The quantified academic. Performative management through measurement instruments in science

This article reflects on the subjectivity of academics based on a qualitative empirical analysis of the instruments of public action to manage scientific production in Chile. This study proposes that management devices not only seek to optimize national scientific production, but also have important effects on those who develop knowledge. In order to investigate this, a discursive analysis of 200 public and official documents was carried out, which gather contest bases for the awarding of scholarships, forms and instructions to distribute resources for research. The documents analyzed are understood as a representation of the public management of science, but above all as objects of order and performance in the scientific world. After a discursive analysis of the documents, we can show how the instruments trace the development of a "quantified academic self"; which requires that academics become actively involved, by registering their activities under the language of measurement and quantification. Without a doubt, the translation of scientific activity into this type of device plays a transcendental role, transforming scientific lives. The article shows how documents act on subjectivity and concludes by reiterating the need for a critical use and commitment to management technologies in public science policies.