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vol. 59, no. 2, 2017 Published by NTEU

ISSN 0818–8068

Special issue

Activism and the Academy

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vol. 59, no. 2, 2017 Published by NTEU

ISSN 0818–8068

Australian Universities’ Review 2

Letter from the guest editors Kate Bowles, Agnes Bosanquet & Karina Luzia

The university as an infinite game: Revitalising activism in the academy Niki Harré, Barbara M. Grant, Kirsten Locke & Sean Sturm

The university is an ‘infinite game’ in which insight, imagination, and radical inclusion are brought to life, and a place to resist the ‘finite games’ that can lead us astray. Keeping the infinite game alive within universities is an important form of academic activism. 14 Activism on the Corporate Campus: It just doesn’t have that you know what anymore Rebecca Dolhinow

Student activists need space to organise, and on many campuses, these spaces can be a refuge for progressive students who may not find support for their activism in other spaces on campus. This article examines the development, function, and demise of one such space. 23 Academic identities in the managed university: Neoliberalism and resistance at Newcastle University, UK Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

This article responds to a need for evidence-based research into strategies for resisting the imposition of neoliberal structures such as outcomes-based performance management, and attempts by university management to colonise academic identities. 36 Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism at Canadian universities Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

This paper details divestment activism in Canadian postsecondary contexts in the face of contemporary austerity agendas. 50 Affirming humanity: A case study of the activism of general/professional staff in the academy Ann Lawless

A case study presents the activism of a member of the general/ professional staff of an urban Australian university. 59 Resisting the ‘employability’ doctrine through anarchist pedagogies & prefiguration Natalie Osborne

Herein we recount our experiences as academics in explicitly vocational disciplines whose teaching praxes are informed by critical and radical pedagogies, and argue against the dominance of the employability imperative that has become dangerously influential in the neoliberal university.

70 What might ‘bad feelings’ be good for? Some queer-feminist thoughts on academic activism James Burford

In this paper, James Burford applies recent queer and feminist thinking on affect to consider possible approaches to academic activism. He argues that by reconsidering which feelings are ‘good for politics’ we might expand the pool of resources available for transformative political work. 79 A career in activism: A reflective narrative of university governance and unionism Agnes Bosanquet & Cathy Rytmeister

A reflective narrative of a career in academic activism embedded in a contextual discussion of university governance, regulatory and auditing frameworks, the academic workforce, gender inequality, and learning and teaching in higher education in Australia REVIEWS 89 Stemming the attrition of women in STEM Women in Global Science: Advancing Academic Careers through International Collaboration, by Kathrin Zippel Reviewed by Kate White

90 Psyched up in Adelaide A History of the Psychology Schools at Adelaide’s Universities by Tony Winefield & Ted Nettelbeck (Eds) Reviewed by Michael Proeve

92 Reclaiming the urban economy from urban economics Reconstructing Urban Economics: Towards a political economy of the built environment, by Franklin ObengOdoom Reviewed by Andrew Martel

94 Welcome to Zombie U The Toxic University: Zombie leadership, academic rock stars, and neoliberal ideology by John Smyth Reviewed by Barry Down

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Letter from the guest editors Kate Bowles, Agnes Bosanquet & Karina Luzia

Welcome to this special issue of the Australian

see this collection as evidence that an activist culture is

Universities’ Review on activism and the academy – not

one that seeks to assert itself in small acts of generosity or

quite the same as academic activism, and not always a

everyday refusals, as much as large gestures of organised

matter of activism confined to the academy.

protest. As South African scholar Paul Prinsloo (2016)

The idea for this volume originated in a panel

puts it: ‘It took me a relatively long time to consider my

discussion during the 5th International Academic

retweets and dissemination as a form of activism, possibly

Identities conference held in Sydney in 2016, with the

less spectacular, but just as important’.

theme of Academic Life in the Measured University. This

Important to this publication and audience, we note that

conference addressed the framing of academic identity

the opportunities prised open by online social networks

by the audit culture of the contemporary university, and

have both unsettled and refreshed the dialogue between

asked what it means to try to hold together a professional

activism and unionisation. An increase in short-term and

sense of self in this rapidly transforming environment.

insecure work in universities has fostered new modes

Our contribution was to introduce a related inquiry that

of solidarity against the limiting opportunities of the

is emerging in different places, from blogs to hallway

academic gig economy.The broad expansion in precarious

conversations, community projects and political practices:

university staffing, now seen right across the professional

what does it mean to offer as an alternate focus to the

divisions, driven by the short-term funding of scholarly

hustle of scholarly productivity an activist commitment

research projects and reaching its fullest expression

to achieving change directly, in our workplaces, our

in the widespread casualisation of university teaching,

communities and in the current political climate? In

has created specific challenges for union recruitment

particular, what is happening in the overlap between

and mobilisation. Universities and unions alike have

these domains, to activism that is focused on the values

to contend with the new hybrid university worker: the

and inclinations of the university itself?

undergraduate student in long term casual administrative

Flood, Martin and Dreher (2013) suggest that as universities

become

narrowly

attentive

employment; the higher degree research student holding

down multiple simultaneous short-term research assistant

measurable outputs driven through career competition,

contracts; the adjunct managing multiple employers,

and academic identities become correspondingly less

working across competing institutions, and piecing

secure, ‘activism becomes something one does after

together multiple incomplete bits of institutional memory,

hours. Activism then can be framed as akin to a private

policy and corporate knowledge.

pursuit or hobby. It may be peculiar, even frowned upon,

These are the working conditions in which both

but tolerated as long as it does not intrude on regular

permanent staff and short-term contract workers

academic work’ (p. 20) Our reflection is that this cultural

attempt to find voice for their activism, and advocate

shift in universities is deeply felt, but incomplete. The

for more just and sustainable forms of work. In their

papers collected here are evidence of a resilient practice

editorial essay emerging from the same conference last

of university-based activism on many topics, that has been

year, Tai Peseta, Simon Barrie and Jan McLean (2017)

energised by the expanding opportunity for networked

describe their own experience of putting together a

public conversation online (Eaton, 2017). Critically, we

collection of papers on the performance of academic

Letter from the guest editors Kate Bowles, Agnes Bosanquet & Karina Luzia

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

identity, while constrained by the very situation they

to resist and to remind universities of progressive values

write about: ‘Like so many others, we wrestle with our

that might once have seemed more obvious.

location in the measured university: endless cycles of

Writers in this collection also examine activism as a

organisational restructure promising liberation from

mode of interaction in university staff and management

past inefficiencies; our capacities being counted in ways

contexts. Agnes Bosanquet and Cathy Rytmeister offer a

that exclude our participation from the process and

reflective narrative from an individual whose unionised

the final outcome; and the constant accounting for the

activism centres on the governance structures of the

worth of our thinking and the quality of our judgements.

university. Ann Lawless draws on the narratives of a

We are not special: these are the academic lives of many

professional staff worker at a university to understand

of our colleagues too’ (p. 453).

how small actions and practices of self-concept in

We are not special either. As three ordinary university

everyday university work constitute forms of activism

employees with different roles and varied career

that are easily overlooked. At the other end of the

trajectories, we are advocates for noticing and caring

operational scale, Robert Gray and Jonathan Turcotte-

for other ways of working successfully and productively

Summers argue that universities have taken advantage

in Australia’s universities, including through direct

of conditions of austerity to become more secretive in

and open communication on public networks. We are

their investments, and to shield themselves from public

reminded throughout our working lives that we work

scrutiny in potentially controversial matters. Fossil fuel

in institutions facing intense political scrutiny, with the

divestment campaigners are among the most recognisable

complex reporting obligations that come with public

activist profiles discussed here, but are also called upon

sector funding. Universities operate under financial

to be the most innovative and responsive to the rapidly

and market conditions that cannot simply be pushed

developing conditions of austerity-privacy. Also focusing

aside; increasingly they represent their daily business

on academic staff, Liz Morrish, writing with the Analogue

(and us) for the benefits of external stakeholders, from

University Writing Collective, examines a case study

government to industry partners, and as a result frame

in collective resistance to the imposition of revised

their (and our) core purpose in terms of improving

performance measures at a UK university, and argues that

productivity, meeting targets, finding new revenue

this encourages confidence in the potential of both staff

streams, and managing financial risk. Working under

and management to criticise the productivity theme in

these conditions, the survival of activist practice

government policy and imagine alternative futures for

for individuals, collegial teams and even for whole

higher education.

institutions is critically dependent on finding time, and holding on to the courage to use it in good ways.

Along with the authors of these papers, we are not of the view that ‘the academy’ exists in any straightforward

Our aim in this collection has been to bring together

sense, even as an abstracted way of thinking about a

writers who like us are considering activism broadly,

particular profession. Nor do we see a clear division

and at different scales. For many activists working inside

between activism as one sphere, and ‘the academy’ as

universities, the most obvious focus is on the welfare of

another (Oldfield, 2015). We are offering ‘the academy’

students and those who teach them. Rebecca Dolhinow

more tentatively, as a reference point to an ideal that has

writes of her concern that the increasingly pervasive

been overhauled by the conditions under which actual

capacity of universities to pursue student engagement

universities now operate. Under the sign of ‘the academy’

through digital surveillance has also significantly expanded

we find an increasingly unstable and incoherent space, that

the means to track and confine student activism. Natalie

offers uncertain conditions activist work; in challenging

Osborne and Deanna Grant-Smith offer critical resistance

the twin pressures of hope and disappointment that this

to the measurement of teaching quality through student

ideal but vanished academy imposes on our working

employability, and advocate a radical pedagogy that turns

situation, we continue to seek to recuperate a sense

its attention to the potential of a post-work economy.

of purpose for universities as activist institutions for a

James Burford offers a thought-provoking queer reading

difficult world.

of the urging of activism to stay upbeat, and asks instead

We are delighted to have been given the opportunity

whether depression as a refusal of the given might play

to work with the writers represented in this collection,

a more radical activist role. Niki Harre, Barbara M Grant,

as part of our commitment to speaking openly about the

Kirsten Locke and Sean Sturm draw attention to the

difficulties of navigating the demands of university work.

subversive potential of small transformational acts, both

And so we extend our special thanks to all of the authors

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Letter from the guest editors Kate Bowles, Agnes Bosanquet & Karina Luzia

here, to our thoughtful and constructive reviewers, and for the generous and collegial attention of editor Ian

’

References

Dobson and his team.

Eaton, P. W. (2017). Social media as everyday practice: reflections on multiplicito us~becoming~activist, Journal of Critical Thought & Praxis, 6(3), 55-70.

Kate Bowles is a narrative researcher, writing online at

Flood, M., Martin, B. & Dreher, T. (2013). Combining academia and activism: common obstacles and useful tools. Australian Universities’ Review, 55(1), 17-26.

musicfordeckchairs.com and currently working as Associate Dean (International) in Law Humanities & Arts at the University of Wollongong. Agnes Bosanquet is a senior teaching fellow in human sciences at Macquarie University whose research in critical university studies examines changing academic roles and identities.

Oldfield, S. B (2015). Between activism and the academy: the urban as political terrain, Urban Studies 52(11), 2072–2086. Prinsloo, P. (2016). Some thoughts of blogging as educational activism, Open Distance Teaching & Learning, https://opendistanceteachingandlearning. wordpress.com/2016/11/01/. Peseta, T., Barrie, S. & McLean, J. (2017) Academic life in the measured university: pleasures, paradoxes and politics, Higher Education Research & Development, 36(3), 453–457.

Karina Luzia is a human geographer and social researcher who has had over forty academic and professional jobs/ contracts/roles at Australian universities over the last 12 years.

Letter from the guest editors Kate Bowles, Agnes Bosanquet & Karina Luzia

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

The university as an infinite game Revitalising activism in the academy Niki Harré, Barbara M Grant, Kirsten Locke & Sean Sturm University of Auckland

We offer here a metaphor of the university as an ‘infinite game’ in which we bring to life insight, imagination, and radical inclusion; and resist the ‘finite games’ that can lead us astray. We suggest that keeping the infinite game alive within universities is a much-needed form of academic activism. We offer four vignettes that explore this further: our responsibility to be ‘critic and conscience of society’ and how that responsibility must also turn inwards onto our own institution, the dilemmas of being a woman with leadership responsibilities in an institution that proudly shows off its ‘top girls’, the opportunities we have as teachers to ‘teach the university’ and be taught by our students, and the contradictions we face as activist scholars in our relentlessly audited research personas. We draw on the infinite/finite game metaphor, our own affective experiences as tenured academics, and feminist critiques. Keywords: neoliberal university, infinite game, activism, feminism, academic identities, gender, resistance, New Zealand, STARs, PBRF

We start with a proposal: that in the university, as in life,

games tend to replicate, like McDonalds’ franchises or

there are two kinds of games. One is the infinite game, the

‘evidence-based’ social programs. You must be selected

purpose of which is to keep the game in play and invite

to play and, if you lose, you are knocked out or have to

others in; the other is finite games, in which the purpose

play the round again. Finite games can be useful, indeed

is to win (Carse, 1986; Harré, in press).The infinite game is

are essential, to organise ourselves and to train people for

a symbol of our potential as people living together to be

valuable roles. And they can promote self-development.

open and inclusive, and to promote the life, and growth,

But if they are taken too seriously, they render the infinite

that helps us flourish as individuals and communities.This

game obscure and the community spellbound – unable to

game imagines a world in which our heartfelt, personal

articulate their sense that the current rules are misaligned,

response to life, our deep listening to others (especially

harmful or a distraction from what really matters.

those who don’t fit in), and our careful observations and

For us, activism in the academy springs from and serves

thought about the social, natural and physical world come

the infinite game: it is action beyond the rules that calls us

together to create and recreate our institutions. As Carse

to take our intuitions, lived experience and observations

claimed, ‘there is but one infinite game’ (p. 149). Thus,

of injustice and exclusion seriously. Academic activism

insofar as the infinite game is played within the academy,

aims to document, subvert and ultimately rewrite the

it seeps into, strengthens, and can draw strength from

rules of the finite games we currently live by, so that they

infinite play in other sites.

make more sense to us as people seeking to give of our

The other kind of game, finite games, is bound by rules

best to an endeavour (‘the university’) that we cannot

that must be followed until a winner is declared. Finite

help but believe in. In what follows, and with the desire to

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

The university as an infinite game Niki Harré, Barbara M Grant, Kirsten Locke & Sean Sturm

’

provide resources for revitalising activism in the academy,

is not welcomed, the relations between us. We now offer

we explore the possibilities and complexities of academic

our vignettes, after which we present some concluding

activism through four vignettes. Each vignette is written

thoughts on activism within the academy.

by one of the four authors. We are all tenured academics, and therefore write from this perspective. Each vignette takes up a defining aspect of the academic role: our

Critic and conscience of the university: Some game dispositions

responsibility to be critic and conscience of society and how that responsibility must also turn inwards onto

In Aotearoa/New Zealand (NZ), universities are required

our own institutions (Barbara); the dilemmas for infinite

to be ‘critic and conscience of society’. The injunction

play of being a woman with leadership responsibilities

entered the legal definition of a university in 1990, with

in an institution that proudly shows off its ‘top girls’

an amendment to the recently passed 1989 Education Act.

