Affiliation:
1. Stockholm University
2. Dublin City University
3. Prince of Songkla University
Abstract
Abstract
This article examines three sets of infrastructures that give shape to the academic knowledge economy, namely:
institutional infrastructures (universities and conferences); gate-keeping infrastructures (journals and publishers); and
validation infrastructures (competitive assessments of individuals and institutions). We analyse the tensed interplay between
critical perspectives in applied linguistics and the influence of academic neoliberalism. We develop our argument in three parts:
(1) Academic critique and its emancipatory epistemologies are intertwined with established systems and coexist with mechanisms
that perpetuate inequalities. (2) Inequalities in knowledge production reverberate in knowledge dissemination, where the hegemonic
role of English as the language of academic publishing reinforces the unequal position of different actors in their academic
fields. (3) These inequalities (that originate in institutional and gate-keeping infrastructures) extend to the validation of
knowledge, which is entrenched in the audit culture that pervades academia and further reinforces neoliberal competitive dynamics.
We conclude by reflecting on the possibilities for change at these three levels.
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics