Constituting the Academic Performer: The Spectre of Superficiality and Stagnation in Academia

Abstract

Journal rankings and performance measurement schemes tend to become increasingly influential within many fields of research, thereby consolidating the prevalence of performativity on the life and research endeavours of many academics. The latter are nowadays often pressured to publish in ‘top’ journals to ensure they have a displayable level of performance. Drawing from literature on identity, this paper introduces and details the construction of the academic performer – a representation of identity which is increasingly typical of what it means today to be an actor in academia, in terms of attitudes and behaviour. Fundamentally speaking, this paper constitutes a critique of a detrimental tendency in academia, that is to say the excessive spread of performance measurement practices and the flow of superficiality and conformity they consolidate.