The Politics of Research

Abstract

This chapter critically interrogates the politics of research currently dominating US higher education, a politics shaped as much by theoretical and methodological questions and debates as it is by prevailing social, cultural, political, and economic forces. The arguments are guided by four primary questions: (1) How and to what do the cultural and political priorities of the free-marketized, corporate university impact, direct, or confound the conduct of research?; (2) how and to what extent does politics situate methodologies?; (3) how and to what extent is the research act impinged upon by such particularities as institutional review boards, national funding councils, scholarly journals, and the promotion and tenure process?; and (4) how and where do academics fit into this new research climate? The authors also forward a series of practical recommendations for professors and students alike who seek to actively confront and challenge the academic-industrial complex.