Event Details
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Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra: Count Me In: How Quantification Shapes Knowledge Politics in Contemporary Higher Education
How to Participate:
Participants are invited to attend in-person at 1014 Tisch Hall. Advance registration is not required.
Title:
Count Me In: How Quantification Shapes Knowledge Politics in Contemporary Higher Education
Abstract:
How is knowledge organized in higher education? In recent decades, the adoption of market-oriented logics within institutions of research and higher education had notable implications on how the pursuit of knowledge is shaped and rewarded. A number of authors have documented how the “commercialization of science” had consequences on the quality of knowledge produced in particular research settings. Backed by distinct cultures of quantification and tied to concrete devices measurement and commensuration, the broader audit cultures that embed modern research shape what we know and can know. In this talk, I explore instances of these cultures by looking into the role of research assessments and budget models as mechanisms for shaping and regulating how universities structure their instructional and research operations. This talk shows how several techniques of quantification become important for implementing change in higher education with long-lasting consequences for the distribution of knowledge, the organization of the sciences, and the structure of the public sphere.
Speaker:
Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra is an Associate Professor in sociology at the University of California, San Diego, a founding faculty member of the Halicioğlu Data Science Institute, co-founder of the Computational Social Science program at UCSD, and Associate Director of the Latin American Studies Program at UC San Diego. His research concerns markets and their location in contemporary societies with an emphasis on finance, knowledge, and organizations.
This talk is part of the STeMS Speaker Series and co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics, Society and Computing (ESC).
