The Geometry of a Research Specialty: Spatial Diffusion Modeling

Abstract Despite the growing interest of geographers in the sociology of science, no work has been done on the structural analysis of a community of geographers engaged in a particular research specialty. The paper sketches the set-theoretic foundations for such work and reviews the literature on research specialties. Particular attention is focused upon the descriptions of social and cognitive structures yielded from citation analysis. Citations are used to explore the structure of one research specialty, spatial diffusion modeling; this is accomplished using multidimensional scaling (MDS) and Q-analysis. The graphical description yielded by MDS does not prove illuminating, but the algebraic, structural description provided by Q-analysis, whereby both citing and cited papers are considered, offers a more useful interpretation. Q-analysis is suggested as a natural language in which to investigate further the structure and dynamics of research specialties.

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