Rinse and repeat: Understanding the value of replication across different ways of knowing

Abstract

The increasing pursuit of replicable research and actual replication of research is a political project that articulates a very specific technology of accountability for science. This project was initiated in response to concerns about the openness and trustworthiness of science. Though applicable and valuable in many fields, here we argue that this value cannot be extended everywhere, since the epistemic content of fields, as well as their accountability infrastructures, differ. Furthermore, we argue that there are limits to replicability across all fields; but in some fields, including parts of the humanities, these limits severely undermine the value of replication to account for the value of research.