Extending the standards: AI, global sociology, and North–South collaboration

Aksoy et al. (2026) propose three standards for sociology, the integration of theory and empirics, open science, and a careful relation between scholarship and political action. In this comment, we endorse these standards and argue that two developments, the uneven geography of sociological knowledge and the disciplinary reach of artificial intelligence, call for a wider frame. We propose reciprocal collaboration with researchers in the Global South as a single move that absorbs the disruption from AI, corrects an empirical deficit, and narrows the methodological gap, while extending rather than diluting the standards the statement defends.

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Publication Details

Journal
Rationality and Society
Published
2026-06-25
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/10434631261464475
Primary Topic
Computational and Text Analysis Methods
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Extending the standards: AI, global sociology, and North–South collaboration

Fanqi Zeng
Rationality and Society
Computational and Text Analysis Methods
article

Extending the standards: AI, global sociology, and North–South collaboration

Fanqi Zeng
article en

Abstract

Aksoy et al. (2026) propose three standards for sociology, the integration of theory and empirics, open science, and a careful relation between scholarship and political action. In this comment, we endorse these standards and argue that two developments, the uneven geography of sociological knowledge and the disciplinary reach of artificial intelligence, call for a wider frame. We propose reciprocal collaboration with researchers in the Global South as a single move that absorbs the disruption from AI, corrects an empirical deficit, and narrows the methodological gap, while extending rather than diluting the standards the statement defends.

Rationality and Society
University of Oxford (GB)
UK Research and Innovation, John Fell Fund, University of Oxford
Openalex Percentile: Top 3%
Computational and Text Analysis Methods
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