Entre criação e pressão: o fenômeno produtivismo acadêmico na pós-graduação em Artes Visuais no Brasil

Abstract

Academic productivism, which originated in the United States in the 1950s and since then has been known globally by the motto publish or perish, is characterized by excessive emphasis on the quantity of scientific production, the consequences of which have been the subject of research dedicated to analyzing the impacts of this phenomenon on the lives and work of researchers affected by it. With this in mind, this paper discusses the academic productivism that pervades Brazilian postgraduate programs and has an impact on teacher-researchers. Thus, the research aims to analyze academic productivism in the area of Visual Arts within the stricto sensu Postgraduate Programs in Visual Arts in Brazil, in order to unveil the theoretical and historical context and the consequences of the phenomenon on the activities of the permanent faculty members affiliated with these programs. The research is of a bibliographic, documentary, descriptive, and exploratory type, based on a qualitative approach with a quantitative input. The research subjects are faculty members affiliated with the Graduate Programs in Visual Arts in Brazil, who consist of a group of 169 professors, distributed across the nine Graduate Programs involved in the research. The data collection instrument used is an online questionnaire created on Google Forms, consisting of open and closed questions, resulting in a sample of 37 respondents. For data analysis, content analysis by thematic categories is applied, namely: knowledge of academic productivism, perception of the postgraduate evaluation process, and consequences of productivism. Thus, it was possible to outline the profile of the researched group, their understanding of academic productivism, their perception of the evaluation model, highlight the impacts of academic productivism, and also analyze how the COVID-19 pandemic context affected their lives. The results show that the group under investigation mostly recognizes the impact of academic productivism on their activities, characterized by the demands to publish scientific articles, lack of time for research maturation, decentralization of other teaching activities such as teaching, extension, management, and artistic practice. The group also raised other issues such as motherhood, dissatisfaction, imposter syndrome, and feelings such as anxiety and fatigue, which were aggravated by the pandemic. It concludes that, as in other areas of knowledge, the phenomenon of academic productivism is inherent to postgraduate studies in Visual Arts, and its consequences have been affecting work, research, health, and the way of life of faculty members, highlighting the importance of continued studies on this topic and the ongoing discussion on evaluation criteria.