The restructuring of intellectual activity: a response to Pratt and Barnett & Low

The critical responses (Barrett and Low 1996; Pratt 1996) to my observation (Mohan 1994) centre upon my understanding of theoretical development and the nature of commodification. (Pratt 1996, 3) asserts that my analogy of the product cycle model fails to capture the fact that 'knowledge does not arrive pre-formed' while 'much of this theoretical development is outstripping its application'. In a similar vein Barrett and Low (1996, 1) argue that 'there is no consideration of just what sort of commodity "Theory" actually is' and that my criticism of the pace of theoretical innovation 'serves as a means of acknowledging the economic ground of academic work while also disavowing one's own contamination by those same conditions'. In general I found these to be useful comments. However there are a number of points I would like to contest in re-adressing my original ideas.