Producing Anxiety in the Neoliberal University

Life for the Academic in the Neoliberal University, 2019

In an era of neoliberal reforms, academics in UK universities have become increasingly enmeshed in audit, particularly of research ‘outputs’. Using the data of performance management and training documents, this paper rstly offers an analysis of the role of discourse in rede ning the meaning of research, and in colonising a new kind of entrepreneurial, corporate academic. In the second part of the paper, we narrate a case study of resistance to management by metrics. In 2015, Newcastle University managers introduced a new set of research ‘expectations’ known as ‘Raising the Bar’, which the academic body were able to act collectively to resist. The collective refused the imposition of individual targets and refused to subordinate academic values to nancial ones. There was a successful negotiation with management, and in July 2016, Raising the Bar was rescinded in favour of collegial action to work towards research improvement. Keywords: neoliberalism, resistance, performance management, outcomes, targets, metrics, audit culture, academic identities, critical discourse analysis

Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 2017

This paper compares the changing function and organisation of higher education (HE) under neoliberal reforms, with particular focus on the UK, with those introduced by the Stalin regime in the 1930s and developed in the decades that followed. Although ideologically contrasting, many policies developed to subordinate HE and other state enterprises more directly to the accumulation of capital driven by competition are in many respects strikingly similar in each case. The historical development of each is examined, along with the political economy underlying them, highlighting the most important common features and differences. The proletarianisation of HE in the UK is shown to have encouraged the adoption of ‘spontaneous’ forms of resistance reminiscent of those workers adopted in the USSR to protect themselves from bureaucratic pressure. The paper suggests ways in which these forms of resistance might be incorporated into a more general struggle against the encroachment of neoliberalism. Keywords Stalinism neoliberalism higher education new public management capital accumulation

2023

This study examines the neoliberal transformation of the university, focusing on the significant changes in the organisation and orientation of academic labour. Academic labour has become increasingly fragmented, intensified, and eroded under managerial control and panoptic surveillance. A neoliberal labour regime contradicts the nature of academic work and destroys the potential for the development of the general intellect. http://www.jceps.com/archives/14767

British Journal of Sociology of Education, 2015

Universities today inescapably find themselves part of nationally and globally competitive networks that appear firmly inflected by neoliberal concerns of rankings, benchmarking and productivity. This, of course, has in turn led to progressively anticipated and regulated forms of academic subjectivity that many fear are overly econo-centric in design. What I wish to explore in this paper is how, emanating from prevailing neoliberal concepts of individuality and competitiveness, the agency of the contemporary academic is increasingly conditioned via ‘regimes of performance’, replete with prioritised claims of truth and practices of the normalised self. Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s writings on governmentality, and Judith Butler’s subsequent work on subjection, I use findings from a series of in-depth interviews with senior university managers at National University of Ireland, Galway to reflect upon the ways in which academics can respond effectively to the ascendant forms of neoliberal governmentality characterising the academy today. I contemplate the key task of articulating broader educational values, and conclude by considering the challenge of enacting alternative academic subjectivities and practices.

Journal of Sociology, 2018

Neoliberal political rationalities have transformed not only national policy agendas, but also the strategies that individuals adopt to navigate their everyday lives; sometimes described as 'everyday neoliberalism'. This article explores everyday neoliberalism's contribution to the transformation of workplace ethics through a case study of Australian academics. National higher education policy reforms have been mirrored by a transformation in academics' perceptions of what forms of self-management are legitimate and necessary. While governmental reforms are couched in a language of technical efficiency and accountability to stakeholders, interviews with academics reveal depoliticising practices of evaluation. Values conflicts – between scholarly autonomy and managerial efficiency – are indicative of tactical struggles over the means by which academics evaluate their selves and labour. The managerialisation of university governance has not eroded political and value commitments, but has encouraged academics to pursue more individualised forms of ethics, which reaffirm their compliance with managerial norms.

2017

This chapter addresses the connections between neoliberal economic and political developments (marketisation, audit culture), and changes to conditions of work in universities, such as performance management and emphasis on entrepreneurship.

Policy Futures in Education, 2015

This article is based on an interview conducted with Mark Olssen in October 2014, and the subsequent discussions. These conversations invited Olssen to reflect on his experiences of neoliberalism as a practising academic who has worked in the UK for some 14 years, and also to comment as a researcher and writer who is well known for his work on neoliberalism, especially in relation to higher education policy. While focusing on a question of how neoliberalism has changed the context in which academics work, following Olssen’s lead in his own research, in this interview he articulates a Foucauldian understanding of neoliberalism that can be seen as a specific mode of government rooted in economic discourses of competition ( Foucault, 2008 ). The accentuation of the competitive forces shaping higher education, linked in Britain to periodic audits such as the RAE and the REF, have become increasingly visible within higher education institutions through techniques, such as performance ind...

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of the Journal Scuola Democratica “Reinventing Education”, VOL. 3, Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Space and Time, 2021

ABSTRACT: In the past two decades, the early career academics have faced increasingly difficulties to stabilise their position in the European academic systems. Currently we can identify similarities in the academic recruitment as results of neoliberal policies (Deem, Brehony, 2005; Ball, 2012; Bozzon et al., 2018) adopted by the European governments that contribute to the academics precarity. The process of entering and stabilizing the academic career has always been long and complex. Spending reduction policies have also exacerbated the difficulties and competition among aspiring academics. In UE countries, the ‘new academic regime’ (Normand, 2016) produces a new stage of academic capitalism. This situation has produced various effects. The push to ‘publish or perish’’ has strongly raised average productivity, placing aspiring academics under tremendous pressure. Furthermore, it is possible to identify several effects at the individual level: the fragmentation of the career path has reflected on life paths, on forced mobility, on parenting choices, on psychophysical well-being. Starting from a set of semi-structured interviews carried out in the fields of education sciences, sociology, physics, biology and medicine, this paper shows the effects of the changes listed above, also taking into account the differences between the various research sectors. The interviewees live and work in Italy, several European countries and the United Kingdom. We investigate the figure of ‘new european researcher’ who build is academic and private identity (Djerasimovic, Villani, 2019; Colarusso, Giancola, 2020) following the ideas of mobility, new mode of knowledge production (Gibbons et al., 1994), performativity, accountability. The early career researcher (ECR) has to face several trials such as: the balance of private and professional life, instability, penury of fundings and jobs vacancy, the managerialization of academic profession (Normand, Villani, 2019). In addition, ECR needs to combine individual strategies for academic survival in a context that impose the oxymoron of competitive partnership. Finally, we analyse the path of the real researcher that struggles constantly with all difficulties imposed by the new academic regime. KEYWORDS: Academic research, European higher education space, Academic careers, Work-life balance in academia, New academic identity.