Academia: going at it alone...

[Jamshyd]

What is the place of the independent researcher these days?

By "independent" I mean one who is not affiliated with any academic institution.

Beyond blogging (which, at this point, has a mechanic similar to that of hollywood celebrities) and getting published (rare as hen's teeth), is there even a place for such person?

It used to be that books and primary sources were locked up in the libraries of a select number of institution. And while there is still such an element that presents red tape, the doors of information had been blown off their hinges with the information boom. How else can someone become an uninstitutionalized academic?

I guess I'm just thinking out loud here.

 

[Binge Artist]

How else can someone become an uninstitutionalized academic?

The closest guy I can think of is Christopher Langan.

However, most conventional academics think of him as a crackpot (perhaps because he's not in academia, or perhaps because he IS a crackpot).

 

[tambourine-man]

Acadaemia is as much about being one of the old boys, as it is about having sufficient knowledge to compete in the journals. Being affiliated opens doors.

 

[satricion]

There are very few real independent academics. There are a number of reasons for this:

Firstly, being a real academic is a full time job. You have to be constantly on top of the cutting edge of the field. This means reading journals, new books that come out, going to conferences and meetings, etc. Doing research also takes a lot of time. Gathering data, and writing up results into journal articles and books, are time consuming processes. You can't do all this and work another job at the same time. There isn't time.

Secondly, and related to the first, being in an academic environment is important for doing good academic work. You need people to have academic discussions with, to share ideas, get contacts with other academics, hear about new literature, new approaches etc.

Being involved in an institution, usually a university, provides you with the wage required to do all the things you need to do to be a good academic, and also provides you with an environment which lends itself to decent academic work. It also provides you with the institutional legitimacy required to win grants, attract projects, and do empirical research out in the world, since with the legitimacy of an institution you have institutional accountability. People know you're not just some gung ho random, but a real academic who is going to do research properly (this is also part of what makes research ethical).

I think overall that this is a good thing. But there are some problems with it. I think the increasing specialisation in academia has meant that disciplines, and even sub disciplines, don't talk to each other as much as they should. This is the outcome of the way it has been institutionalised.

Other than that I think it's important to be affiliated with an institution. Good academic work requires stability, money, and resources. Institutions provide that. As long as they are functioning properly then there's nothing wrong with it. I think that the way that universities are being run is going to eventually compromise the quality of academic work getting produced, but that's another thread entirely.

 

[Bedhead]

^I remember watching a DOCU on Noam Chomsky one time where his wife said something along the lines of "he reads 12 different newspapers/publications daily."

One of the biggest road blocks that pops up in my mind is, how are you supposed to be unaffiliated with an institution and receive funding for research/trips/conferences etc.

 

[AmorRoark]

I agree, money is probably the biggest issue.

 

[orangescrewpen]

One would be hard pressed to get grants. There is some research out there I bet can be done on a shoestring budget that is just as useful as a lot of institutionalized research.

But I think if you come up with something, I think journals will take your article and publishers will accept your book. Not sure what standard scientific journals use, but I think social sciences would accept independent work. I think it is all a matter of quality, and it may be a bit higher as an independent.

 

[satricion]

Any journal would accept independent work. Reviewers don't know who you are or what your institutional affiliation (if any) is. But your work probably won't be any good unless you are independently wealthy and able to afford to be a full time academic who funds themselves, because you won't have time to stay up to date on the literature, collect decent data, or spend months and months poring over your data in order to come up with some original results.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

I have two stereotypic images in my mind when I hear the phrase 'independent academic'.

The first is a wealthy eccentric who has a passion he pursues with much of his time and money, and manages to read and write a lot about, sometimes including some well-researched work of high authority and merit but not always, simply for his own amusement.

The other belongs definitively to the lunatic fringe. He works alone because either no institution will have him and his research, or he'll have no institution, often because everybody in his field of interest but him seems to think his point of view has serious problems, or is of low intellectual merit. This is your friendly neighborhood crank. Maybe a couple vanity published books or articles in obscure zines. But nothing any publishing house or widely distributed serial with a name to maintain would touch.

There is definitely academically solid research that can be done on a low budget. But not most, so it depends a lot what it is you want to study, and what kind of evidence it would take to support your hypothesis. Maybe you have the money to do more ambitious and freewheeling research out of pocket. But either way, even if the work you produce is academically sound, well documented, and groundbreaking in the field, there would be many who would wonder why you were going it alone, since reputable academic departments would be willing to give you access to the resources for yet more refined research projects, and might doubt the merit of you and your work preemptively just for this. It would be like pleading your own case in court -- for something that obviously meaningful to you, why WOULDN'T you want as much knowledgeable and established backup as you could get?

I recommend you just become a writer on your topic of interest. You don't need to be a published and accredited national or world expert in a field to read about and explore it, and then write one or more popular audience books or magazine articles that are fun to read because they convey your passion for the subject matter. Granted this is a tier below being an academic, and you'll be deferring to and consulting the opinions of academics much more than you'll be challenging or changing them. But whether or not this matters depends on why you're passionate about the field of study you are, and exactly how your passion for it helps you to connect with other people.