ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Sociology of the Sleuth Community: Practices, Actors, and Zones of Interaction

• In Event: Activist Epistemics and Artefacts 1

English Abstract

In June 2024, several keynote speakers at the World Conference on Research Integrity focused on ensuring the highest quality and integrity of research underpinning the evidence. The conference’s key message emphasized the importance of ‘good’ science – science that upholds standards, rigor, robustness, reproducibility, and generalizability. A group of participants voiced a counter-narrative, expressing serious concerns about the rise of paper mills and fraudulent papers in scientific literature. They highlighted cracks and failures within the publishing system that contribute to the spread of “bad” science.

This heterogeneous group, often referred to as ‘sleuths’, aims to identify and publicize errors or instances of misconduct in scientific publications, and examine texts, evaluate images, and conduct statistical analyses of publication data. Through websites, blogs, wikis, and social media, these actors advocate for the systematic “decontamination” of the scientific literature. Their dissatisfaction also extends to the traditional peer-review system, which has motivated the development of new online review practices collectively referred to as post-publication peer review. This presentation will examine the ‘sleuths’ profiles and their interactions with journal editors, research-integrity teams, journalists, regulators, and scientometric companies, offering a current snapshot of this movement.

Sleuths are increasingly leveraging their “forensic” expertise to make visible the methods and tools they use to detect patterns indicative of potential misconduct. Some sleuths are even advocating for the establishment of a new field, forensic scientometrics, which is beginning to gain support from digital firms and academic publishers. Although still emergent and somewhat ill-defined, their growing influence is fostering the consolidation of a new community of practice, and they are already reshaping the traditional organization of the publication system.

Author

• Mady Barbeitas, Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Sciences Innovations Sociétés (LISIS), CNRS