Digital Object Identifier
Angela Okune, Leslie Kin Wai Chan · 2023
This chapter uses what has become arguably the most ubiquitous piece of thinking infrastructure, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), as a point of entry to explore the infrastructuring of hegemonic power in knowledge circulation. The chapter opens with a technical explanation of the DOI, followed by a brief history of the formation of the organisations that undergird it. Along with the other metric devices, emerging “norms” and narratives about the DOI further reinforce its centrality – we spend time debunking these myths. We close by exploring and making visible the relational work that the DOI performs to enable and shape the development of surveillance publishing, a dominant mode of profit and cognitive extraction in the higher education and research market.