(Kirsten); the opportunities we have as teachers to ‘teach

The then left-wing Fourth Labour Government had been

the university’ and be taught by our students (Sean);

challenged in the courts and on the campuses over the

and the contradictions we face as activist scholars in

terms of its 1989 Act, many of which were seen to encroach

our relentlessly audited research personas (Niki). Each

on the autonomy of universities. Ironically, this was a

account draws on the infinite/finite game metaphor, as

government bursting with university-educated liberals.

well as the ‘stubborn particulars’ (Cherry, 1995) of our

Few, however, were economically savvy and, soon after

own experiences.

coming to power, they found themselves in the divisive

As readers may notice, the first two of our vignettes in

grip of ‘Rogernomics’ fever with its deranged commitment

particular draw heavily on feminist critiques. In our view,

to the supremacy of the market. Rogernomics, named after

feminism – with its century-long tradition of observing the

the then Minister of Finance Roger Douglas who drove

exclusions and violence of academic structures and life

the core changes (Kelsey, 1995), led to the destruction of

– offers an exemplary critical position in the ‘neoliberal’

the prevailing social democratic consensus in favour of

academy. The neoliberal academy is one in which

neoliberalism’s brutally swift advent, and institutions of

competitive finite games that pit individuals against each

higher learning were not spared.

other underpin university life. The university is modelled

Perhaps the left-leaning authors of the Act suffered

on the free market, selling the commodities of knowledge

a moment of remorse, their consciences frissoned by

and qualifications to students and other consumers, and

thoughts of how history might judge them? Whatever

striving for efficiency and excellence in the rush to win

the reason, less than a year after the Act’s passing, Labour

its own race against peer institutions (see Giroux, 2014;

produced an Amendment, which laid out several clauses

Newfield, 2016; Readings, 1996; Slaughter & Leslie, 1997).

with respect to matters of autonomy for post-compulsory

The feminist position has been – and continues to be

education institutions: namely a clause guaranteeing

– a response to how the burden of the often-invisible

academic freedom to all such institutions and another

precarious (Adsit et al., 2016; Gill, 2010) and emotional

requiring universities alone to ‘accept a role as critic and

labour (Ogbonna & Harris, 2004) of the neoliberal academy

conscience of society’ (1989 Education Act, §162[4]).

is borne disproportionally by women, both academic and

The function contrasts with the more general grounds

professional. Critics of the neoliberal academy – such

of academic freedom in that it specifies an active – and

as us – often adopt a critical ‘positionality’ (Rose, 1997)

critical – role for the university, and its member academics,

sympathetic to that burden: the feminist critique resonates

towards society as a whole.

with the ‘minor’ or ‘cramped’ position of activists in the

The critic and conscience function may be unique

academy (Colebrook, 2015, after Deleuze & Guattari,

to NZ legislation, but it’s analogous with the widely

1986). More recent feminist commentaries – drawing on

recognised – and often esteemed – role of public

the work of new materialism (see, for example, Haraway

intellectual. This position can be occupied by academics

1997; Barad, 2007; Bennett, 2010; Braidotti, 2013) – offer

and non-academics alike: public intellectuals speak up on

new critical insights into the politics of the affective body

matters vital to past, present and future public goods –

(Grosz, 1994; Ahmed, 2014) that works and suffers in the

to, in words attributed to Stuart Hall,‘contest the growing

academy. Feminist critiques, then, both echo and inform

inhumanity of the world’ (Roman, 2015, p. 186). We might

the infinite game metaphor, asking us to take account of

observe that the role of public intellectual seems more

that which sits outside the dominant finite games of the

crucial than ever in our rapidly emerging post-truth era.

university: the body, the academic worker whose voice

We might also observe that the role does not have an

The university as an infinite game Niki Harré, Barbara M Grant, Kirsten Locke & Sean Sturm

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

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obviously immediate application to the site that employs

(as Kirsten will discuss). Indeed, the career game earns a

the intellectual. Indeed, the very label ‘public’ suggests

damning indictment from the writing of an early feminist

critical attention – or speaking truth to power – towards

critic of the academy:

the wider society, the ‘real world,’ rather than towards the rarified and privileged ‘private’ of the ivory tower. In contrast, and in keeping with the unbounded nature of the infinite game in which all play feeds into all other play, the responsibility to be critic and conscience must be

Earn your living soberly, not a penny more than necessary, [Virginia Woolf] had written, or else you will be trapped in this process that fabricates prostitutes defined by the competition for prestige, honours, and the devouring quest for a power that is always derisory, never sufficient. (Stengers et al., 2014, p. 150)

taken up inside the university as well as outside. Critical thought is fundamental to who we are as academics: ‘In

As Woolf argued, the compromises entailed in ‘having

its essence,’ says Edward Saïd, ‘the intellectual life … is

a career’ risk leaving the creeping inhumanity of our

about the freedom to be critical’ (1991, p. 11). While we

institutions unfought.

have strenuously fought to protect a degree of apartness

But what does it look like to be an activist who makes

between our universities and their wider society, these

a fuss in those committee rooms, or in response to the

‘great civil institutions … that act as a bulwark between

incessantly bragging internal news bulletins, or in our daily

the individual and the state’ (Nixon, 2016, p. 170) are also

work with colleagues and students? It can mean flying in

in and of our societies. The issue of growing inhumanity is at work inside them too, in the committee rooms and the reward structures, in the internal news bulletins peppering

our

the face of carefully crafted

... in keeping with the unbounded nature of the infinite game in which all play feeds into all other play, the responsibility to be critic and conscience must be taken up inside the university as well as outside.

in-boxes, in our daily work

‘progressive’ policies

and

procedures: it often looks ungrateful and unpretty. And petty. It’s hard to explain because you are thinking and talking from a different place – you sound a bit crazy.

with colleagues and students

In considering the example

– like a slow ‘tide of change we [can] not quite see’

of the proliferating forms of academic management speak

(Petersen & Davies, 2010, p. 99).

that produce ‘unanalysable nonsense,’ Marilyn Strathern

Writing of the complex and conflicted place of women

points out that ‘part of the problem is how to complain,

in the contemporary academy, feminist philosophers

how to criticise good practice [her example of such

Isabelle Stengers, Vinciane Despret and others (2014)

speak] and still appear moral, credible, and public spirited,

remind us that we academics are ‘non-innocent’ players

and thus offer a critique that is edifying’ (2006, p. 199).

in the university. We are not victims but, surely, we are

Women who make a fuss are unedifying: making a fuss

compromised.The university in which we work, of which

makes everyone uncomfortable.

we may be critical, is also our employer. Many of us are

Given our likely reluctances toward actually being a

paid well (compared to the average wage at least); we do

damned nuisance, I have proposals toward the necessary

work that we profess to love; we reap reward and esteem

game dispositions.These proposals arise from considering

that gratifies us and others. And, divisively, that precious

my own struggles as a relatively senior academic who is

work is more often now done by many under conditions

new and somewhat marginal in a (not unusually) troubled

that are increasingly precarious (Gill, 2010).

faculty of education and who finds herself constantly

And yet, these compromising conditions must not

faced by seemingly small ethical dilemmas produced

shut us up. As critics and consciences, we are invited –

within that slow tide of change. In being a ‘woman who

obliged even – to do activism on ourselves. We must call

makes a fuss’ (even if you’re a man), you will need courage

out the finite plays that pull us apart from ourselves and

– not just to think critically (after all, as Dan Barney points

each other and, as Stengers and colleagues offer, become

out [2010], that’s what we are paid to do) but to make a

the ‘woman who makes a fuss,’ who doesn’t ‘accept, at

fuss.You will need, somehow, to embrace struggle, at least

least not completely, the place that has been made for

some of the time. But also, seek to eschew antagonism

[her] and the silence that goes with it’ (2014, p. 152).

and, instead, to foster compassion for our mutually frail

The socially unacceptable act of making a fuss, of being

humanity. More, express gratitude, hold out hope, be quick

a ‘damned nuisance’ (ibid.), contrasts sharply with that of

to find humour, cultivate indifference to convention and

being the good girl, with playing the finite game of ‘career’

a willingness for insubordination. And, above all, seek

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The university as an infinite game Niki Harré, Barbara M Grant, Kirsten Locke & Sean Sturm

solidarity: find ‘alternative ways of working together, being together, and thinking together’ (Nixon, 2016, p. 169), although this in turn requires daily refusals in order to give oneself over to the nourishing and necessary fulfilments of the ‘time of friendship’ (p. 170). In other

’

c. The invisible or visible agendas of the university, individuals, or both. d. Looming deadlines from the university or me (in the form of papers that demand attention), or both. e. All of the above.

words, you will need to recognise the university’s finite

One of my research interests is gendered academic

games – such as ‘the career’ – for what they are, devices

‘career’ trajectories. I have interviewed 30 senior

that can and must be played with, in an effort to bring

academic women over the past three years (see Locke,

alive the infinite spaces that lie between.

2015; 2016; 2017; Locke & Wright 2017), many of whom echoed my feelings of psychological precarity, inadequacy,

‘Top Girls’ in the game: Resisting our role as ‘subjects of capacity’

failure, anxiety and doubt. Many of them spoke of being underestimated or ignored by colleagues, and subject to the casual prejudices of those in power, as they struggled

Feelings matter in the university (Beard, Clegg, & Smith,

to establish themselves in overwhelmingly patriarchal

2007; Grant & Elizabeth, 2015). These feelings can be

working environments. They articulated a strong desire

overwhelming, and they can have a direct impact on the

to ‘rise above’ this adversity, to strive to prove they were

ability of all ‘players’ to resist, as Barbara has suggested,

credible academics. Yet it feels like I am experiencing

finite games such as career progression.These finite games

something quite different to these women. I am not

often serve to distract us from all that initially attracted us

underestimated when it comes to my academic labour.

to the academy as a place of radical possibility. I write this

Strangely, I feel overestimated. I am expected always to say

piece as a relatively new academic, a woman perceived as

yes to a request for my emotional, physical or intellectual

a ‘top girl,’ who has found herself in a senior service role

labour. Want to apply for an external grant? What?! Want

in my faculty and who is caught in a daily struggle with

to, you say? I have to. It has already been gently explained

her emotions. Right now, I am in a state of high anxiety.

to me that this is a weak point in my CV (and, as Niki

I have not organised the courses I will be teaching this

points out later, this judgement of my ‘research’ carries

semester, which upsets me because I feel I have already

great institutional and emotional weight). Want to be part

let my students down, and I haven’t even met them yet.

of this ‘extremely’ important initiative? Of course. The

I have a meeting to chair this afternoon. I have prepared

‘request’ is rhetorical. Edit this, say that, do this? Yes, no

for it meticulously, and yet I feel utterly unprepared–

problem. It may be late though? Ok, I’ll try my hardest. So,

there is always another challenge, conflict, or colleague’s

I am bombarded by ‘offers’ to participate in finite games.

pressing concern around the corner. And there is always

And what is more, when I fail in these games (the grant

the judgement, doled out liberally in certain contexts, that

application is unsuccessful; the initiative never gets off the

the hard work has just not been done. I have already had

ground), my work vanishes. In the university of finite play,

two meetings scheduled this morning in a time I blocked

failure is failure. ‘It’s only the endings that matter in the

out for writing. I feel that I am failing as an academic: I

neoliberal university,’ as Linda Henderson, Eileen Hoonan

find myself struggling to keep up with the minutiae of

and Sarah Loch (2016) point out in their discussion of the

the finite games into which I am thrown, while knowing

‘academicwritingmachine’. And so, I find myself running

well that I should actually be devoting myself to the more

to play games, each of which seems essential at the time,

noble ‘games’ of inspired teaching and research. I do not

and many of which I end up losing. I can feel my body

write this for sympathy or as a call for help. I will walk

tensing, accelerating and slumping in an endless cycle of

out my office door, present myself to the world, and likely

tension, anxiety and stress. The spring in my step that I

even enjoy it. But, at the same time, I feel like a pawn

had imagined would accompany becoming a tenured

waiting to be moved to another precarious position. I feel

academic is heavy and elusive.

like I am physically bearing the weight of expectation and

So what is going on? Yes, some women are now noticed

failure on my incessantly emotionally and intellectually

rather than ignored, but the result is the same: to ‘get

labouring body, and in this game I cannot control, at any

ahead,’ we are inculcated into constant and perpetual

given moment I could be pitted against:

self-improvement in the service of the institution’s finite

a. Colleagues.

games. We, the young women of academia, are framed

b. Invisible or visible forces that dictate my conditions of

as ‘subjects of capacity,’ as Angela McRobbie (2007, p.

existence in academia.

718) puts it. McRobbie focuses on the contemporary

The university as an infinite game Niki Harré, Barbara M Grant, Kirsten Locke & Sean Sturm

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

post-feminist sexual contract, which positions young

why we are here: it is not to further our careers or even

women as subjects of capacity par excellence in late

to ‘contribute’ to the university; it is, grandiose as it may

capitalist societies. These ‘top girls’ provide seductive

sound, to keep alive that which expands our corner of the

images of success in a post-feminist guise of supposed

‘infinite game.’

gender equality. In academia, ‘top girls’ are everywhere – on posters, in websites, on prize lists, in the media. Universities, keen to promote themselves as winners of

Teach the university: Nudging the university towards infinite possibilities

the ‘equity game,’ produce endless glossy brochures and magazines depicting smiling young women (preferably

The university is a place of possibilities. As an institution

holding a microscope, but a stethoscope will do). Yet

founded on critique (Kant, 1992; see Derrida, 2004) with,

McRobbie warns, these images of ‘success’ obscure the

at least in NZ, a mandated role of ‘critic and conscience,’ it

ongoing presence of hegemonic masculinities. Notably,

is, or should be, a place at which the rules of play are never

even within a watered down ‘equity game’ in which

fully fixed. I, as an academic who teaches other academics

numbers of women equal success, universities are not, in

how to teach, feel this openness most readily in my

fact, winning, as shown by the declining number of women

teaching. That is, I feel compelled to ‘teach the university’

in senior academic positions (Locke, 2016). There may be

(J.J. Williams, 2008): not just to impart knowledge about it,

an abundance of early career ‘top girls’ in universities, but

but to also impart knowledge to it.

somehow they get stuck there, seduced into finite games

I teach the university through alerting students to the

that exhaust their bodies and imagination and preclude

ways in which the social, institutional and disciplinary

their escape by holding them captive. As a result, their

context in which they are studying shapes what and how

(our!) self-exploitation in the workplace only ends up

they study by, in particular, embodying certain values

strengthening gender inequalities. They (we) become an

about learning and life. The values that the neoliberal

inexhaustible resource to the finite games of competition

academy embodies are mostly finite. For example, its

and individualism that uphold the patriarchal university.

audit-driven fixation on ‘efficiency’ and the ‘transparency’

So, what is academic activism in this light? How can

of measureable outcomes (see Strathern, 2000; Shore &

young women who are positioned as ‘subjects of capacity’

Wright, 2000) narrow its view from the broad values of

(McRobbie, 2007) resist this positioning and be supported

imagination, possibility and inclusion that characterise

to do so? How can top girls be invited into, and expand,

the infinite game to much narrower values that enable it

the infinite spaces between games? We can embrace the

to ‘win’ the finite games at hand.

simple, but radical, act of daring to say ‘no’ and living with

A teaching-related example of these finite values in play

the fear that brings – that we will now lose our colleagues’

is the ‘constructive alignment’ model of course design that

approval and slip into invisibility. Also, we must voice what

is often an institutional requirement. Courses are designed

this positioning costs, as I am doing here, at departmental

backwards from pre-determined learning outcomes (Biggs,

and faculty meetings, and even (imagine it!) at the award

1999); dominant modes of assessment and evaluation

ceremonies we attend as winners. In working on this

are summative (e.g. tests, essays, exams, etc.; student

piece with self-proclaimed ‘old girls,’ Barbara and Niki, I

evaluations of teaching); the model of academic writing is

also realise that we can turn to them, in the hope that they

point-first (J.M. Williams, 1981), which involves the writer

will stand with us to ‘make a fuss.’ As relative newcomers,

stating their thesis (singular) at the beginning of an essay,

we may not have the institutional knowledge or capacity

article or chapter.When I alert students to such elements in

for recklessness and recovery that is available to those

class, I want us to problematise them, or to question what

who have seen these games play out time and time

values they keep in play. I agree with Michel Foucault that

again. In a performative sense in the context of writing

problematisation denaturalises and historicises an ‘event,’

this piece, the ‘old girls’ have allowed me, the relatively

such that its ‘polymorphism’ – its selection from a matrix

younger new girl, the space and time to think through

of possibilities – becomes apparent (Foucault, 1991, p.

my subjective ‘top girl’ positioning alongside them. The

77). For example, not only is the point-first model just one

relationships nurtured in this collaborative writing piece

of many ways to write an academic essay (it isn’t suited

are not defined by being strategic but instead outline a

to all readers, topics or modes of argument), but also it

deeply ethical and caring mode of academic friendship

is often taken as a model because it is easier – or more

that is found in and through the collective. It reminds me

‘efficient’ – for teachers to read and grade. (The same goes

to try, as I rush from one meeting to the next, to remember

for the academic article and its readers and reviewers, as

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The university as an infinite game Niki Harré, Barbara M Grant, Kirsten Locke & Sean Sturm

