Keymakers: Genealogical Turning Points and Their Ontological Impact in the Age of Gatekeeping and Bibliometrics
Keywords:
Scholarly publishing, Editorial gatekeeping, Bibliometrics, Pergamon Press, Eugene Garfield, Neoliberalism in science, Philosophy of scientific communicationAbstract
This essay offers a philosophical reflection on scholarly publishing by examining the relationship between editorial gatekeeping, bibliometric infrastructures, and asymmetries of power. It first distinguishes between a positive understanding of gatekeeping, as a complex practice of mediation and coordination, and a negative one, in which gatekeeping appears as an exclusionary and colonial device. On this basis, it develops a genealogical inquiry into two decisive turning points in post-WW2 scientific publishing: Robert Maxwell’s Pergamon Press and Eugene Garfield’s Institute for Scientific Information. The essay argues that these two trajectories contributed to the consolidation of a neoliberal editorial order marked by commodification, fragmentation of knowledge, and structural inequalities in global scientific visibility. It then moves from genealogy to ontology, claiming that bibliometric instruments do not merely measure scientific value, but increasingly operate as ritualized techniques that promise privileged access to it. The paper concludes that such an order rests on a partial and distorted understanding of scientific value, and that any genuine transformation of the system requires a critical rethinking of its underlying apparatuses.
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