Editorial
Message from the incoming Editor-In-Chief
I am honored to have been selected as the new Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (JHSSR). It’s a privilege to work in tandem with an outstanding scholar, Professor Nayan Kanwal, along with his Editorial Board, who established JHSSR as an outstanding forum. As I embark on this assignment, I feel humbled and excited. I thank the selection committee as well as Professor Percival Bion Griffin--my predecessor who edited JHSSRwith exceptional diligence and dedication--who offered me this opportunity.
Journalology indicates how rankings determine impact and prestige in particular fields. At the outset, I would like to emphasize certain elements that characterize our standards to maintaining the quality and its thrusts of this Journal: a) objectivity in the peer-review process; b) proactive enthusiasm and integrity of the reviewers and members of the Editorial Board; and c) rigor, and openness relative to performativity. The highly interdisciplinary nature of our Journal--at the cross-section of humanities and social sciences--necessitates a healthy competition with many other journals. In my term as EiC, I seek to break into a new niche by working on initiatives that attract the best articles in humanities, social sciences, and other cognate disciplines. Vast visibility, inclusive productivity, and wider readership should reflect JHSSR’s unmatched credibility. Together with the excellent editorial board, and Prof. Kanwal’s leadership, I will be on the lookout for emerging research directions and new ideas. Our editorial board enthusiastically welcomes suggestions for review, perspective, opinion articles, and feature/thematic issues. Suggestions from scientists and contributors from neighboring disciplines will be solicited, as always. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (JHSSR) is an open-access forum, published three times annually, to achieve this goal. Implicit here is a common ground for domestic and international research within a unified system of research ethics inclusive of moral imperatives that promote diversity and justice. In a world where inequality and proletarian alienation are endemic, knowledge and information should be transformative vehicles of progress. I have subscribed to this philosophy all my life.
I should demystify certain boundaries: Humanities and social sciences usually overlap in terms of subjects, methodology, and perspectives. While humanities are rooted in the past discussion of human-social relationships, social sciences, relatively young-- borne out of the post-Enlightenment movement--seek to apply objectivity to study social phenomena. In other words, the former tends to be analytical-critical, the latter essentially follows natural sciences as models of empirical research. Put simply, issues relating to being and becoming fall within Humanities and Social Science, respectively.
The study of humans and their social structures, institutions, and culture constitute the heart of the post-Enlightenment awakening. As the Age of Reason opened new vistas of knowledge, the nexus of Humanities and Social/Sciences began to expand. But it was in the ashes of two World Wars that Human Behavior became the focus of intellectual anxiety and inquisitiveness. Various disciples explored new horizons. Principally, Political Science, Economics, History, Geography, Psychology, and Sociology established their specialized domains. Paradoxically, this disciplinarity ‘compartmentalized’ general discovery of phenomena without a symbiotic interaction.
It was not until the end of the Nineteenth and outset of the Twentieth century that homo sapiens received special attention to unravel the nature of the ‘beast’ in its own environment. In a broader context in the depth of ethos, Darwin, Marx, and Freud had reinvented the ‘wheel' of knowledge, and a revolutionary wave of critical-analytical understanding began to evolve.
The paradigmatic quest thus exploded in humanities and sciences. Even Anthropology, History, Law, and Philosophy could not remain untouched in this radical search for knowledge. Nietzsche’s declaration that ‘God is Dead’ turned Platonic western philosophy upside down. New ideas, theories, facts, values, and ideologies transformed ossified structures of truth. It’s both unrealistic and fallacious to separate ideas and ideologies. The critical nature of analytic interpretation and discourse is, therefore, crucial.
Journal editors and their contributors, in many ways, serve as the ‘Wayfinders’. Editors have a special role to maintain quality and impact in a particular field. “Knowledge poses no threat to culture,” Wade Davis writes (2009:16). A new specialization which I call Academic Forensic is not yet born. In a culture of lies, falsification, and individual-institutional narcissism, it’s both prudent and essential to encourage discovery and innovation at the expense of spurious practices. While control and policing are antithetical to free inquiry, scrupulous research and scholarly publications should not be compromised. The JHSSR stands committed to employing a process of editorial integrity involving peer-reviews, quality standards, and essential ethical considerations.
In sum, JHSSR’s salience in the interdisciplinary realm of knowledge cannot be overstated. We extend possibilities to all scientists and scholars who open pathways to the research-based transformations of human ingenuity and societal dynamics. Feedback from our members, authors, reviewers, and readers is always welcome. A low publication fee is expected to encourage all contributors. A three-pronged goal--high profile, fast and fair review, and quality research--embodies our niches, quests and performativity.
Brij Mohan
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences Research
February, 2022
ISSN 2682-9096 Online
DOI: doi.org/10.37534
*Footnotes
Contributor: Brij Mohan is the sole author of the Editorial.
Funding: The author has not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests: None declared.
Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.