’

Niki will touch on.) The process of eventualisation, in this

also lies at the core of our identities as academics, where

case, offers the possibility for point-last or even point-

it richly interweaves infinite and finite play. Here we are,

less essays (see Sturm, 2012). It is thus emancipatory, a

as authors of this paper, producing a research output that

potential precursor to activism if you will, as it enables

will, with a bit of luck, further our careers (a finite move,

us, as Gert Biesta (2008, p. 175) puts it,‘to show – and in a

as Barbara pointed out); while, at the same time, we are

sense, through experimentation and action, actually prove

engaging in a challenging, creative act that advocates for

– that things can be different, that the way in which things

open-mindedness and inclusion within the academy (an

are is only one, limited possibility.’

infinite move). The fact that we can appear to play both

And this process need not only be cognitive, it can

games at once presents us, as academic activists, with a

also be affective, in accordance with Williams’ (2008,

perfect contradiction: successful activism is, in theory,

p. 37) suggestion to ‘have students look at their own

entirely compatible with being an ‘excellent’ researcher

campuses – at the ground beneath their feet’ – and to use,

and thus a successful academic. No, it is more than that.

as he puts it, ‘innovative methods, beyond the ones we

We actually suspect – a suspicion that serves the status-

are familiar with’ to document that process. For example,

quo perfectly – that to be a successful academic activist,

I take my class outside the classroom to document the

one must be a successful researcher.

psychogeography of the university. In one experiment,

Our suspicion is, of course, unfounded: ‘research’ as

we explore the palimpsestic nature of the historical place

defined by our universities is a particular social product, a

that is the University of Auckland campus. We look for

finite game with rules and boundaries that limits the vision

signs of its history as a pā (a Māori fortified settlement),

of players (see Harré, In press). Despite the rhetoric that

a barracks (Albert Barracks) and a campus (the then

originality and innovation are rewarded, in practice the

University of New Zealand), which speaks to the links

research game limits our vision not only by constraining

between the military, management and education (see

what counts as research, but also by presenting research

Hoskin, Macve & Stone, 2006; Hoskin & Macve, 1986), but

as the only real game in town, thus making ‘everything

also of the connection between settlement (or invasion)

else’ secondary (including many of the tasks bequeathed

and education. In another experiment, we map the flow

to ‘top girls,’ such as Kirsten). To be good activists, we

of people through the lobby of the University’s iconic

must, to use the words of Roberto Mangabeira Unger,

Business School building to understand how it embodies

temper our worship of, and desire to join, the ‘tiny band

the learning space of the university and how our presence

of extraordinary people’ who articulate grand visions for

there to document the space alters it. In such critical-

alternative social practices (and are thus both proclaimed

creative experiments, students play with the value system

winners by the status quo and admired by its critics)

of the university. They may then, in their own teaching,

and instead accept, if not embrace, the ‘indignities’ that

teach the university itself, that is, transform it in the name

accompany resistance (Unger, 2004, p. 31). So what does

of what they value.

this mean in practice? Here I will give two examples.

So I am talking here about activism as an underground

The first concerns a possible response to the rules of the

current that slowly shifts the rules of the academic game.

research game within our research roles, and the second

It is a turn to creativity and possibility, a taking of the

concerns an insistence that our research roles are not all

university at its word: if universities are sites of critique

that matters.

and conscientisation, then here I am making it so ‘at home.’ Are you really going to stop me?

In NZ, the rules of the research game were hardened in 2003 when the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) was introduced. The official purpose of the

Research: A perfect contradiction for the academic activist

PBRF is to ‘ensure that excellent research in the tertiary sector is encouraged and rewarded’ (Tertiary Education Commission, 2016). Every six years, each academic must

I have the task of going to the heart of the beast: research.

produce a performance portfolio in which we declare

Research is the most prestigious finite game played by

our research outputs and accolades, in other words our

and at universities, and it is also, in many ways, the game

wins. The most important wins, as academic readers will

that most stymies academic activism. ‘Excellence’ is its

know, are articles in top peer-reviewed journals cited by

yard-stick (Moore et al., 2017), a marker that identifies

other academics; outputs that are not peer-reviewed are

winners and losers without needing to demonstrate any

not considered ‘quality assured’ and so count for much

value beyond the ranking itself (Readings, 1996). Research

less. Those top wins are closely followed by research

The university as an infinite game Niki Harré, Barbara M Grant, Kirsten Locke & Sean Sturm

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

grants, especially the highly competitive ones. We must

who are looking for ways to create positive change, I feel

also declare what portion of our key outputs is ours.

light, engaged, responsive, free, and as if I am playing a

For example, we may claim that the original idea for the

game in which I belong.

research is 70% ours, we did 85% of the analysis and 30%

Insisting that our research roles are not all that matters

of the final writing. The final result of the PBRF process

is the second play that can help us be activists despite

is the award of an A, B, C or a R grade, the latter meaning

the research game’s sticky hold. ‘Making a fuss’ as Barbara

you are not considered research active. These individual

has described, even as it carries the double whammy of

rankings are then collated at the institutional level to

drawing us away from research and positioning us as

allocate a pre-determined pool of money.

churlish and ungrateful of supposedly ‘progressive’ moves

Talk of PBRF is continually in the air at our university

within the institution, and teaching to the university as

and being a PBRF ‘A’ is shorthand for being a respected

Sean has discussed are two obvious examples.We can also

researcher. As Barbara Grant and Vivienne Elizabeth’s

help our students recognise the games being played in

(2014) study of 15 academic women discovered, PBRF

society at large and invite them to resist and reconfigure

engenders highly individualised and isolating emotions

these, participate in networks for change within the

such as pride and shame. Following on from this, as they

academy, take community engagement seriously, and

also point out, there is a notable absence of collective

refuse to let ‘top girls’ carry so much more than their

resistance (or activism) in relation to the PBRF. This lack

share of the institutional work. These moves are the life

of resistance makes sense if we, as potential activists,

force that gives our scholarly critiques meaning and

continue to harbour the belief that if we were any ‘good’

carries them through the system.To speak truth to power,

(as academic activists) we too would be an A. (And, by

through papers such as this, and then put almost all

extension, if we are an A, we are rightfully superior to

our energy into that which will make us powerful is an

people with lower grades!) I do not have room here for

incoherent and unpersuasive play.

a detailed critique of why a PBRF A is not equivalent to

Finally, while I agree with Sean there are indeed

worthwhile research, let alone research that challenges

possibilities in taking the university at its word and

the status quo, but one starting point is its core assumption

treating it as a space open to critique and possibility, I find

that ‘quality’ can not only be best assessed by academic

it useful, when I am thrown by yet another decision that

peers, but only assessed by academic peers.

preserves the status quo, to remind myself that universities

So, for NZ academics, a possible response to the

are still patriarchal, competitive and highly individualistic

research rules (i.e. PBRF) within our research roles

institutions, in which those with the greatest capacity to

might include doing research that is not ‘quality assured.’

turn away from the collective are those who win most

For example, I, a relative ‘old girl,’ who has become

rapidly and most consistently.Yes, some academic activists

increasingly frustrated with research on social issues that

will be amongst the winners of the research game, but

seems to make very little social contribution, wrote a

they are a little like the woman who gets through to the

book that was published through my department, and so

top of the hierarchy: a distraction for the rest of us. We

not ‘quality assured.’ It was based on empirical research

must speak and act out against the worship of research,

in psychology, aimed at social justice and environmental

even as we ourselves long to be research stars.

advocates, and has resulted in well over 100 invited talks and many more conversations with people (in numerous sectors) working for social change (Harré, 2011). It is by far my most important research contribution to date, but

Talking of STARs (Slow, Tiny, Acts of Resistance): Some concluding considerations

it will do little to boost my PBRF grade in the next round. This is an indignity, and if my grade is lower than I hope,

In our vignettes, we have offered prompts about what

I will feel that indignity to my core, like a lead weight

it means to be an activist in the university in the early

nestled inside. I will, however, hold the resulting shame

21st century. We have proposed that activism can be

and doubt close, private; because as a ‘senior academic’ I

seen as playing ‘the infinite game’ and keeping alive its

should be at the top of my (their) game. But, I also look

values of inclusion, imagination and possibility.This vision

on that book as a move motivated by infinite values as I

of activism includes resisting or subverting the ‘finite

understand them, and do not, ever, regret the time and

games’ of the university that do not serve these values.

energy it has taken. When I am in the spaces my book has

We have explored our varied academic positions as critic

opened up – spaces filled with people in the real world

and conscience, ‘top girls,’ teachers, and researchers. In

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

The university as an infinite game Niki Harré, Barbara M Grant, Kirsten Locke & Sean Sturm

’

writing this paper, we hope to contribute to revitalising

wrangled without resolution over what is and is not

activist thought and conversation – and action – inside

activism.) Our vision of the university accords with Bill

the university. More, the activism that we invite you to

Readings’ (1996) ‘community of dissensus’ – in which, as

take up is one rooted in what you feel is needed to be

we think together about how to keep the infinite game in

done or is true. We need to remember that activists inside

play, about what it means to be activist in our universities

the university must play the long game: there has never

in this time, we struggle in a welcoming way over the

been a time when universities did not need critics within,

inevitable differences in our views.

and there can never be.We need to imagine and find room for small creative acts of activist subversion alongside

Niki Harré is on the academic staff in the School of

those larger, more public and emphatic but more difficult

Psychology at the University of Auckland, she is fascinated

to arrange, acts of defiance (Boden & Epstein, 2011). Both

by what inspires and maintains social and environmental

kinds have the possibility to transform the business-as-

activism.

usual of the university. But because it is a long game – as long as an academic life, perhaps – staying hopeful and

Barbara Grant is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of

willing, staying active, requires some tactics.

Education at the University of Auckland where she researches

We have already outlined possible tactics, but to finish we wish to draw attention to one that we feel speaks to all

and writes (and, as often as possible, teaches and supervises) in the field of critical university studies.

of us as want-to-be infinite players: the wilful deployment of – rather than the becoming of – STARs (Slow Tiny Acts

Kirsten Locke is Senior Lecturer in the School of Critical

of Resistance). STARs, born from a collective reading of

Studies in Education at the University of Auckland with an

the work of Alison Mountz and colleagues (2015), are

interest in the role education plays in issues of democracy

creative, sustainable and, ideally, fun. In their slowness

and equality.

and smallness, they work against the grain of the fast and flashy neoliberal university and with that of an

Sean Sturm serves as Deputy Director of the Centre for

overflowing academic life. STARs may include putting

Learning and Research in Higher Education at the University

provocative notes on university property, refusing to be

of Auckland, and researches the university as a place of

‘collegial’ when it means passing a problem elsewhere, or

possibilities.

raising issues for discussion at staff meetings and being

Contact: n.harre@auckland.ac.nz

satisfied with ‘losing’ if it at least means the status-quo is seen for a moment. STARs embody the university at its best, as if it was not the sorry thing it has become under the sign of neoliberalism, as if it was truly the university we love and believe in. So, towards that end, let’s generate and enact slow, tiny acts of resistance in the company of others whom we enjoy and whose thinking and conduct can teach us. Their companionship will comfort and sustain us. The four of us meet regularly at our university’s staff club to drink wine, eat chips, and talk about who we are, what we are doing, and what we might do. We air our grievances, and share the ideas we have for projects that usually come to nothing. We coo with admiration and laugh with delight when someone tells a brave story of making a fuss. When one of us is tired, disappointed or inarticulate with rage, we pat her or him on the arm and agree that their response is entirely reasonable. This is not to suggest the presence – or necessity – of some kind of utopian relationship in which we all agree with each other about what is wrong and what needs

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The university as an infinite game Niki Harré, Barbara M Grant, Kirsten Locke & Sean Sturm

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Activism on the Corporate Campus It just doesn’t have that you know what anymore Rebecca Dolhinow California State University, Fullerton

Student activists, like all activists, need space to organise, take part in actions, and educate their peers. On many campuses, these spaces can be a refuge for progressive students who may not find support for their activism in other spaces on campus. This article examines the development, function, and demise of one such space. In particular, this course of events is embedded in the concurrent processes of corporatisation and neoliberal enclosure taking place on universities across the United States. Student and faculty stories of increased supervision and ‘Big Brother’ inspired computer programs for tracking student “involvement” demonstrate unprecedented administrative reach into activism, its planning, and its implementation. The article is based on a decade long ethnographic study on a large public university campus in the US and smaller projects at similar institutions in California. The research is situated in the more general trends in the US over the same period through interviews with faculty at other institutions. Keywords: activism, commons, corporatisation, neoliberalism, students

In the clear, critical light of day, illusory administrators whisper of our need for institutions, and all institutions are political, and all politics is correctional, so it seems we need correctional institutions in the common, settling it, correcting it. (Moten & Harney, 2011, p. 987)

(Gould, 2003; Giroux 2014). Together, these processes of enclosure and depoliticisation move the university closer to the image and function of a private corporation. In this paper, I will use theories of the common and enclosure to examine tactics used by the neoliberal university to

When the budgets, curriculums, directives, and goals

control student activism through the control of campus

of universities across the world change so do the

spaces. While this paper focuses on student activism in

experiences of students. This is especially true for

higher education in the United States, the processes by

students who want to use their universities as sites for

which university administrations react to student activism

social change through activism. I saw multiple examples

are converging globally as neoliberalism takes over higher

of this in my ethnographic research and my personal

education.

experiences working alongside student activists. My

The recent appointment of Betsy DeVos, a conservative

research points to Neoliberalism, as an agent of enclosure

philanthropist with a strong and demonstrated desire to

in public universities when they use administrative

redesign public education in the US on a privatised model,

growth (or bloat) and restructuring to control and

as Secretary of Education in the US signals an unmistakable

correct student activism through spatial appropriation on

move at the highest levels of government toward corporate

campus (Ginsberg, 2011). What the corporate university

models of education. While neoliberal corporatisation has

cannot control through enclosure it exerts control over

been a bipartisan process, many of the anti-corporate

through cooptation, sanitisation, and bureaucratisation

Obama era programs and benefits created for higher

Activism on the Corporate Campus Rebecca Dolhinow

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

education have been, or plan to be, cut or modified by

Universities have quelled the activities as best they could

DeVos and the Trump administration (Douglas-Gabriel

to avoid the attention. My research shows the corporate

2017a; 2017b; Harris 2017a). The programs targeted

university does more than its predecessors to avoid this

are primarily those that create consumer protections

attention through the control of activist work on campus.

for students who continue their education and need to

Yet there are topics on which the university must tread

postpone payment on existing loans while in school and

lightly. When students protest the actions of the university,

for students in for-profit universities where student debt

the university must reply in some manner or risk worse

can be extreme (Carey, 2017). The very fact that students

attention. Recently, the majority of activism generated on

require ‘consumer protections’ while negotiating loans

campuses has focused on the student experience while

for university much as homebuyers do when signing

actions on other topics is much less apparent. Students are

mortgage notes speaks to the corporate mentality in higher

protesting racism on campus and in the classroom, they are

education financing. The goal of student loans (as grants

demanding trigger warnings, safety from sexual violence,

or work study) is shifting from making higher education

and fighting tuition raises. Much of this work is done by

more accessible for all as a moral imperative and national

specific identity-based groups of students. I argue, that the

goal to just another financial relationship that should

university encloses semi-autonomous activist spaces where

be left to the market to regulate. In this process it is, of

varied coalitions can be formed and students have time

course, the low-income and first-generation students who will be disproportionately affected (Harris, 2017b). It is more important than ever to understand the effects of the corporatisation of higher education.

This

research

examines the ways in which university corporate

and space to work together.

Activist work on topics which foster longterm social justice commitments to social change in general is changing in nature so dramatically due to corporate controls on campuses, that this work is disappearing as identity-focussed and off-campus activism becomes more evident.

administrations’ actions

This is not to say that student activism is over in the US, we certainly have seen the opposite of late (Ellin,

these

spaces,

identity based activism is the easiest alternative as many students are already active in

identity-based

Activist

work

groups. topics

which foster long-term social justice commitments to social change in general is changing

disable

student activism in very material and spatial ways.

