FROM INTERPRETATION TO APRECIATION: ACADEMIC AUTHORSHIP IN THE CONTEXT OF NEW PRODUCTIVISM

Abstract

We argue that academic authorship, understood as a “function” of discourse (FOUCAULT, 1996, 2001, 2005), is being changed by some processes that characterize contemporary university. We discuss how those changes take place within two such processes: discourses about academic plagiarism and the development of bibliometric techniques meant to assess academic productivity. The former place plagiarism in the field of individual ethics and textual surface; the latter, conversely, transfers from individuals to communities the responsibility to validate knowledge. This results in a transition from the logic of “evaluation”, centered in the figure of the expert, to the logic of “appreciation” by a community of peers. The conditions under which the authorship of an academic text can be established are thus modified.