Overpublication as a symptom of audit culture: A comment on Phaf (2020)

Abstract

Phaf suggests that, in order to address overpublication, academics should read more and publish less. Although many academics would like to take this advice, doing so is complicated by the audit culture that marketizes and metricizes everything they do. Working from the evolutionary metaphor introduced by Phaf, we argue that the evolution of science consists not simply in adapting theory to the demands of empirical investigation, but also in adapting scientific traditions and communities to the political and institutional forces that shape them. We point specifically to the generalized metrics (e.g., impact factors) that, in audit environments, arbitrate resources, in the process engineering professional precarity and overdetermining theory building. We argue that hyper-production can be understood as an adaptation to such an audit environment. We briefly discuss some suggestions for approaching the audit through relational accounting practices that disrupt and re-inscribe calculative audits, thus creating opportunities to read more and publish less.