Asian Tricks and Research Misconduct: From Orientalism and Occidentalism to Solidarity against Audit Cultures

Science journalism and academic commentary often paints China as a nation plagued by publication misconduct and beset with an immature culture of research ethics. Aspects of this commentary are echoed in the day-to-day conversations of scientists at research institutions such as the southwest China-based Institute for Farms and Forests (IFF). Grounded in ethnographic research at IFF, I interrogate Orientalist and Occidentalist narratives about Chinese research ethics. I juxtapose moralizing about “misconduct” in Chinese science with sympathetic accounts of academics who “game” the audit cultures of Global North Universities, and I challenge taken-for-granted distinctions between unethical misconduct in China and justifiable gaming of evaluation systems in the Global North. I argue that such distinctions are significant not only because they perpetuate racialized transnational hierarchies in the sciences, but also because they reproduce nostalgic and romanticized imaginations of scientific institutions in the West. I take the perspective of one IFF colleague as a starting point for movement away from the Othering inherent in Occidentalist and Orientalist narratives and toward transnational empathy and solidarity. This is a perspective that might help us to generate space for a more inclusive and less nostalgic set of conversations about the futures of global science. Keywords: Chinese science, research misconduct, audit cultures, Orientalism, Occidentalism