Journal Work and the “Public Good”: Undocumented Academic Labor in Emerging Fields

Beyond the traditional work that journals and editors are responsible for, the editors of Small Axe and Anthurium have also undertaken institution building through knowledge production. This might well be the kind of development of communications networks that Hardt and Negri refer to as “an organic relationship to the emergence of new world order.” In this case, the new world order is institutional structures that determine where, when, and in what context certain conversations about power, access, and social change can and should occur. What is most striking, however, is that (in Caribbean studies) this work began with concerted efforts by scholars, institution builders, and editors such as Sandra Pouchet Paquet, and still continues some two generations later. However, given the nature of this work and the length of time it has continued, it is critical that we consider whether the need for this work to be done by journal editors reflects a need for more institutional structures that have the resources to share the weight of this level of institution building and to sustain it over time.