Publishing to become an “ideal academic”: An Institutional Ethnography and a Feminist Critique

SummaryIn this paper I offer an Institutional Ethnography, from the standpoint of female academics, of the construction of the “ideal academic” and quality journal publications as a central feature in this construct. I draw on interview transcripts, field notes, texts and artefacts produced and collected over a two-year period in a recently merged Finnish university. I focus specifically on how a translocal discourse of competitive performance measurement and standards of academic excellence are accomplished in the local construction of the “ideal academic” as a person who publishes articles in A level journals. While the construct is hard for anyone to live up to, it would seem to be more difficult for some people than for others. The current obsession with getting published in top journals place those women, who are heavily engaged in teaching activities and with responsibilities besides academic work, in a systematically disadvantaged relation to the currently dominating discourse of the “ideal academic”.

► Institutional Ethnography as a possibility for Feminist Organization studies. ► The text mediated presence of the translocal ruling relations in the local. ► How translocal notions of academic excellence enter into and shape local constructions of the “ideal academic” as someone who gets published in Top Journals. ► Rather than speaking broadly of gender, I speak from the experiential standpoint of those who are disadvantaged within the institutional processes.