Without

in nature so dramatically due to corporate controls on campuses, that this work is disappearing as identity-focussed and off-campus activism becomes more evident.

2016; Wong, 2015; Wong, 2016). Yet the recent welldocumented and very productive student uprisings on

A word on terminology

campuses across the US and globally (Fairbanks, 2015) were not rooted on campus. While these actions are well

The editors have done an excellent job situating this issue

executed and fruitful, it is less and less common for them

within the literature on neoliberalism and I am thankful

to come from campus-based organisations. Influenced

not to have that task upon my shoulders. But I will take

by successful groups like Black Lives Matter, Cop Watch

a moment to explain how and why I chose the terms I

and other community and student partnerships, students

employ here. The term neoliberalism has been actively

(even those in campus sanctioned groups) are organising

used to discuss and analyse economics, politics, and

themselves off campus outside of the increasingly

culture for decades now. In this time, the term has gained

disabling campus environment for activism. My research

and lost much meaning. Neoliberalism is applied to many

finds long-term, spatially-grounded, and student-led

more things today than when the term was first used

activism on campus has been one of the first activities

and has become very vague in its expansiveness. For this

challenged by corporate university administrations.

reason, I will situate my specific use of the term here. In

In the corporate model, universities work almost as hard

my discussions of neoliberalism and activism in the past I

to maintain their image as they do to educate their students.

focused on neoliberalism as a means to move power and

This focus on image, as you will see from my fieldwork,

wealth to an economic elite through governmentality

pushes universities to control as much as they possibly

and among others the control of non-governmental

can on campus. Historically, activist work on universities

organisations (Dolhinow, 2010; Harvey, 2005). I believe

has drawn wanted and unwanted attention to campuses.

this to still be the case. This can be seen in the current

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Activism on the Corporate Campus Rebecca Dolhinow

’

university through the stress on marketing the results of

Comprehensive Universities in California. In this paper, I

the education and not the education itself. The goal of

will focus on one of these universities (RCUA) and the

higher education today appears to be producing students

trajectory of student activism in one space in particular

that make more money, while universities make more

in the era of neoliberal higher education on this campus.

money through research sales and even making profits.

This group of like-minded progressive and social justice

From the US to the UK scholars are fighting against the

focused young adults found each other through a little

growth of the for-profit university and mentality (Helm,

known centre on campus that did social justice work.

2016; Naussbaum, 2016).

As the years went by I met and worked alongside many

Equally, if not more important for the study of activism,

students from the ‘Centre’ in their activist endeavours (the

is the goal of neoliberalism to destroy all collectives.

‘Centre’ is not the name of this space and should not be

In a 1998 article in Le Monde, Pierre Bourdieu writes

taken as standing in for ‘the Centre’ as is common when

of neoliberalism as a ‘political project’ that calls ‘into

referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer

question any and all collective structures that could serve

(LGBTQ) centres). In my roles as an ethnographer and

as an obstacle to the logic of the pure market’ (Bourdieu,

supporter of the Centre I developed an insight over time

1998, p. 2). This political project has not changed and

into both the lives and the work of the student activists,

the collective nature of activism is increasingly viewed

and the Centre’s changing relationship to the University.

as a serious threat by the neoliberal university. But since

As this institution and many others across the state of

Bourdieu wrote these lines I see a change in the nature

California moved toward a corporate model, the Centre

of neoliberalism, especially as manifested in universities.

became an example of what increasing corporate-style

The all-important ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ is

control of activism meant for student activists and their

changing in nature and as it does these changes require

spaces. While my project began as an examination of the

new more accurate nomenclature (Brenner & Theodore,

spaces activists create to foster their work (Sziarto &

2002). Higher education is experiencing neoliberalism

Leitner, 2010), it became clear over time that it was the

today through corporatisation. And while the effects of

movement of neoliberal-corporate higher education to

corporatisation are similar to those we would traditionally

destruct and reconstruct student spaces that was the real

describe as neoliberal, there are important differences.

story here.

Wendy Brown (2015) paints a picture of neoliberalism

This realisation caused the project to widen to include

as both deeply entrenched and ever changing. It is

universities across the nation and faculty perspectives

this changing nature of neoliberalism that dictates the

as well. All of the data used here come from in-depth

necessity of an examination of the corporate influence

interviews and field notes. All names have been changed

on the style of recent neoliberal reforms. According to

for anonymity.

Brown in neoliberalism’s latest manifestation, Both persons and states are constructed on the model of the contemporary firm, both persons and states are expected to comport themselves in ways that maximise their capital value in the present and enhance their future value, and both persons and states do so through practices of entrepreneurialism, self-investment, and/or attracting investors (Brown, 2015 p. 22).

A story of what was (possible) The nostalgia for ‘the university that was’ is not new and comes from academics themselves (Collini, 2012, p.40; Donoghue, 2008; Ginsberg, 2011). Students usually pass through too quickly to see the change we lament. Yet recently change has been so rapid and disruptive that

The focus on individual responsibility is not new

even students are aware of its vicissitudes. The students

to neoliberalism yet the move to the entrepreneurial

drawn to the Centre were students who felt acutely the

individual shifts the conversation toward a corporate

encroachment of neoliberalism on their activist space

ethos. This is especially clear in higher education when

even in their relatively short time on campus.

a degree becomes a consumer product rather than the result of an educational process.

The Centre was first and foremost a space for progressive students to create community. Like many of these progressive student spaces I visited and heard about

Methods

on other campuses, the Centre, was small and hard to find. These spaces tend to be tucked away. In this way, these

More than 10 years ago I began an ethnographic

spaces create what I call hidden commons of resistance.

study of student activist associations at two Regional

As long as the space and the students stay hidden, they

Activism on the Corporate Campus Rebecca Dolhinow

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

remain safe. It is when they draw attention to themselves

examples of enclosure I will describe in relation to student

(the point of activism) that they risk the attention that

activism, in which universities take away, correct, and or

leads to the enclosure of their commons. These hidden

control physical spaces in order to quell independent and

spaces can be compared to the socially produced ‘counter

oppositional thought and activist communities.

spaces’ that Lefebvre theorises challenge the abstract

The Centre and spaces like it across the country

space of capitalism (Lefebvre, 1991). Counter spaces are

function not only as a place to study social injustices,

produced from ‘differential space,’ which Lefebvre argues

organise, and create an accepting community, but also

comes from a seed of resistance present in abstract space

as spaces of resistance for students who often do not fit

itself. The stress of counter spaces on difference and

into traditional university culture.When allowed to grow

potential alternative realities describes very well what

and function autonomously, these spaces can become

students seek and produce in spaces like the Centre.

commons in which progressive and activist minded

The ‘common’ according to Hardt and Negri (2004) is

students create community and support networks for

the new version of the commons, which as a pre-capitalist

both school and their social justice work. The Centre

term for spaces destroyed by private property, they

was a space for students to learn about their identities

prefer not to use. ‘The common we share, in fact, is not

as well as those of their colleagues. The most basic

so much discovered as it is produced’ (p. xv). For Hardt

intention and understanding of the space was that it

and Negri, what we do in the common is not simply based

accepted all who entered as they were. This often meant

on the fact that we are part of the common but rather,

a bit of a learning curve for students not exposed to

what we do produces the common (p. xv). In their book

diverse identities while growing up. But the students

Commonwealth (2009), they point to the intellectual

in the space made it their mission to help each other

aspects of the common as being as significant as the social

understand their individual and common oppressions

production or labour that constitutes the material aspects

and how they intersected in order to better learn how

of the common (p. viii). While I agree with Hardt and

to work together to create the necessary social change

Negri that what we have today is not the commons of pre-

to improve all of their lives. All students described the

capitalist times, it is still very much capitalism in the form

Centre as a ‘home’ like space in which they could be

of neoliberalism that continues to attack common spaces,

at ease with who they were and express their opinions

therefore I prefer the term ‘commons’ plural. I do not want

without fear of correction or censure.

to erase the history carried in the term. My work speaks to Harney and Moten’s (2013) term ‘the undercommons,’ a space where those who are ‘fugitives’ in the ‘university-assuch’ (Undercommoning Collective, 2016, p.3) find refuge and create their own commons from which they can act as they see fit (Harney & Moten, 2013, p.35). For Harney and Moten these fugitives include among others, the criminal, the queer, the black, the woman, and the native. These fugitives are often the students that find each other in places like the Centre. Just as the pre-capitalist commons was enclosed by private property, the material and ideological commons used in theory today can be enclosed as a form of control and dissolution. In his collection of essays on the past and current uses of the commons and enclosure in resistance movements, Peter Linebaugh (2014) discusses enclosure in very physical ways. ‘Enclosure, like, capital, is a term that is physically precise, even technical (hedge, fence, wall), and expressive of concepts of unfreedom (incarceration, imprisonment, immurement)’ (p. 142). Enclosure is ‘inseparable from terror and the destruction of independence and community’ for Linebaugh (2014, p. 142). This explanation of enclosure fits best with the vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

I really think that it’s your second home like it’s somewhere where you get to vent. It’s not just somewhere that you go plan events. Like I really think that people there find their friends – they find themselves – a lot of people find like their sexual orientation or find what they’re passionate about through the Centre because it’s like a really different office in there. It’s like a different dynamic like it’s not so professional it’s more or less like you could be yourself… Unlike many of their homes, the Centre offered a nonjudgmental space in which to experiment with identity and power. ‘Finding myself’ was a common phrase in interviews. But I think they’re all in the same – well, kind of the same stage in their life where – I know we’ve had a lot of students that have come because they’ve like been through a hard – So it might be different reasons of why they’re there but I think it’s always because you’re there seeking for something. So I know for me it was that I knew things were going on so I was like I need to find a place where I could feel like I’m making change or I’m doing something positive. But it’s always about wanting to help or wanting to like find yourself or something like that. But I think it’s always in that stage where you’re missing something or you’re wanting to go beyond. Activism on the Corporate Campus Rebecca Dolhinow

’

The Centre was socially produced as a space in which

culture. This political and activist commons space could

students could enact the theory they learned in the

not be left to its own devices.The university simply could

classroom. .

not pass up the opportunity to control the message of a

The learning experience – I think the Centre is kind of like the pinnacle of it and the friendships I’ve made, the connections I’ve made. Because a lot of the classes that I’ve taken – I mean they’re great classes but once you get to see all that theory in practice then that’s when I think you reap the most benefits from it.

‘social justice’ event when social justice was increasingly important and popular on campuses around the country. The enclosure of the Centre was neither rushed nor haphazard but rather clearly justified every step of the way. Long before the space was physically closed the students realised their ‘home’ and their ‘family’ was in

The Centre was a space produced by students to counter

danger and they moved on to other spaces on campus

the growing professionalisation of student engagement

if they could find them, or found a home in an activist

on campus, a commons and counter space in which

community off campus.

to work together as a family. One of the key facilitators

The process by which the Centre was enclosed was

of this process was the long-term campus employed

very like those described to me in stories of similar

administrator of the space. Diana embodied the perfect

spaces across the country. First, the university went

mix of support and inspiration with a hands-off manner

after the space through assessment. Was the Centre

that allowed the space to thrive as a student led hidden

serving its purpose and could this be measured? Given

commons of resistance. In our conversations, we discussed

that the primary goals of such spaces include helping

the fine line she had to walk between supervising the

students enact social change while becoming invested

students the way she believed best and the demands of

in community work, the demand to quantify qualitative

the university.To truly support their activist commitments,

effects is challenging at best. One of the key solutions

at times she had to ignore or remove herself from student

implemented by the administration for quantifying the

conversations about off campus events and recruitment

effects of the Centre, counting logins at the door, did not

for community organisations.The university did not allow

paint a complete or very generous picture. How could

the promotion of off campus events or groups but Diana

the logging in of a student identification card possibly

knew moving their activism into the community was an

measure what happens in a space produced through

important step in their development as activists and the

actions? This solution provides numbers of users and

only way to ensure their participation after graduation. It

nothing more; it failed to measure the influence Centre

is telling that the Centre was enclosed shortly after she

actions had on the campus community as a whole. Since

moved to a new position. The new administrator was one

the time the login system was tried out at the Centre, it

of several steps toward the final enclosure.

has become common practice of many universities.These

The primary space-claiming and commons-expanding

activist program of the Centre was a yearly student

for student resources but now also track student extra-

developed campus and community social justice event.

curricular activities such as community service to record

This event was created and run by the students as a

in the student’s file. The corporate University does a

venue for their messages and voices. It was in many ways

terrific job marketing ‘extra’ or ‘co’-curricular activities

outside of, yet in, the university. It was through this event

as significantly valuable to employers looking for ‘real

that students showed their colleagues, professors, and the

world skills and experience.’ Many of the faculty I spoke

university at large who they were and what they believed

to believed their universities were doing more work to

was true. Students collaborated with community activists

sell co-curricular activities than the academic work done

and professors to create programs and workshops covering

in the classroom.

topics from non-hierarchical organising and non-violent

As earlier noted, the University administration was a

action to squatting and community gardening. When the

crucial element to the student experience of the Centre,

event was successful they created an undercommons for

in no small part, through their representative Diana.

the day, right in the heart of the university. At least they

When Diana was offered a new position, with more

did for a while.

room for growth, the administration held a search for a

After a handful of very successful events and the

new administrator to run the Centre. The new hire was

garnering of great respect in local activist communities,

in keeping with major changes in the administrative

the visibility the event brought to the Centre was more

direction of the university as a whole and in student

than the university could ignore in its growing corporate

services administration in particular. Under the new

Activism on the Corporate Campus Rebecca Dolhinow

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

administrative organisation and personnel, the role of the

these issues moves outside of the institutions producing

administrator at the Centre changed dramatically over the

the issues, the production can go unchecked.

course of a few years, from a supportive yet background

As noted, image and reputation have always been

presence to the main decision maker and message

important in higher education but as the corporate/

creator. It is interesting to note that the person hired to

private funding model of higher education prevails, image

replace Diana had similar goals for the Centre but they

maintenance is more important. Just as the corporations

were clearly under greater scrutiny and control by the

they model themselves after, universities assess, audit and

administration than Diana had been. The student’s voice

manage more than ever, in order to control all aspects

was marginalised and, at times, reported to me as absent

of their image and product (Newfield, 2016). In the past

entirely. Before the physical space of the Centre was

year, The Chronicle of Higher Education published more

enclosed the activist commons space of the social justice

than ten articles addressing methods for administrations,

event was taken over. This could be seen in the change

Presidents in particular, to control student activism before

of opening remarks formerly given by a student from the

it harms the university’s image (Brown & Mangan, 2016;

Centre to an invited administrator (students chose not to

Gardner, 2016). The unpredictable nature of student

invite the administration in the past). Ideas for keynote

activism derails these efforts for control. For this reason,

speakers came from the administration when in the past

we must examine closely the responses of universities

they were solely generated by the students involved. At this point the student created activist community and commons was effectively enclosed. Shortly after, the space was gone completely when the Centre was packed up and moved into a shared space elsewhere on campus. Once

the

social

justice

event and the direction of the Centre were both under

to the demands of student

The elimination of the Centre space is a very physical example of the enclosure methods universities take up in response to student activism when the activism is viewed as threatening to the institutions. This research finds bureaucratic solutions for greater control through surveillance are on the rise. New technologies may also provide an additional method of surveillance.

control it made sense to fold

protestors and the changes put in place to ‘support and

promote’

student

engagement (administrative speak for anything that looks like organising). In the words of a faculty member

who

worked

closely with the students at the Centre, ‘That’s where I’m most scared because I love the fact that there’s so much autonomy, and yet it’s

the Centre into a more central space where supervision

only a matter of time before something controversial

was easier and it was clear the Centre was simply one

happens. You know... if you allow speech that means

more aspect of the greater student resources and not a

you endorse it somehow.’ Several years before the

special or challenging space.

