Social Theory, Runaway Methodologies, and Materialities Within the Academic Establishment: Notes from an Anarchist Perspective

https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n58.06

Eduardo Restrepo
Universidad Católica de Temuco, Chile

Abstract

This article examines contemporary social theory from an anarchist perspective, putting forward a critical shift away from the centrality of the State and the capital as uncontested horizons of intelligibility. Additionally, runaway methodologies are addressed as disrupting conventional research designs, highlighting the necessity to detach knowledge production from subordination to the logic of funding, validation, and utility. The article concludes with an analysis of the material realities within the academic establishment associated with university growing corporatization and academic bureaucracies positioning. While discursive criticism is tolerated, practical challenges to these logics face strict limits stemming from the lack of consistency among those who claim to be critical of the constraints and implications of the academic establishment.

Keywords: anarchism, social theory, runaway methodologies, academic establishment, liberal common sense, academic bureaucracy.