ABSTRACT
If academic knowledge is indeed a human artefact, it is possible to assume that the collective practices that have shaped it have left traces. This chapter assembles a methodological and theoretical toolbox that allows us to take an empirical look at these traces in different textual sources. It provides some ground rules for studying these variations as digital traces in textual data. Namely, it aims to foster an analytical approach that helps newcomer scholars to fully understand and to explain how a specific set of ideas circulates, how their definitions change and the spatial and historical specificities of these variations. It provides a model workflow to address these tasks and offers insight on how to build comprehensive search strategies. To illustrate these methods, it offers three empirical case studies that showcase the kind of research that can be conducted using these tools. It thus offers a type of approach situated in the emerging field that uses digital methods and computational tools for social science research.
