Making ‘Visible’ the ‘Invisible’ Work of Academic Writing in an Audit Culture

Abstract

The audit-culture approach to measuring academic writing for publication is, by current Australian policy definitions at least, fairly straightforward: count the number and ‘quality’ of publications produced within a specified timeframe, enter into the relevant database. We argue in this chapter that such a view eclipses the ‘invisible’ work of writing. Presenting a narrative exploration of our writing as a group of women academics, our aim is to articulate and render ‘visible’ the ‘invisible’ work that produces an academic article. Our discussion is framed by an institutional ethnographical approach, where we argue that these connected everyday ‘invisible’ practices are both assembled and disassembled through the structures of the neoliberal university, that may paradoxically also produce space for disrupting audit cultures.