A story of nimble knowledge production in an era of academic capitalism
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A story of nimble knowledge production in an era of academic capitalism Steve G. Hoffman 1 Accepted: 20 April 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract A rise of academic capitalism over the past four decades has been well documented within many research-intensive universities. Largely missing, however, are in-depth studies of how particularly situated academic groups manage the uncertainties that come with intermittent and fickle commercial funding streams in their daily research practice and problem choice. To capture the strategies scientists adopt under these conditions, this article provides an ethnographically detailed (and true) story about how a single project in Artificial Intelligence grew over several years from a peripheral idea to the very center of an academic lab’s commercial portfolio. The analysis theorizes an epistemic form—nimble knowledge production—and documents three of its lab-level features: 1) rapid prototyping to keep sunk costs low, 2) shared search for “real world problems” rather than “theoretical” ones, and 3) nimble commitment to research problem choice. While similar forms of academic knowledge transfer have been lauded as “mode 2,” “innovative,” or “hybrid” for initiating cross-institutional collaboration and pushing science beyond disciplinary silos, this case suggests it can rely on fleeting attention to problems resistant to a quick fix. Keywords Academic capitalism . Artificial intelligence . Epistemic form . Knowledge
production . Problem choice . Research policy A sizeable body of research has demonstrated that the commercialization of university research has grown more extensive and elaborate over the past four decades (Popp Berman 2011; Geiger and Sá 2008; Kleinman and Vallas 2001).
* Steve G. Hoffman [email protected]
1
Department of Sociology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Maanjiwe Nendamowinan (MN) Building, Room 6210, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada
Theory and Society
Although the macro-level shifts toward academic capitalism are well documented (Slaughter and Leslie 1997; Slaughter and Rhoades 2004; Welsh et al. 2008), little work examines how commercialization shapes research priority and scientific problem choice in day-to-day, even moment-to-moment, decision making (Hackett 2014).1 Instead, the scholarship on research scientists’ response to “academic capitalist knowledge/learning regimes” (Slaughter and Rhoades 2008) has relied heavily on post hoc reflections (Blumenthal et al. 1986; Holloway 2015; Lam 2010; Slaughter et al. 2004; Webster 1994). In particular, the research literature remains thin on the precise mechanisms whereby specific configurations of commercially oriented academic research, such as the uncertainties that come with intermittent and fickle investments, shape lab strategy and problem choice. Inspired by programmatic calls for granular documentation of academic knowledge capitalization (Calhoun 2006; Hackett 2014; Vallas and Kleinman 2008), I draw from the lab studies tradition in science and techn
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