Centre was closed he predicted the potential actions the administration might take if it felt threatened by the

A snapshot of what is

Centre. The elimination of the Centre space is a very physical example of the enclosure methods universities

The recent slew of student led activist events on campuses

take up in response to student activism when the activism

across the United States can be seen as both promising

is viewed as threatening to the institutions. This research

and threatening to the future of student activism. The

finds bureaucratic solutions for greater control through

campus presence of national movements representing

surveillance are on the rise. New technologies may also

the continuing desire of young adults in the US to express

provide an additional method of surveillance.

their anger and frustration. This desire is the foundation

Many of the surveillance systems encountered in this

of any movement toward social change. It is a loss, as I

research centred on online tracking platforms for student

mentioned earlier, that much of this work is organised off

organisations and events. Most systems described to me,

campus thus moving social justice work away from the

and that used at RCUA as well, involve a collection of

university. The injustices these actions address, racism,

biographical information on student groups as well as

sexual violence, and police brutality on campus among

copious data for any event to be planned, removing the

others, in fact come out of institutions of enclosure such

possibility of impromptu actions. Universities promote

as the university.When the bulk of the activism addressing

these systems as easier to use, paperless, more efficient,

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Activism on the Corporate Campus Rebecca Dolhinow

’

and good for creating records of student’s co-curricular

university correcting students’ interest in social change by

work but the ‘Big Brother’ aspects of these systems are

guiding them through the university-deemed appropriate

undeniable. In an interview with a Women’s Studies

channels and processes. ‘Corporatisation involves the

professor at a medium sized private school on the East

politics of social activists internalising a belief in the

Coast of the US the system at her school came up early

value of corporate responsibility… privatisation…it

in the conversation. ‘Another example of what I consider

includes coming to accept the status quo as normal and

corporatisation…there is this new platform. Everybody –

seeing markets and corporations as natural’ (Dauvergne &

you know, all events should be registered on it…You can

Lebaron, 2014, p.9). Although describing global activism,

get students to say beforehand if they are coming. They

the authors could just as easily be speaking to the new

can get credit.’

university-based ‘activism’ in this quote. Giroux (2014)

A student in a successful and very vocal non-registered

points to how the corporate university takes away the

student group describes their rejection of their university’s

ability of students to imagine alternative political realities

online system and inherently controlling nature:

(p.14). My research points to the control of student-led

[W]e haven’t registered through the school because… we think that students should have access to spaces without having to register so we think as students we should be able to ask for a space like hey, “I need this classroom this night it’s going to be on Friday can I have permission to use it.” But they want you to be registered organisations and then you have to follow their rules and then you have to – draft a constitution, there’s all these steps that go into being a registered organisation so we haven’t done that…We think that it kind of goes hand in hand with the bureaucracy entailed by this university. [W]e’re really not for this whole idea that you have to the follow a certain standard, you have to follow these rules in order to be accepted into this campus and well, also the activism that we engage in and how [we] raise a lot of noise, um, we feel like they’d restrict us even more in the events we try to plan and things such as that. The work we do is valid and important, um, regardless if you find it to be so.

spaces of activism and actions through enclosure as one

A Women’s Studies professor of thirty-eight years at a

growth, student-led campus activism will falter.

of the central ways in which the corporate university disables the imaginations of activists. I ask, how is activism possible without the idea of alternative possible spaces let alone worlds?

What now? As universities enclose spaces of activism they also enclose opportunities for the organic growth of student social change work on campuses. Spaces like the Centre provided the autonomous commons space necessary for passionate democratic understanding of social change to begin and foster spontaneous action when necessary. Without the creation of a student-led commons counter space for students to develop a commitment to social justice activism through community and intellectual

small Eastern private school described their new more

My research points to some clear and troubling trends

bureaucratised system as ‘depressing student involvement

for the future of student activism on university campuses.

– you’re making them jump through all of these hoops…’

Just as spaces are socially produced (Levefbre, 1991) so

She goes on to say that ‘form-filled-out, room-reserved,

too are activist movements and the two often happen

university-sanctioned, student activism doesn’t always

hand-in-hand. Activist spaces function best when given

quite have the same, you know.’ The ‘you know’ that ends

a measure of autonomy and left to their own devices. But

up missing, spontaneity and passion, are two of the most

organic, holistic, uncertain processes do not fit well into

important aspects of meaningful social change. Her final

the corporate university and its total control culture. As

words on the results of tracking systems on activism were:

I saw at RCUA and the faculty I interviewed saw at their

The spirit to transgress even in the mildest mode – just doesn’t feel to me like it’s there. And so there’s this kind of, you know, you can do these things within these boundaries if you fill out the forms and pretty much I think our students kind of acquiesce to that and a part of them wants to be good institutional citizens and respected and have the administration like them and, you know, the just kind of ‘screw this we’re mad’ I don’t see very much of it anymore.

institutions, the work of universities to control, enclose,

The ‘good institutional citizen’ (a deeply neoliberal

and marketed to employers and prospective students.

role)

described

here

demonstrates

the

and sanitise the work of commons counter spaces disables, if not destroys, the production of activist spaces on campus. Universities are not against social justice, just the opposite, they are increasingly excited about the concept. Administrations work tirelessly to package social justice experiences for students that can be quantified, recorded,

corporate

The pre-packaged and sanitised social justice experiences

Activism on the Corporate Campus Rebecca Dolhinow

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

administrations offer cannot replace the work of an activist

unite faculty and students to produce an undercommons.

commons. All of the faculty and students I interviewed

This would be a space in which learners of all kinds

agree that programmatic and co-curricular excursions into

could create the commons counter spaces they require

social justice work do not make activists but rather ‘social

to make the change they seek on campus and in the

justice tourists.’ Here is where the students and faculty

world. In their commons counter spaces student activists

I interviewed see the ‘insurmountable problem,’ a public

would not create groups, projects, and actions that fit the

education for a democratic society must necessarily be

questionnaires and tracking systems of the university but

an organic process, just like a democracy (Brown, 2015).

rather they could develop their goals organically. In the

Both must be allowed to produce their own commons

words of one student activist, ‘We exist because we exist.

and undercommons when necessary. When watered

Not because you say it’s OK we are here.’

down versions of social justice and activism become the purview of the administration, collective student

Rebecca Dolhinow is an Associate Professor in Women and

commons of resistance find no support.

Gender Studies at California State University, Fullerton where

Lack of support and outright suppression of student activism encloses spaces and opportunities on campus

she teaches about and researches global activism. Contact: rdolhinow@fullerton.edu

for students to organise for social change and create a commons counter space. The neoliberal university’s increasing corporatisation affects everyone on campus. From students and staff to the highest levels of the administration, the corporate university challenges existing systems, organisations, and ideals in its efforts to manage and control (Gould, 2003; Newfield, 2008). Control is not a popular word on campuses where academic freedom, or the ideal of it, has defined modern higher education in much of the world (Ginsberg, 2011). At RCUA, as well as my own institution and those of every faculty member I interviewed, corporate control models are met with shock, anger, and finally organisation for resistance. Faculty organising against corporatisation are met with different responses at each institution and have varied levels of success. Yet faculty organising always represents hope for change and the possibility of pushing back on the enclosure of the activists spaces produced on campus in classrooms and offices. At RCUA the best chances for any new commons of resistance lie in alliances between students and faculty seeking to defend such spaces or recreate them after their enclosure. When students and faculty understand the actions the corporate university takes as mutually disabling and destructive they can work together to resist the system or create new systems outside of the corporate university in the form of an undercommons. The educational undercommons is envisioned by the Undercommoning Collective as a space in which to organise to abolish the ‘university-as-such’ (Undercommoning Collective, 2016). By reclaiming the knowledge and labour of the university-as-such,

the

Undercommoning

Collective

seeks to work ‘within, against, and beyond’ the current university. While all three aspects are necessary, working within the university would be the best first step to vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

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Gardner, L. (2016). How Presidents Try to Stay Ahead of the Soial-Media Outrage Machine. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www. chronicle.com.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/article/How-Presidents-Try-to-Stay/238019 Ginsberg, B. (2011). The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why it Matters. New York: Oxford University Press. Giroux, H. (2014). Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education. New York: Haymarket Books. Gould, E. (2003). The University In A Corporate Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press. Harney, S. & Moten, F. (2013). The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. New York: Minor Compositions. Hardt, M. & Negri, A. (2004). Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: Penguin Books. Hardt, M. & Negri, A. (2009). Commonwealth. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Harris, A. (2017a). What DeVos’s ‘Reset’ on 2 Major Consumer Rules Means for Colleges. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www. chronicle.com/article/What-DeVos-s-Reset-on/240348 Harris, A. (2017b). What Trump’s Proposed 2018 Budget Would Mean for Higher Ed. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.chronicle. com/blogs/ticker/what-trumps-proposed-2018-budget-would-mean-forhigher-ed/118577 Harvey, D. (2005). A Brief History Of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Cambridge: Blackwell. Linebaugh, P. (2014). Stop, Thief! The Commons, Enclosures, and Resistance. Oakland: PM Press. Moten, F. & Harney, S. (2011). Politics Surrounded. South Atlantic Quarterly 110:4, 985- 988. Newfield, C. (2008). Unmaking The Public University: The Forty-Year Assault On The Middle Class. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Newfield, C. (2016). The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Naussbaum, M. (2016). Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs The Humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sziarto, K. & Leitner, H. (2010). Immigrants riding for justice: Space-time and emotions in the construction of a counterspace. Political Geography 29, 381-391. Undercommoning Collective. (2016). Undercommoning within, against and beyond the university-as-such. ROAR Magazine. Retrived from https://roarmag. org/essays/undercommoning-collective-university-education/. Wong, A. (2015). The Renaissance of Student Activism. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/05/the-renaissance-ofstudent-activism/393749/. Wong, A. (2016). Campus Politics: A Cheat Sheet. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/campus-protestroundup/417570/.

Helm, T. (2016). Lords revolt over plans for ‘free market’ universities. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/ dec/31/lords-revolt-tory-plans-free-market-universities

Activism on the Corporate Campus Rebecca Dolhinow

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

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Academic identities in the managed university Neoliberalism and resistance at Newcastle University, UK Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective 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 firstly offers an analysis of the role of discourse in redefining 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 financial 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

Introduction

England (HEFCE), the chair of the review body, James Wilsdon, cautioned against the misuse of metrics as a

In the neoliberal era, academics in UK universities have

tool of research assessment or management in UK higher

become increasingly enmeshed in systems of metrics.

education. He wrote; ‘Metrics hold real power: they are

These have moved beyond audit (Strathern, 2000), to

constitutive of values, identities and livelihoods.’ Yet

the recasting of identities as universities enact markets

despite such critiques and a widespread awareness that

(Burrows, 2012), and increasingly to the situation in

outcomes-based performance-management in the public

which data itself has become a new exchange value and

sector inadvertently produces a whole set of negative

thus productive of new subjectivities (The Analogue

outcomes (Lowe & Wilson, 2015), university managers,

University, 2017).

like the proverbial rabbits trapped in car headlights, seem

Driving a new ethos of competition has been the

unable to escape their lure and logic. At the same time,

growing influence of university league tables, and in the

although they critique these developments, academics

UK the Research Excellence Framework (REF) which

can often feel despondent or even helpless in the face

governs the distribution of one tranche of government

of them. We might know that the ‘there is no alternative’

research money. In an attempt to game this system,

argument is untrue, but we can often be hard-pressed

institutions have set in place strategies to achieve

to point to successful instances of resistance and the

institutional goals of enhanced national and international

embrace of workable alternatives.

league table positions by setting ‘performance’ targets

In this article, we critically examine a recent dispute

for their staff. Described as The Metric Tide, in a 2015

about one such example of that outcomes-based

report for the Higher Education Funding Council for

performance-management, that of ‘Raising the Bar’ (RTB),

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Academic identities in the managed university Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

’

introduced by management at Newcastle University,

become embedded in cultures and institutions rather

England. By attempting to channel staff energies into

than economies (Brown, 2015). In universities, the

what counts highest in those audit exercises, RTB was

resonances of this ideological project have been apparent

explicitly designed to game the system to position the

in the installation of the twin sisters of neoliberalism: New

university better in national and international league

Public Management (Deem, Hillyard, & Reed, 2007), and

tables. It sought to do this by a ‘carrot and stick’ approach:

managerialism (Hoyle & Wallace, 2005). We have seen a

rewarding academics deemed likely to improve the

shift to neoliberal ideology which is manifest in a culture

university’s rankings in competition with others, and

of audit in which every aspect of work and ‘the business’

disciplining those deemed to be underperforming in the

is assessed by its calculative value.

key metrics. Although this has become a common story

The following are familiar characteristics of the higher

in the Anglophone world in recent years, academics at

education landscape in 2017:

Newcastle were able to successfully resist RTB leading

• Students (and staff) are located within a framework of

to its withdrawal. RTB is worth studying in detail not

human capital (Becker, 1994).

only because it is a classic example of that outcomes-

• Higher education is re-visioned as a project of acquiring

based performance-management in higher education, but

skills which can be justified in terms of economic

also because it provides clues as to how the seemingly relentless march of neoliberal values can be resisted. The article’s purpose, therefore, is to illustrate the growing literatures on the logics and effects on academics of

neoliberal

that

outcomes-based

performance-

management in universities, and extend the scant literature on how it can be successfully contested. It is based on archival work, discourse analysis of key documents, and

benefit (Holmwood, 2017). • There is an emphasis on individual benefit, such as ‘value for money’ and ‘return on investment’ (US Government, Department for Education, No Date). • Degrees are viewed internally as ‘products’ requiring ‘business cases’ (Fenton, 2011). • Students are positioned as ‘customers’ (Molesworth et al., 2009; Williams, 2013).

interviews with 27 members of the university from

• Students are seen as units of profit via fees, halls of

senior managers to union activists. We begin by setting

residence, sports facilities, branded goods, graduation

out how calculative practices and neoliberal discourse

(Molesworth et al., 2011; Brown & Caruso, 2013).

generate new forms of academic identities. We then move

In order to achieve this transformation, all who study

to the Newcastle example, providing a critical analysis

and work in universities need to be made to comply with

of management discourse, piecing together a timeline

this view of themselves as units of productivity, profit or

of the RTB dispute, and drawing from this an analysis of

consumption. This requires a reshaping of the identities

strategies of resistance. We conclude by arguing that the

and declared motivations of these individuals and it is

neoliberalisation of universities is not inevitable and can

achieved through what Fairclough (2010) has called the

be successfully resisted by academics through collective

technologisation of discourse – a calculated intervention

efforts that draw upon one of the keystones of academic

in discursive practices in order to effect social change.

identity – the ability to tell truth to power. We hope that

For example, US universities are ranked on ‘Return

this research will be of value to other academic collectives

on Investment’. Return on Investment in the new US

facing similar struggle.

