Transitions and trajectories of researchers in SSHH: borderland knowledge, reconfigurations, and displacements in academic careers

Abstract

The constitution and consolidation of the field of Social Sciences and Humanities in Health (SSHH) have been the focus of numerous studies; however, the career trajectories of social scientists working in the health field have received less attention. This study draws on interviews with tenured researchers at public institutions who serve as faculty members in graduate programs in Public Health and have crossed the boundaries between scientific training in health and the social sciences. Career reconfigurations, movements across scientific fields, and the ongoing effort to assimilate new academic habitus characterize this group, underscoring the permeability of SSHH and its relative openness to new members. While some researchers entered the field with forms of symbolic capital—whether from high-prestige health professions such as medicine and psychology or solid theoretical and methodological training in the social sciences—all were required to invest in mastering a different matrix of values and practices shaped by SSHH. This entailed a long-term commitment to demonstrating scientific competence and building professional networks. Although such prerequisites are common to any scientific field, SSHH stands out as a subfield marked by conversions, whose internal diversity demands ongoing adaptations in identity construction and a certain fluidity in the theoreticalmethodological credentials considered legitimate.