The economic reterritorialization of academic publishing and the politics of reading [Journal of Sociolinguistics]

Using Klein's observation of almost 35 years ago of the disturbed balance between production and reception of academic knowledge as a starting point, we reflect on some of the tensions related to current reading practices in academic publishing. Specifically, we discuss two tensions that we encounter and try to resolve in our role as editors: 1) the tension between standardization and creativity, and 2) the tension between monologue and dialogue. Throughout, we also discuss a third more general tension, namely the gap between academic values of knowledge production embedded in the collegial work for scientific publications, and the profit driven publishing industry.