College Scorecard (US Dept. Education) is determined by the likelihood of a high-paying job for graduates of

Literature review: neoliberal discourse and academic identities

a particular college or university. Colleges and courses are ranked according to the likely salaries obtained by graduates, and this in turn becomes part of the college

The spread of calculative practices (Ritzer, 1993) has

marketing narrative. This particular metric of graduate

emerged in a context in which universities have been

salaries, known as Longitudinal Educational Outcomes

increasingly compelled to justify their existence in

data, has just reached the UK in 2017 (HEFCE, 2017; Boys,

economic terms. This has taken place within a wider

2017) along with the passing of the Higher Education and

political landscape of neoliberalism described by Graeber

Research Act, 2017.This indicates the extent to which the

(2012) as a form of capitalism which has systematically

ideological penetration of neoliberal ideas has been very

prioritised

competition,

successful in UK public services, and in higher education

entrepreneurialism, and the supremacy of the market

in particular. In 2017, any academic who hopes to progress

over economic ones (Harvey 2005). These priorities

in their career is forced to submit to academic capitalism

political

imperatives

Academic identities in the managed university Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

sites such as Academia.edu, or mentioning the value of a grant on their websites rather than telling us the objectives of the research program (Analogue University, 2017). Entrepreneurship has gone from metaphor, to a state in which it is both literal and mandatory. Indeed, in some academic job descriptions it is stated as a ‘key competency’ and has even given rise to completely new academic identities. Figure 1 shows a job advertisement was placed in January 2015 and was a cause of mystified comment in the higher education press.What it betokens, though, is a person who can somehow be guaranteed to inspire or occasion the advent of discovery – as if this can be summoned up by mere aspiration, rather than, say, financial support, continuity and security of

Figure 1: Bristol University Associate Dean of Eureka Moments. 2015. https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/01/26/associatedean-eureka-moments

employment, freedom to fail and other necessities of successful science. We see an increasing narrowing of these latter opportunities in UK academia. What has come to be known as the accelerated academy (Carrigan, 2015) is all about process and targets, and we now face a

(Slaughter & Leslie, 1997) and the marketisation of the

future in which employees are established in a shifting

self. When the university is constructed as a revenue-

hierarchy according to metrics. In this that outcomes-

making enterprise, the individuals within it must also

based performance-management (Lowe & Wilson, 2015),

subordinate themselves to the profit motive. Increasingly,

there is typically little value accorded to what is actually

academics are required to defray their own salaries with

accomplished; instead there is an overly-scrupulous

grant income, and as we see below, some universities are

fixation with accountability, monitoring and reporting,

making this a factor of performance management.

and with what Power (1999) has described as ‘rituals of

This is the kind of logic which prioritises the cost

verification.’ Indeed, the measures proliferate, mirrored by

of research over its content or intrinsic worth. Equally,

institutional compliance regimes – and gaming practices

this logic is sustained by a discourse which reframes

– to ensure success. The following obligatory audits have

achievement and the parameters of the possible

come to arrest academic energies to a degree which

entirely within economic and calculable terms. In the

overshadows the principal functions of a university,

‘Data University’ academic identities are so recast that

namely teaching, scholarship and research:

scholars themselves desire data: for example, devising

• National Student Survey – a student survey of their

strategies to maximise followers on venture-capital

satisfaction with courses. It asks final year students to

Figure 2: Academic Analytics, example data. http://www.academicanalytics.com vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Academic identities in the managed university Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

’

give scores for how interesting they find the course,

As we have indicated, there is much literature which

clarity of marking criteria, speed of feedback and access

features moving and sophisticated critiques of these

to tutorial support.These figures are used in calculating

processes, however, the literature analysing successful

league tables of universities. The actual satisfaction

cases of resistance to them in specific case studies is

score is very high at over 85 per cent average.

scarce. This article seeks to address that in its study of

• Research Excellence Framework (REF) – a six-yearly

Newcastle University, England.

audit of research outputs, and impact. • The forthcoming Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) – student retention and progression rates, satisfaction

Methods: Analysing raising the bar at Newcastle University

rates and graduate salaries. These are assumed by the current UK government to stand as proxy measures of

In October 2015, at the start of 2015-16 academic year,

good teaching.

senior managers in Newcastle University emailed each

Scores for departments, and even individuals, for each

academic staff member a document entitled ‘Research

of these aspects of research, NSS and TEF measures will be

and Innovation Performance Expectations’ (RiPE). These

compiled on the Vice-Chancellor’s dashboard, and some

expectations – on grant income obtained, top-rated

commercial models have now been adopted by UK and

publications, and graduate student completions – were

US universities (Figure 2).

a key element of ‘Raising the Bar’, the Vice-Chancellor’s

Academics working in the UK, US or Australia, are

program of improving Newcastle University’s position

commonly monitored by a similar system of academic

in league tables. The remainder of this article traces and

analytics.We inhabit a ‘watching culture’ (Mather & Seifert,

analyses the genesis of that document and the dispute

2014) and increasingly we notice an elision of audit,

which led to its withdrawal at the end of the academic

performance management and disciplinary procedures

year.

to the point where the latter becomes normalised and

Our evidence and arguments are drawn from three

expected. There is anecdotal evidence that universities

sources. Firstly, discourse analysis of RiPE via its key

are using performance management and disciplinary

documents; and also of a presentation by the Vice-

procedures more promiscuously and punitively than

Chancellor, Chris Brink, in a ‘town hall’ event on RTB

ever before. Failure to meet management expectations

which Liz Morrish attended. Secondly, we collected and

of ‘performance’ will result in the public humiliation of

analysed archival sources of minutes of the university

some ‘improving performance procedure,’ and possible

Executive Board, RTB Steering Group, Senate, Council,

demotion to a lower grade or a teaching-only contract.

University and College Union (UCU) and other relevant

No accrual of reputation can be permitted; the criteria

sources, looking for all references to RTB. Finally, the

must be met every year, not just over the course of a

article draws on a number of interviews conducted by

distinguished career. In this way, any prestige associated

The Analogue University, a writing collective of Newcastle

with the rank of lecturer, senior lecturer, reader or

academics. In the course of conducting research on RTB,

professor must be considered temporary, as is its tenure.

we interviewed 20 middle managers such as heads of

Just as we have a growing casualised sector of contingent

academic units and senior managers (Executive Board)

labour in universities, all academics may soon be made to

and lay members (Court and Council) of the university,

join this expanding precariat.

and 7 UCU activists. The interviews were semi-structured

It is not a great step from accepting the logic of the

and were aimed at understanding the genesis of the RTB

market, to seeing one’s own academic worth reduced

discourse and the unfolding of the dispute, with a focus

to a bundle of metrics. Those metrics may shift quite

on understanding why RTB was withdrawn. Although the

abruptly, and so measures of success are never stabilised.

Analogue University authors were involved in the dispute

The discourse reveals a focus on competition, finance and

as activists, we have not drawn on our own ethnographic

a preoccupation with ‘excellence’ – another semantically

experiences for this article.

unanchored concept (Moore et al., 2017). The discourse

For analysis, we adopted an ‘interpretative policy

also installs clear limits to what can be considered

analysis’ approach to discourse analysis of documents,

research or even work, but the threshold of achievement

interview transcripts and ethnographic observations, to

is rising out of reach of many talented academics. This is

chart both key points of divergence and also the prevalent

a recipe for despondency and burnout in the workplace

precepts and understandings in groups of management

(Gill, 2010).

and activists (Fischer 2003, Glynos et al., 2009).

Academic identities in the managed university Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

A word on our positionality. The origins of our

deployment. It is striking that Chris Brink resorted to a

collaboration go back to 15 November 2015, when Liz

sports metaphor in naming his strategy. The scheme was

Morrish visited Newcastle at the invitation of the local

initiated by managerial anxiety, amidst chatter about

branch of the UK academics’ trade union, the UCU. Based

so-called ‘bottom Russellers’ that Newcastle had been

on her scholarly expertise in this field, Morrish provided

‘lacking in competitiveness compared to other Russell

a critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2010) of the RiPE

Group institutions’ [the Russell Group is a collective of

documents and also made a semi-covert study of the Vice-

leading, longer-established UK universities] (Faculty of

Chancellor’s ‘town hall’ presentation of RTB to Newcastle

Humanities and Social Sciences Research and Innovation

academics.The Analogue University is a writing collective

Performance Expectations, p. 1).

formed of Newcastle academics who became active in the

RiPE refers to ‘[T]he expectations on research active

dispute. This is thus not a disinterested study by remote

staff’ – makes clear that if you do not meet these, you

scholars, as we began with the assumption that the current

are not research active, regardless of any evidence to

UK version of neoliberalism

substantiate other kinds of

has an adverse effect on universities.

There is anecdotal evidence that universities are using performance management and disciplinary procedures more promiscuously and punitively than ever before. Failure to meet management expectations of ‘performance’ will result in the public humiliation of some ‘improving performance procedure,’ and possible demotion to a lower grade or a teachingonly contract.

Nonetheless,

by focussing our interviews heavily on managers and senior lay members (20) rather than activists (7), and by in

immersing university

ourselves documents,

we sought to be directed wherever the data would take us: we had a genuine desire to understand what led to the withdrawal of RTB

performance.

Significantly,

these are expectations, not objectives, nor targets, nor goals. Expectations are finite, concrete and measurable, so by definition, if staff do not meet them, they cannot be considered research active. A justification is offered for the turn to metrics: ‘This document is focussed on research

performance…..

as this will determine our

from the perspective of the managers who made the

ranking in the next REF.’ However, a new understanding

decisions, rather than activists.

of ‘performance’ itself is at issue. The key to this new

In the remaining sections of this article, we analyse this

definition, we learn, will be increasing the number of

data. In the next section we analyse the discourses used

research outputs graded at the REF 4* level (internationally

in RTB documents. The following section discusses the

excellent) (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

course of the dispute, and finally we seek to understand

Research and Innovation Performance Expectations, p.

what lessons can be derived from it.

1). The actual academic value of the scholarly enquiry cannot be measured, and so will be disregarded. The

The discourse of performance: What’s in a name?

parameters of ‘performance’ are drawn so rigidly as to circumscribe any kind of professional autonomy, or even what counts as academic labour, guaranteeing that much

In this section, we begin our analysis of RTB by identifying

of what academics do will be rendered invisible. The

and unpacking the presuppositions encoded in the

whole endeavour of research, so personal and integral to

Research and Innovation Performance Expectations

academic identity, is collapsed into the term output.This is

(RiPE)

substantive

a designation which itself excludes as much as it includes,

performance management element of RTB. A different

inasmuch as only those works which are, firstly, REF

set of RiPE metrics was produced for each of Newcastle’s

submissable, and secondly, judged to be internationally

three faculties, but the general principle and covering

excellent or world-leading can be considered within its

letter was the same. Quotations below, appearing in italics,

scope. There is also some duplicitous reasoning evident:

are drawn from this document.

‘[W]e have largely relied on REF 2014 entry as a proxy for

document

which

framed

the

It should be observed from the outset that Raising

reaching the minimum expectations for research outputs

the Bar is a coercively innocent phrase. It conveniently

‘(Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Research and

conceals all the judgement, hostility, pain and pressure

Innovation Performance Expectations, p. 2). This is a post

that academics at Newcastle knew would follow its

hoc reckoning. The strategy was introduced after the REF

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Academic identities in the managed university Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

’

2014 exercise had been concluded. It seems contradictory

experience of many academics this is not objective setting;

to assess a scholar’s current ‘productivity’ on the basis of

rather, this is objectification. We can identify several of

past performance. And in any case, how would a local

Martha Nussbaum’s (1995) features of objectification (in

assessor know if an individual’s outputs were scored

bold) in the RiPE document:

as the quoted minimum 3* (internationally excellent)?

• Instrumentality – to be treated as a tool for man’s

Individual REF scores are categorically not available;

purposes. According to the Newcastle expectations,

they have been destroyed (HEFCE REF FAQ, 2014). But

the function of an academic is to ‘raise the bar,’ increase

once again, this is a discursive attempt to construct new

grant income and raise the university’s position in the

academic binary identities: those who were submitted to the REF, and those who were not.

league tables. • This would also entail denial of autonomy – the

A criterion for a chair is someone who: ‘aspires to

legitimate activity of an academic and what counts as

be in the top quartile in UoA [Unit of Assessment] for

work is tightly defined and controlled in RiPE. Similarly,

income, or aspiring to 4*’ (world leading) (Faculty of

Nussbaum defines ownership as something that can be

Humanities and Social Sciences Research and Innovation

traded or commodified. As long as a scholar continues

Performance Expectations, p. 2), which begs the question,

to produce 4* REF-able outputs in high-impact journals,

how can everyone be in the top quartile? With success

they may be traded on ‘a transfer market’ of superstar

rates for research council grants as low as 12 per cent

professors.

(Matthews, 2016), then that is an expectation one will

• There is an avoidance of human agency in the Newcastle

probably not meet, but the invitation to appraise oneself

documents, signalling inertness and abdication of

against that benchmark is as much discursive as it is

responsibility on the part of management. Grammatical

statistically illiterate. Managers are aware of the academic

subjects include this document, and this aspect of our

predisposition to overwork and to self-scrutiny, and so

academic portfolio, a detailed analysis of the results and

the coercion need only be implied in the requirement to

expectations (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

aspire. If expressing the aspiration itself is an adequate

Research and Innovation Performance Expectations,

indicator, then its limits will never be exhausted in an

p. 1). The passive voice is used throughout, with just

audit environment of shifting and expanding goals.

three instances of an unattributed pronoun ‘we’. ‘We’ is

Objectification and unattainable targets

inherently ambiguous; it can be used either inclusively, or exclusively of the addressee. Looking at the contexts:

The use in universities of metaphors and analogies

we do not expect all staff to have equal strengths; we

borrowed from business and management has irked

have largely relied on REF 2014; we will take early

many academics including the former Archbishop of

career researcher…rules (Faculty of Humanities and

Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who identified a ‘new

Social Sciences Research and Innovation Performance

barbarity’ in the ‘corrupting’ language of the research

Expectations, pp. 1-2) – ‘we’ is being used to offer the

excellence

academic

illusion of inclusivity, while retaining the prerogative

scholarship and research is collapsed into the process

framework

(REF)

which

of its exclusive attribution to the management of the

metaphor of ‘outputs’ (Williams, 2015). If we need

university.

evidence that targets and performance management

The result of these regulatory systems is that academics

cause insupportable stress, we should remember the

are forced to define themselves in terms which thwart

tragic case of Stefan Grimm who took his own life

their ability to express their lived experience outside

after being threatened with performance management

of the dominant managerial paradigm. This is known as

procedures at Imperial College (Parr, 2015). The coroner

illocutionary silencing (Meyerhoff, 2004). Any discourse

found Stefan’s death to have been ‘needless’ and Imperial

other than that framed by management is deemed

College said that ‘wider lessons’ would be learned.

impermissible. The academic must undergo forcible

Universities in the UK, US, Australia, and other systems

alignment and compliance with managerial values which

which have adopted a neoliberal model have become

ensures that all academics must conceive of themselves

‘anxiety machines.’ Hall and Bowles (2016) argue that

in neoliberal terms of accountability, calculability, and

this anxiety is intentional and inherent in a system driven

competition.

by improving performance. In the parodic contronyms

In the discourse of performance management,

of management–speak, employees are told that such

perfectly illustrated in RTB, we recognise a large degree

performance management will ‘empower’ them. In the

of semantic instability in words such as ‘performance,’

Academic identities in the managed university Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

Table 1: Timeline of events detailing the genesis and withdrawal of RTB July 2013

Raising the Bar (RTB) was first mentioned in the university Executive Board minutes.

April 2014

The vice chancellor presented RTB to Council.

January 2015

RTB steering group established.

July 2015

Senate approved the key RTB initiative of faculty-specific sets of targets subsequently called ‘Research and Innovation Performance Expectations’ (RiPE).

Early October 2015

RiPE document emailed to all staff and all heads of academic units called to a meeting and instructed immediately to embed research expectation for Faculty in all academic recruitment.

21 October 2015

UCU Newcastle Branch President, Joan Harvey, writes to Vice Chancellor formally requesting withdrawal of RTB.

28th October 2015

A UCU branch meeting approved an indicative ballot to see whether members would be willing to undertake industrial action to oppose RTB.

November 2015

Increasingly vocal opposition to RTB; open letters to management from Professoriate and a group of Geography academics.

February 2016

The branch indicated its willingness to consider industrial action. The university management formally engaged UCU in discussion about RTB, and drew up a Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) with UCU negotiators.

March 2016

A UCU branch meeting rejected the MOU.

11th May 2016

A revised MOU is presented.

18th May 2016

Professor Ed Byrne, Vice Chancellor of Kings College and former head of Monash, invited by Chris Brink to speak to Head of Academic Unit Forum on May 18 2016 about ‘The transformation of Monash to a World Top 100 University,’ is seen to undermine RTB by arguing against ‘top-down’ management.

23rd May 2016

The revised MOU is rejected by both the UCU branch committee and an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the branch. The EGM also voted to take Action Short of a Strike in the form of a marking boycott, authorised soon after by the UCU’s Higher Education Committee to begin on June 3.

1st June 2016

Newcastle UCU wrote to the vice chancellor offering an alternative to RTB, entitled ‘Improving Research Together’ (IRT) and launched a petition on campaigning website change.org, ‘Say no to coercive performance management at Newcastle University’.

2nd June 2016

The UCU Congress, meeting in Liverpool, passed a solidarity motion recognising the Newcastle issue as ‘a local dispute of national significance’.

Friday 3rd June 2016

Marking boycott begins. In response, the vice chancellor called an emergency Heads of Academic meeting to discuss the marking boycott.

Monday 6th June 2016

In negotiations with the UCU, management swiftly agreed to abandon RiPE and ditch the RTB terminology.

