Measuring Monsters, Academic Subjectivities, and Counting Practices

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Being and Becoming a Scholar

Abstract

In the field of qualitative inquiry, we have a history of questioning the taken for granted and considering alternative knowledge making practices. As technology and neoliberalism intersect through social academic organizations such as ResearchGate, Google Scholar, and Academia, algorithms are producing numbers that represent our scholarly “impact.” These numbers are always on the move, and we posit that these algorithms function as part of a society of control that keeps scholars, especially female scholars, anxious about their subjectivities. We provide a diffractive reading of the assumptions that underlie these algorithms with feminist critical materialist scholars Barad and Braidotti to imagine other radical possibilities for our academic subjectivities while we are engaged within this system.

Authors

• Susan Ophelia Cannon, Mercer University

• Maureen Alice Flint, University of Georgia