ABSTRACT

In order to find different and more productive methodological places within the social sciences, academia, and qualitative inquiry we, similar to other scholars (e.g., Berg & Seeber, 2016; Ulmer, 2016), trouble the notion of ‘speedy’ scholarship and rapid methods. We found it productive to pay attention to rhythmic patterns, irregular, and potential slowing forms of inquiry. In the midst of hectic academic life, competition, and ever-increasing neoliberalism we problematize speed as a fueling force for the academic marketplace and competition, and as a central character of the bottomless trap designed to simplify methodological technologies and techniques to produce more, faster, and increasingly efficient knowledge, knowing, and science. This trend towards increased production without the equal consideration of quality, living, and slowly ‘maturing’ intellectual thought evokes critiques of neoliberal influence on academic culture. This trend also provokes questions about ‘slow science’ and irregularly patterned scholarship. What might slowness in scholarship produce?