Between Doing and Showing: Tensions in the Recording of Chilean University Extension

Abstract

The article examines an institutional system for recording community engagement activities at a Chilean regional state university, understanding it as a power-knowledge device that reshapes the third mission under quality assurance and New Public Management regimes. Drawing on a Foucauldian approach, it analyses how the system defines which practices become legible as legitimate engagement and how it participates in processes of academic subjectivation. The study adopts a qualitative design based on semi-structured interviews with academics who regularly use the platform, analysed through qualitative content analysis. Findings show, first, the operation of the system as an archival examination and normalising matrix; second, its articulation with mechanisms of academic evaluation and recognition; third, a recording culture marked by overload and individualised responsibility; and fourth, grey areas and tactical uses. The article proposes the notions of “accountable engagement” and a “double temporality of engagement” as its main conceptual contributions.