Under the Shadow of Time: Where Indicators and Academic Values Meet

• Main Author: Ulrike Felt
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Society for Social Studies of Science 2017-02-01
• Series: Engaging Science, Technology, and Society
• Subjects: chronopolitics; indicators; accountability; metrics; academic work
• Online Access: http://estsjournal.org/article/view/109/64

This essay aims at relating the growth of indicators to the shifting temporalities of academic work. Drawing on research into academic work and lives but also on professional experiences, I develop the notion of chronopolitics to analyze the politics of time governing academic knowledge production, work and evaluation. Drawing on a range of examples, from the projectification of academic work and lives to the epistemic effects of strictly timed career structures, I point to the multiplication of theatres of accountability and to the shifting focus of academic work from a logic of discovery to one of delivery. In conclusion, I suggest moving beyond a debate of how to best play the indicator game, to a more fundamental critique of the entanglement of indicators and time, and to a re-timing of research as a political project.