‘good’, ‘satisfactory’ etc. which means that it will

The raising the bar dispute

always be possible to claim that there are ‘areas for improvement’ (Morrish & Sauntson, 2016). Recent

The previous section analysed the policy discourse of

research from Australia on the impact of aggressive

RTB. In this section, we explore where that discourse

performance management on early career researchers

came from in Newcastle’s institutional history, how it

(Petersen, 2016) has shown that many of them ‘struggled

developed, its coercive enactment, and resistance to it.

to articulate the value and worth of their work outside

Key moments are summarised in Table 1.

the productivity discourse’ (2016, p. 116).The constraints of metrics cause the content of the research to change,

Origins of a discourse

and researchers attempt to mirror what is ‘hot’ – likely

‘Raising the Bar’ was first mentioned in the university

to get funding under the shifting priorities of research

Executive Board minutes in July 2013, referring to plans

councils. As Petersen says of her informants, ‘they and

to increase the size of university, later called ‘the growth

the substance of their work become easier to control’

agenda’ (Executive Board Minutes, 24/04/2014). In April

(2016, p. 116). The accelerated academy is facilitated by

2014, the Vice-Chancellor, Chris Brink, presented RTB to

academics who have acquiesced to the fear that their

Council as aiming to ‘Have at least 10 subjects (Units of

‘underperformance’ will be revealed by the pitiless

Assessment) which are ranked top 50 in the world’ (Chris

intrusion of metrics which cannot lie.

Brink, ‘Raising the Bar: actions over the next three years,

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Academic identities in the managed university Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

’

28/04/2014). In January 2015, an RTB Steering Group

heads of academic units increasingly conveyed the

was established, which focussed RTB down to a two-fold

disquiet of their staff to senior managers. A UCU branch

approach to improving performance, by (i) managing

meeting on 28 October 2015 approved an indicative ballot

individual performance through the use of ‘specific

to see whether members would be willing to undertake

numerical targets’ and (ii) the development of a Research

industrial action; in February 2016, the branch indicated

Excellence Support Framework to ‘help staff enhance

its willingness in this regard.

their performance’ (Executive Board Minutes,3/02/2015).

The level and breadth of unhappiness over RTB took

In July, Senate approved the principle (but not details)

senior managers unawares: an Executive Board member

of faculty-specific sets of targets which were eventually

said that when RTB started to go badly wrong, ‘it

called the Research and Performance Expectations (RiPE),

genuinely came as a surprise to the steering group.’ They

which were subsequently emailed to staff.

responded with a series of town hall events, a letter from

In October 2015, all heads of academic units were

Chris Brink to all staff, and a meeting with representatives

called to a meeting and instructed immediately to

of signatories of the professors’ letter. The main message

‘Embed research expectation for Faculty in all academic

was that management had got the tone wrong and poorly

recruitment’ and implement RTB through a Performance

communicated RTB – which was most expressly not

Development Review process. This would envisage a

about targets – and that the Vice-Chancellor recognised he

rapid assessment of each staff member through a red-

needed to engage more clearly with those people doing

amber-green traffic light system. Those flagged ‘Green’

research. At the same time, management sought to formally

were to be rewarded, whereas those referred to as ‘the

engage the UCU in discussion about RTB, and drew up a

reds’ would be subject to an ‘action plan for improvement’

Memorandum of Understanding with UCU negotiators,

identifying appropriate ‘support and development’

which recognised that different academics have different

monitored by monthly reports, and eventually leading to

strengths that together form units. However because

the commencement of ‘capability procedure[s]’ (Raising

management would not backtrack on the linkage between

the Bar Implementation: Notes from the meeting held

RiPE and capability proceedings, a branch meeting in

with Academic Heads of Unit on 8 October 2015) should

March rejected the Memorandum of Understanding. An

progress prove inadequate. One middle manager, fiercely

ACAS (Advisory and Conciliation Service) meeting on 11

critical of RTB, told us that RTB ‘was sold as making

May 2016 led to a revised memorandum of understanding,

research better, but I think it was about trying to get rid

rejected by both the UCU branch committee and an

of some people.’

Extraordinary General Meeting of the branch on 23 May.

Opposition and dénouement

The meeting voted to take Action Short of a Strike in the form of a marking boycott, authorised soon after by the

Although management insisted that that this coercive

UCU’s Higher Education Committee to begin on June 3.

element was a last resort, as this starkly coercive nature

This would disrupt graduation of final year students, so

of RTB became increasingly clear, unhappiness and

was a serious step. In spite of this, the Vice-Chancellor

unease amongst staff mushroomed. Angry debates at

indicated at a meeting of Academic Board on 25 May that

staff meetings and fearful corridor conversations amongst

RTB would not be withdrawn, and the management wrote

colleagues genuinely scared for their futures began to

to staff threatening to deduct pay at a rate of 100 per cent

harden into action in the run up to the Christmas vacation

for non-completion of marking duties.

2015. (We detail these actions as a case study of resistance

In the week that the industrial action began, the UCU

in the last section of this article).The UCU branch became

held meetings across the University to bolster support. On

increasingly active, organising meetings in different units

2nd June 2016, the UCU Congress, meeting in Liverpool,

and helping galvanise the opposition to RTB. The UCU

passed a solidarity motion recognising the Newcastle issue

claimed that RTB was leading to a culture of bullying, and

as ‘a local dispute of national significance’ (available at

asked the Vice-Chancellor to withdraw RiPE and discuss

https://www.ucu.org.uk/hesc16#HE54). Newcastle UCU

how we could improve research in a more collegial

wrote to the Vice-Chancellor offering an alternative to

way. Groups of academics (at school/ unit level) sent

RTB, entitled ‘Improving Research Together’ and launched

letters to their Pro-Vice-Chancellors expressing disquiet,

a petition on campaigning website change.org, ‘Say no

and a similar letter signed eventually by 100 professors

to coercive performance management at Newcastle

(believed to be a quarter of the professoriate at the time)

University’(available

was delivered to the Vice-Chancellor. Behind the scenes,

chris-brink-say-no-to-coercive-performance-management-

https://www.change.org/p/

Academic identities in the managed university Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

at-newcastle-university). In response, the Unit’s Vice-

of the union to mobilise UCU and non-Union support

Chancellor called an emergency Heads of Academic

for the cause. This was done primarily through meetings

Meeting on Friday June 3, the day the industrial action

organised at school and departmental levels to bring

began, where Heads of Academic Units supported the

together staff to listen to their anxieties and responses

withdrawal of RTB. On Monday June 6, in negotiations with

regarding RTB and to communicate the Union’s plans

the UCU, management swiftly agreed to abandon RiPE

for opposition. These meetings were usually led by the

and also discard the RTB terminology. Instead, drawing

Union representatives and were crucial in cementing a

on the approach suggested in ‘Improving Research

collective opposition to RTB early on. They were open

Together’ , management and the Union agreed to ‘develop

to all staff regardless of whether they were members

a coming understanding and collegial approach to

of the Union or not. As a direct outcome of these

improving research’ (Academic Frameworks for Research

meetings, academic collectives met together and wrote

Improvement, Newcastle University/ UCU, June 6, 2016).

open letters to their Pro Vice-Chancellors and the Vice-

We now go on to consider strategies of resistance to RTB,

Chancellor expressing their concerns. 100+ professors

focussing in particular on the discursive critique of a set of

drawn from all three faculties – roughly a quarter of

documents which were themselves aimed at discursively

the Professoriate – wrote a similar letter. These letters

remaking academic identities in Newcastle.

were instrumental in communicating to management the growing and widespread dissatisfaction of university

Erasing ‘raising the bar’: Unpacking strategies of resistance

staff with their initiative. Support was also sought from the student body by holding information sessions with students about the opposition to RTB – the students’

As our critical understanding of the impact on academic

union newspaper, The Courier, carried sympathetic

identities of neoliberal values in the accelerated academy

articles (Velikova, 2015a; 2015b).

has grown, so too has practical resistance to it. As we saw above, in June 2016 the research income performance

2. Deconstruct management-speak

expectations and the entire RTB agenda at Newcastle

It was recognised that to put forward a case for opposing

were withdrawn in response to vocal expressions of

RTB, the activists needed to deconstruct its policies. The

dissatisfaction across the university which culminated

opaque and vacuous nature of management-speak, as

in industrial action. The positive outcome of this dispute

exemplified in metaphors such as ‘Raising the Bar’, can

was a rare example of a win by staff over a neoliberal

make opposition difficult.The activists felt that to have an

management program. Usually the trend is opposite,

effective opposition strategy they needed to deconstruct

as university managers have been able to implement

and expose the lack of substance behind measures such

increasingly

performance

as RTB.Two practical steps were taken, first; a linguist, Liz

management schemes with little or no sustained and

Morrish, from Nottingham Trent University (and co-author

effective opposition from staff.

of this paper), was invited to conduct a discourse analysis

coercive

and

punishing

Consequently, as one element of our research we

of the RTB and RiPE documents to lay bare ‘the regime of

were keen to explore the tactics and strategies used by

punishment’, as one interviewee put it, which embodied

Newcastle academics to bring about this victory. What

these policies. Morrish presented her analysis in a public

follows below is a summary of our findings based on

talk which energised the staff to oppose RTB. Her talk

interviews with the key activists who led the dispute.

was followed by a productive question and answer

We discuss five main strategies, which emerged in our

session in which academics from different parts of

interviews as being most effective in shifting the balance

the university exchanged ideas, made notes, swapped

of power in favour of the staff and the Union.

references, raised ideas for collective action, and began

1. Organise and mobilise support

acquainting themselves with the scholarly literature on outcomes-based performance management. Her talk,

The use of organised support was central to the success

made

of the campaign against RTB. At Newcastle, the UCU

watch?v=1thgkQWV8t8) and widely circulated amongst

provided a significant degree of leadership necessary to

staff, was instrumental in providing a vocabulary to

communicate the grievance of the staff to management.

critique RTB and place it in broader UK-wide contexts.

Despite some internal differences in the Union

Second, members of the Union coordinated their

committee, the activists organised under the auspices

attendance at management-organised meetings to press

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

available

online

(https://www.youtube.com/

Academic identities in the managed university Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

’

and challenge them on the ill-thought through policies of

the UCU moved towards industrial action in the form of

RTB.These included high-profile ‘town hall’ meetings run

Action Short of a Strike, principally a marking boycott.

by the Vice-Chancellor, but also regular ‘Executive Board’

Our interviewees were keen to stress that they believed

lunches, meetings with faculty pro-Vice-Chancellors, and

this was the sharpest weapon against management in

others. The dual strategy allowed activists to not only

their arsenal, but also the one that they were most loath to

highlight to the management the intellectual, moral and

employ because of the direct impact it would have on the

practical shortcomings of their proposals, but also alerted

students’ ability to graduate. However, when management

them to declining employee morale.

refused to address their demands, the UCU branch

3. Publicise the story

members voted for Action Short of a Strike, precipitating a swift climb down on their part, and a successful resolution

Since the RTB was primarily driven by a desire to raise

of the dispute in favour of the Union and its members.

Newcastle University’s reputation as a premier research

Many of the interviewees also stressed that the strategy

institution, the activists felt that the management

of a marking boycott was perhaps the one which carried

would be more receptive to their demands if they saw

the most risk of failure if a critical majority of staff did not

the University in the news for the wrong reasons. The

support it and that it was employed only as a last resort.

news and social media platforms such as Times Higher

Many members were uneasy with a marking boycott on

Education and Facebook served to publicise the

principles of pedagogical ethics since a research matter

growing dissatisfaction and opposition to RTB. A public

such as RTB was being resolved by putting the students’

petition asking the Vice-Chancellor to withdraw RTB

academic futures at risk.

was circulated via the website Change.org, highlighting the institution’. Within three days over 3,500 people

5. Articulate an alternative vision and vocabulary of excellence in academia

worldwide signed the petition urging Chris Brink to

The activists felt that they ‘fought hard but without

abandon RiPE in favour of ‘Improving Research Together’.

bitterness’. It was important for them to not personalise

The activists also employed some more creative ways of

the campaign as being against the Vice-Chancellor and

publicising their opposition to RTB. UCU members were

senior management, but rather saw it as a campaign

asked their opinions on RTB, and choice quotes were

against the forces of neoliberalisation and metricisation

used in posters displayed around the University. One

plaguing contemporary academia – to which management

member started a pilot research project to document

themselves were also victims. Thus, for example,

the impact of RTB measures by asking staff members to

key activists sought to maintain good relations with

keep a diary of their thoughts and anxieties related to

management in informal meetings, and the suggestion

RTB measures in their department. With the permission

of voting on a motion of no-confidence in the Vice-

of their respondents, anonymised quotes were drawn

Chancellor was rejected. To this end, it was felt that an

from these diaries and used by activists as evidence of

alternative vocabulary of excellence in academia was

the harm being done by RTB.The same project succeeded

needed to counter the metric- heavy approach being used

in getting public intellectuals who have written on the

via RTB. An alternative to RTB was drafted under the

threat of neoliberalism to the humanities, such as Martha

title ‘Improving Research Together’ This recognised the

Nussbaum, Marilyn Strathern, Stefan Collini, and Rowan

need to be seen to perform well in key audit exercises,

Williams to join its advisory board. Their very presence

and asked management to withdraw RiPE and engage in

drew attention to the dispute and helped ensure it was

the proposed ‘Improving Research Together’ alternative

more widely publicised. As one head of academic unit

as, ‘an inclusive, collegial, evidence-based, bottom-up

told us, RTB damaged the University’s reputation, by

process to devise a non-coercive framework in which

‘giving the impression that we are a hostile place.’ Given

to foster a higher-performing research community’

that one key goal of RTB was raising the reputation of

(Academic Frameworks for Research Improvement,

the University internationally, such attention risked

Newcastle University / University and College Union,

undermining RTB by negatively damaging the reputation.

June 6, 2016). In contrast to the competitive and punitive

that RTB had ‘unleashed a culture of bullying across

4. Industrial action

assumptions of RTB, this outlined the UCU branch’s vision of a collegiate and co-operative research environment in

In the summer of 2016, after all the attempts at getting

which academics were given space for autonomy and

the University management to withdraw RTB had failed,

creativity, and the steps needed to realise this in practice.

Academic identities in the managed university Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

Framed as a recognition of management concerns and an

what led him to finally decide to withdraw RTB. But it

invitation to cooperate,‘Improving Research Together’ set

seems that a combination of multiple forms of sustained

a constructive tone for the dispute and communicated

opposition and criticism from a number of disparate actors

to management that objections were not reactionary but

across the University, some acting under UCU auspices and

progressive. This also allowed management to back down

some without – as well as some serendipity – combined

with dignity.

to render RTB ‘so toxic’, as an Executive Board member

The five strategies outlined above were identified by

told us in an interview. The UCU industrial action seemed

our interviewees as being central to the success of their

to prove the tipping point. Thus whilst we recognise

resistance campaign. It would be misleading, however,

that local conditions vary and chance plays a part, we

to think of all resistance to RTB as part of a coordinated

argue that the hard work of coordinated organisation,

campaign led by UCU. Opposition occurred across

deconstruction of discourse, good media and rhetorical

different parts of the university from different actors

strategies, formal industrial action, and the articulation

with different agendas, both pragmatic and principled.

of a positive alternative vision to that of neoliberalism, all

For example, we know from our research with University

played crucial roles and could be profitably considered

managers (discussion of which is beyond the scope of this

by other collectives facing similar examples of coercive

article), that middle managers (heads of academic units)

neoliberal performance management.

became increasingly critical of RTB behind the scenes. But this was as much for pragmatic reasons –although many

Conclusion

agreed with the need to perform well in league tables, some resented the top-down model of RTB and the crude

At a ‘town hall’ meeting on RTB in [November 2015],

traffic-lights system that designated many of their staff as

Newcastle University’s Vice-Chancellor, Chris Brink, set

failures. Others regarded RTB as too blunt an instrument,

out his methods of raising the University’s position in a

as it did not recognise that different staff made different

variety of competitive league tables. These consisted of

contributions to a collective whole in different ways.

rewarding ‘excellent’ units and researchers with even

A senior lay member told us of a ‘growing sense that

more resources and – although he didn’t foreground this

more and more people were expressing opinions about

aspect of RTB in his presentation – concomitantly those

this, at personal, individual, town hall levels, and the Union

scholars identified as ‘red’ by a traffic-lights system would

was threatening strike action.’ Serendipity also played

face coercive performance management, and potential

a role. A number of middle managers and Executive

shifts to less favourable contracts. A UCU activist stood

Board members highlighted the importance of the visit

up and offered this objection: ‘In academia it is not

of Professor Ed Byrne, Vice-Chancellor of Kings College

individuals, departments, universities or countries that

London and former head of Monash University, Australia,

compete: the only thing that competes are ideas, for the

invited by Chris Brink to speak to the Heads of Academic

benefit of humanity.’ The Vice-Chancellor fully agreed:

Units Forum on 18 May 2016 about ‘The transformation

as a mathematician, with a distinguished career prior

of Monash to a World Top 100 University.’ One head of

to Newcastle in widening racial participation in higher

academic unit said ‘He dropped a bombshell,’ by saying

education in post-Apartheid South Africa, he understood

‘don’t do it top-down.’ The professors’ letter was seen as

far better than his questioner both how metrics were

‘crucial’ (middle manager) in representing the views of

deeply flawed and what universities are for. But he said

the ‘high-performing, senior academics’ (Executive Board

that, nonetheless, in the current policy environment, there

member) upon whom RTB’s success was dependent.

is no alternative, and RTB represented only a necessary

However, this did not result in the withdrawal of RTB, but

means to achieve that end.

rather the creation of a ‘Forum.’As one of the key authors of

We contend, however, with Rev Martin Luther King,

the letter said,‘I thought we were being palmed off, there

Jr, that ‘we must come to see that the ends and the

was no backtracking at all on RTB…industrial action was

means must cohere.’ Outcomes-based performance-

the tipping point.’ It was, said a Head of Academic Unit, the

management is never simply an end: it inevitably leads

UCU industrial action seemed to prove the tipping point

to perverse unintended outcomes in gaming the system,

or ‘trigger’: it ‘raised the temperature and precipitated the

but also fundamentally transforms our understanding

final abandonment.’

of what universities are and what academic labour is.

