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Article published In:
Manufacturing Knowledge
Edited by Alfonso Del Percio and Cécile B. Vigouroux
[Language, Culture and Society 5:2] 2023
► pp. 182–198

The copycat paradigm

Italian “Class‑A” journals and the paradoxes of excellence

| University of Bologna Alma Mater Studiorum
This article describes how the copycat implementation of foreign protocols of assessment is transforming the production of knowledge within the Italian social sciences. Focusing on the gatekeeping process whereby the national agency for the evaluation of university research (ANVUR) publishes yearly lists of “Class‑A” journals, my analysis draws on interviews, first-hand observations, my own experience as a returning migrant-scholar, as well as comparisons with historical Italian journals. My aim is twofold: on the one hand, I reflect on the parallel misrecognition of scale and context underlying neoliberal capitalism; on the other hand, I describe the paradoxes of excellence and the forms of reflexive alienation engendered by the contemporary knowledge economy.
Keywords: academic commodification, non-Anglophone communities of practice, audit cultures, governmental ideologies of merit, scale
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Migrating protocols of quality assurance
  • 3.Class‑A journals and the paradoxes of excellence
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 January 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.00041.don
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