Hybrid epistemic practices and the transformation of academic assemblages: generative AI and epistemic messiness in the qualitative social sciences and humanities

Abstract This paper addresses the transformations of the qualitative social sciences and humanities (QSSH) in the wake of the introduction of generative AI (GenAI). It presents the findings of an ethnographic study investigating the impact of GenAI on the QSSH at the University of Tübingen in Germany, with a particular focus on epistemic practices relating to the reading, understanding, and writing of texts. The concepts of “academic assemblage,” “hybrid epistemic practices,” and “epistemic messiness” are introduced as key concepts for understanding these transformations. Our central argument is that GenAI leads to “epistemic messiness,” which we define as a state of the academic assemblage caused by two seemingly incompatible tendencies of hybrid epistemic practices that simultaneously strengthen and weaken epistemic relations. Our ethnographic data demonstrate how this epistemic messiness is intensified at the social, emotional, and ethical level through emerging issues such as the threat of deskilling, feelings of devaluation and disorientation, mistrust between students and educators, uncertainty, and conflicting ethical norms for “good” academic practice. Based on this assessment, we provide several key questions that we think the QSSH need to address to navigate the challenges arising from GenAI.