What’s the point of academic writing and publications?

Do you ever feel like it is just so pointless to write academic articles, books, and commentaries? I do a lot of writing and publishing, so you might think I am really into it. In some ways I am. I like writing, and I like organising ideas and communicating them to others in clear and meaningful ways. But even then, sometimes it all just seems so pointless.

It seems pointless for a few reasons. One is that I’m tired, I have a lot of deadlines, and I have to think of a good reason to spend time on one article over another activity. Another reason is that the number of people that actually read our articles is pretty low. Thirty-two percent of social science articles go uncited within 5 years of publication. Such papers are only ever read by the reviewers, editor and author. That’s depressing — who am I even talking to? If we are lucky enough to have our work read by the general public or by decision-makers, it may then be ignored or written off as ‘ideological’ if it doesn’t support the ideology of those making the decisions. A third reason is that the whole publishing industry is a messed up cesspit of exploitation and maladaptive incentives, and it just feels a bit ‘ick’ to be part of it all.

In addition to those reasons, if you were someone who was writing in order to get extra points and funding for your university in NZ’s PBRF (Performance-based research funding) you may also be reeling from the fact it was cancelled. In fact, this is what got me thinking about the point of academic writing over the last week.

In a single announcement, instantly, all the work that people had been doing to document their impact for the sake of PBRF was rendered meaningless. For me, that was probably a few hours of reporting, some testing of an impact narrative add-on to our university publication-tracking software, and some money I was given to pay someone to update all my ORCID, Scopus and university profiles and publications when I started a new job. That’s not a lot of time because I don’t make my research and writing decisions around PBRF. I publish in all kinds of places, and some of them happen to be Q1 journals, but that’s not how I measure my impact.

So in that single announcement cancelling PBRF, I had one overwhelming reaction: real impact is all that matters, in the end. Citation rates don’t matter. Journal rankings don’t matter. Institutional games to increase researcher profiles and make our work sound more impactful than it really is — none of those matter. All that matters is whether someone out there used some of my work to make a difference — or even better, the process of doing that work made a difference.

This is why my community-first research method begins with collaboration with community organisations, agreeing on a project that is of interest and meaning to the community. This includes agreeing on what the outputs might be. These are usually outward facing books (see here and here), exhibitions, or reports. Or some kind of workshop or method that helps them with what they do. After those are done, then I work on more formal academic outputs, like journal articles (see here on care and commons) or book chapters (this one on wellbeing and commoning for example), or policy oriented articles (such as this one on organic waste). Because in the end, these formal academic outputs are part of my job and I have to do them — and they are a good way to make sure my work goes through some peer review from people I don’t know (I always get reports and books peer reviewed even if they are not formal academic outputs but I usually ask people myself).

There is one further reason I find to continue with academic writing. That is as a form of commitment to the people I have worked with, particularly students. The other work I do is co-authored with students who have done research and want to get it published. I usually try and do one article with each student I’ve supervised. These are meaningful for different reasons — not so much whether people read them or not, but the relational work of writing with someone and supporting them through the writing process. Recently I’ve written these articles with students, which have all held some meaning for me because of such relationships.

• See, J., Cuaton, GP., Placino, P., Vunibola, S., Thi, HD., Dombroski, K., . . . McKinnon, K. (2024). From absences to emergences: Foregrounding traditional and Indigenous climate change adaptation knowledges and practices from Fiji, Vietnam and the Philippines. World Development. 176

• Goburdhone, S., & Dombroski, K. (2023). Thinking with soils: Can urban farms help us heal metabolic rifts in Aotearoa? New Zealand Geographer. 79(2), 127-131

• Do Thi, H., & Dombroski, K. (2022). Diverse more-than-human approaches to climate change adaptation in Thai Binh, Vietnam. Asia Pacific Viewpoint. 63(1), 25-39

• Dombroski, K., Duojie, C., & McKinnon, K. (2022). Surviving well: From diverse economies to community economies in Asia-Pacific. Asia Pacific Viewpoint. 63(1), 5-11

• Peryman, PB., & Dombroski, K. (2021). Cultivating, Havening. E-Flux Architecture. (June 2021) Retrieved from https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/survivance/393665/cultivating-havening/

• Dombroski, K., Waliuzzaman, SM., Conradson, D., Diprose, G., & Healy, S. (2023). Commoning for urban wellbeing in Majority and Minority Worlds. In Wellbeing: Global Policies and Perspectives: Insights from Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond. (pp. 225 – 242).
• Haryani, R., & Dombroski, K. (2022). Arisan: Producing Economies of Care in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In Community Economies in the Global South: Case Studies of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations and Economic Cooperation. (pp. 168 – 186).

So in the end, why do we write academic articles? For me, it is for two reasons — one, is for communication and reflection on what we have done in our research, and two, it is for deepening our thinking and ideas in relationships with others (such as students).