an empirical study ared based on interviews with 43 humanities researchers from the Argentine science and technology complex, conducted during the period 2022\u0026ndash;2024. The sample is an intentional non-probabilistic selection of researchers and contains parity in terms of academic age and gender. The article's findings and results highlight the suspended category of symbolic-cultural intervention of the humanities based on specific forms of articulation to intervene concretely in society through different practices. Likewise, they uphold the potential social value of the concept of utility as a suspended meaning that may or may not generate concrete uses in ways that are not necessarily identifiable in the process of knowledge production and that is sustained in clear opposition to purely economic and instrumental logics.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Knowledge production in the Humanities in Argentinaand its link with society: how do researchears conptualize contribution, intervention an social utlily based on their own academic practices?","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-12-12 07:33:53","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8204640/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"decision","content":"Revision requested","date":"2025-12-10T15:14:40+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2025-12-09T19:05:02+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","date":"2025-12-09T18:58:38+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"humanities-and-social-sciences-communications","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"palcomms","sideBox":"Learn more about [Humanities \u0026 Social Sciences Communications](http://www.nature.com/palcomms/)","snPcode":"41599","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/41599/3","title":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Nature AJ","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"f4cd9b3f-b59b-489b-9005-3227286c4233","owner":[],"postedDate":"December 12th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[{"id":59534966,"name":"Social science/Anthropology"},{"id":59534967,"name":"Social science/Education"},{"id":59534968,"name":"Humanities/Language and linguistics"},{"id":59534969,"name":"Social science/Language and linguistics"},{"id":59534970,"name":"Humanities/Philosophy"},{"id":59534971,"name":"Social science/Sociology"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-01-27T11:08:20+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-12-12 07:33:53","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8204640","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8204640","identity":"rs-8204640","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}