As the former Vice-Chancellor, Chris Brink, declined our

Neoliberal outcomes-based performance-management

invitation for an interview,we have been unable to ascertain

schemes such as RTB, recast academic identities in ways

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Academic identities in the managed university Liz Morrish & The Analogue University Writing Collective

’

that not only make universities less pleasant places to

of academics and universities. Let’s raise the bar for

work in, but ultimately threaten the very environments

humane, supportive environments that allow learning and

and practices in which new the risky experimentation

creativity to flourish. Let’s return to the inclusive meaning

necessary for new ideas can take place. Outcomes-

of ‘we’, and stop using ‘the university’ as shorthand for

based performance-management fails to recognise that

‘the decisions of senior management.’ And, in asserting

academic staff are intrinsically motivated to perform

that there most definitely is an alternative, let’s be sure

well. Research (evidenced by the recent Newcastle

to maintain distinctive identities that are congruent with

experience)

RTB-like ‘carrot-and-stick’

academic values of cooperation and fearless scholarly

attempts to extrinsically motivate those who are already

shows

that

enquiry. We should not allow ourselves to be objectified

intrinsically motivated is counterproductive because it

and colonised to the extent that we cravenly try and jump

actually produces a reduction in overall motivation and

over any bar set for us by middle or senior managers,

job satisfaction (Pink, 2009).

funding bodies, or governments.

The Newcastle example shows that there is an alternative. The Newcastle action was not simply reactive

Acknowledgements

against a bad idea; it invited managers and the whole university to envision an environment where reputation

We would like to thank all those staff of Newcastle

is improved not by playing the system, but by trusting

University who agreed to be interviewed, and John Hogan,

its scholars enough to give them autonomy and the

the University’s Registrar, for providing generous access

resources to be creative and innovative. At the time of

to minutes and other archives from various University

writing, the post-RTB landscape at Newcastle remains

bodies and committees.

unclear. But what happened there should be understood in the context of broader international movements:

Liz Morrish is an independent scholar. Her primary

the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment

discipline is linguistics which she applies to the analysis of

(DORA http://www.ascb.org/dora/) denouncing the

managerial discourse in universities. Liz blogs at https://

(mis)use of journal metrics in performance management

academicirregularities.wordpress.com/

(Newcastle University became a signatory to DORA in 2017 – see minutes of Senate, 2 May, 2017), or

The Analogue University is a writing collective of Newcastle

Aberdeen’s attempt to ‘Reclaiming our University’

University scholars.

(https://reclaimingouruniversity.wordpress.com/)

Contact: lizmorrish@aol.com

reinvigorating extant but degraded collegial mechanisms of governance, for example. There is an alternative: not just one, in fact, but plenty. Yet the RTB example perhaps provides even greater lessons for university managers than activists: show some collective fortitude. Managers know better than most of us that metrics are not only flawed and problematic in the higher education sector, but also monstrously inefficient in all the resources they consume for REF-preparation and other audit exercises. If they, collectively, refused to participate in league table exercises like the REF and TEF, the government would either have to back down or enact the immediate paralysis of almost the entire higher education sector in the UK. For any advanced economy, let alone one facing the unprecedented challenges of negotiating Brexit, that outcome would be unthinkable. So let’s indeed raise the bar.Let’s raise the bar for decency, humanity, respect and trust. Let’s remember that we can’t treat people like assets to be sweated, manipulated, and

then

dispensed

with, without

fundamentally

dehumanising them and radically changing the identities

References Academic Analytics. (No date). Benchmarking for academic excellence. Retrieved from http://www.academicanalytics.com/ Boys, J. (2017). LEO data (released 13/06/2017) earnings by subject and institution. Retrieved from https://public.tableau.com/profile/jonathan. boys#!/vizhome/LEOdata-thirdrelease-earningsbysubjectandinstitution/ LEOdatareleased13062017earningsbysubjectandinstitution Bristol University Associate Dean of Eureka Moments. (2015). Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/01/26/ associate-dean-eureka-moments. Brown, R & Caruso, H. (2013). Everything for sale? The marketisation of UK Higher Education. London: Routledge. Brown, W. (2015). Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books. Becker, G. (1994). Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Burrows, R. (2012). Living with the h‐index? Metric assemblages in the contemporary academy. The Sociological Review 60 (2), 355-372. Carrigan, M. (2015). Accelerated Academy. Retrieved from https:// markcarrigan.net/the-accelerated-academy/Deem, R., Hillyard, S., & Reed, M. (2007). Knowledge, Higher Education and the New Managerialism: The

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Changing Management of UK Universities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Fenton, N. (2011). Impoverished pedagogy, privatised practice, in M. Bailey & D. Freedman (Eds). The Assault on Universities. London: Pluto Press, pp103-110. Fischer, F. (2003). Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gill, R. (2010). Breaking the Silence: The Hidden Injuries of the Neoliberal University. In R. Ryan-Flood (Ed.). Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process: Feminist Reflections, pp 228-244. London: Routledge. Glynos, J., Howarth, D., Norval, A. & Speed, E. (2009). Discourse Analysis: Varieties and Methods. ESRC National Centre for Research Methods Review Paper: NCRM/014. Graeber, D. (2012). Of flying cars and the declining rate of profit. The Baffler, 19. Retrieved from http://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-decliningrate-of-profit#left-menu. Hall, R. & Bowles, K. (2016). Re-engineering higher education: the subsumption of academic labour and the exploitation of anxiety. Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labour 28, 30-47. Harvey, D. (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). (2017). Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO). Retrieved from http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/ newsarchive/2017/Name,114470,en.html. Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). (2015). The Metric Tide: Report of the Independent Review of the Role of Metrics in Research Assessment and Management. Retrieved from http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/ rereports/Year/2015/metrictide/Title,104463,en.html. Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). (2014). REF FAQ. Retrieved from http://www.ref.ac.uk/faq/ . Holmwood, J. (2017). Requiem for the Public University. Retrieved from http:// publicuniversity.org.uk/2017/05/02/requiem-for-the-public-university/. Hoyle, E. & Wallace, M. (2005). Educational Leadership: Ambiguity, Professionals and Managerialism. London: Sage. Lowe, T., & Wilson, R. (2015). Playing the Game of Outcome-Based Performance Management. Is Gamesmanship Inevitable? Evidence Form Theory and Practice. Social Policy and Administration. DOI: 10.1111/spol.12205. e-print at http:// eprint.ncl.ac.uk/file_store/production/216988/95C608FE-8C45-4C9C-BF9D490D018E9B28.pdf Mather, K. & Seifert, R. (2014). The close supervision of further education lecturers: ‘You have been weighed, measured and found wanting.’ Work, Employment and Society 28 (1), 95-111. Matthews, D. (2016) UK grant success rates prompt worldwide comparisons. Times Higher Education. October 16th. Retrieved from https://www. timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-grant-success-rates-prompt-worldwidecomparisons. Meyerhoff, M. (2004). Doing and saying: some words on women’s silence, in M.Bucholtz (Ed.). Robin Lakoff: Language and Women’s Place, Text and Commentaries. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 209-215.

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Molesworth, M., Nixon, E., Scullion, R., & Nixon, E. (Eds). (2011). The Marketisation of Higher Education and the Student as Consumer. London: Routledge. Moore, S., Neylon, C., Eve, M.P., O’Donnell, D.P. & Pattinson, D. (2017) “Excellence R Us”: University research and the fetishisation of excellence. Palgrave Communications. 3:16105 doi: 10.1057/palcomms.2016.105. http:// www.palgrave-journals.com/articles/palcomms2016105#ref10. Morrish, L., & Sauntson, H. (2016). Performance management and the stifling of academic freedom and knowledge production. Journal of Historical Sociology 29 (1), 42-64. Nussbaum, M. (1995). Objectification. Philosophy and Public Affairs 24 (4), 249–291. Parr, C. (2015). Stefan Grimm’s death leads Imperial to review performance metrics. Times Higher Education. March 27th. Retrieved from https://www. timeshighereducation.com/news/stefan-grimms-death-leads-imperial-to-reviewperformance-metrics/2019381.article. Petersen, E.B. (2016). The impact of managerial performance frameworks on research activities among Australian early career researchers. In K. Trimmer (Ed.). Political Pressures on Educational and Social Research. NY: Routledge. Pink, D. (2009). Drive, the Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. New York: Riverhead Books. Power, M. (1999). The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ritzer, G. (1993). The MacDonaldization of Society. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press (Sage). Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. (1997). Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Strathern, M. (2000). Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics, and the Academy. London: Routledge. The Analogue University. (2017). Control, Resistance and the ‘Data University’: Towards a Third Wave Critique. The Antipode Foundation. Retrieved from https://antipodefoundation.org/2017/03/31/control-resistance-and-the-datauniversity/. US Government Department of Education. (No date). College Scorecard. Retrieved from https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ Accessed 18th April 2017. Velikova, A. (2015a). Research policy prompts protest. The Courier. 23rd November 2015. Retrieved from http://thecourieronline.co.uk/2015/11/23/ research-policy-prompts-protest/. Velikova, A. (2015b). ‘Raising the Bar’ causes concerns among staff. The Courier. 14th December 2014. Retrieved from http://thecourieronline.co.uk/2015/12/14/ raising-the-bar-causes-concerns-amongst-staff/. Williams, J. (2013). Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can’t be Bought. London: Bloomsbury. Williams, R. (2015). Annual Lecture to the Council for the Defence of British Universities, January 2015. Times Higher Eduction. Report in https://www. timeshighereducation.com/news/rowan-williams-on-higher-educationsinhuman-and-divisive-jargon/2018188.article.

Molesworth, M., Nixon, E., & Scullion, R. (2009). Having, being and higher education: the marketisation of the university and the transformation of the student into consumer. Teaching in Higher Education. 14 (3), 277-287.

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Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism at Canadian universities Robert McGray Brock University, Canada

Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

Austerity has signalled several political and cultural changes in the past ten years. One frequent and highly criticised change has been the increasing privatisation that has occurred as part of the agenda. This has occurred in most levels of formal education. One related, but under-investigated, aspect of austerity has been the feature of privacy that has worked to enable the increasing privatisation. In this essay, we attempt to unpack how what we refer to as austerity-privacy has enabled formal education – specifically Canadian universities – to withdraw from critical public discourses. While not unrelated to privatisation, we argue that austerity-privacy was a necessary step for postsecondary education institutions to speed their neoliberal march. To illustrate this phenomenon, we examine the divestment movement in Canadian universities to illustrate the ways in which austerity-privacy obfuscates critics of neoliberal agendas. Conversely, we also examine the ways in which divestment can democratise the economy of university life. Keywords: fossil fuel divestment, austerity, Canadian universities, university finances, student activism

Introduction: The decoupling of public engagement from Canadian postsecondary education

power are you from having spontaneous comments (again, even if they are excused as compliments) made publicly? When you participate in public venues, can you maintain the privilege of not being a subject or object of

A test of social power, for human agents, has been the

public discourse? As agents have varying levels of power

ability to maintain control of public discourse about their

considering race, class, or gender, some people can exist

bodies. What does this mean? Take note of how many

in the public sphere and not be scrutinised as much as

laws, or proposed laws, aim to regulate you. Do comments

others. An example of this, specifically referring to race in

to you – even if they are good natured, light-hearted, or

Canadian universities, is highlighted by the narratives that

meant as a compliment – revolve around your body, dress,

Anthony Stewart (2009) provides describing how some

or appearance? At a more direct level, how insulated by

bodies are subjected to involvement in public discourse.

Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

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To put quite simply, the more, and varied, forms of power

attempt to lure lucrative international students to their

that you can leverage, the greater privacy you can expect

campuses, this public messaging should not be construed

about your body in the public sphere. These are subtle

as not being private – quite the opposite. As austerity

and powerful tests. In a stratified and privileged world,

marks many phenomena, the race for students, and the

the amount of privacy varies greatly by the capitals of

related messages and marketing, hide away the increasing

which we can leverage. For those of us who embody

privilege and power to not be a topic of public discourse.

social power, it is difficult to understand the effects. So far,

In this way, while universities increase marketing and

we have only made reference to human actors. We would

outreach, there has been a neutered capacity of public

like to ask, however, if the ability to enact and create

discourse to involve institutions in broader discussion.

privacy through social power is limited to humans? That

When a public discussion has been engaged in, as a

is to ask: can institutions generate, expect, or leverage

marker of privacy, it has usually been discussed only to

privacy – an intentional or unintended withdrawal of

the extent that the agents in postsecondary institutions

their beings from public discourse? Are some institutions

have allowed. But, as is necessary to highlight, any type

under greater surveillance or scrutiny than others? If so,

of privacy comes at a price, especially for large public

what is it that enables the privilege of not being subjected

institutions.This paper attempts to draw the discussion of

to public discourse? In an attempt to engage in critical

these implications to light.

discussion on postsecondary education, we posit that

Alternate meanings of privacy, such as confidentiality

some institutions have developed certain privacies from

and solitude, connote serenity and security. It is important

discourse. Specifically, in this essay we contend that the

to state, however, that the security that confidentiality

social power to withhold your body from the subject

and solitude provide postsecondary education comes at

of public discourse – privacy – is not limited to human

a price. This price is the withdrawal and de-accessibility

actors. Instead, it should be considered as a process that

of public, and sometimes democratic, institutions. The

has generated the spaces of postsecondary education.

confidentiality and solitude that austerity-privacy provides

While it is not a synonymous process, institutions can

is a hysteric and fetishised movement of neoliberalism:

also leverage, depending on the nature and structure

Institutions gladly undertake this movement as it offers

of powers, the ability to not be commented upon. Put

the protection and agency through the markets and

another way, institutions enjoy a right of withdrawal from

private interests.

public discourse. This is not to suggest that universities

To illuminate the phenomenon of how this privacy

have necessarily withdrawn from public discourse, but the

operates in universities, and how stakeholders might

privacy that mediates public involvement has increased.

directly challenge the right of withdrawal from public

Further to this argument, we forward that it is the

discourse, we turn our attention to fossil fuel divestment

nature of neoliberal reforms engaged in under austerity

campaigns on Canadian campuses. (Co-author Jonathan

agendas that have reciprocally constituted by a new

Turcotte-Summers was involved in one such campaign

form of privacy which we refer to as austerity-privacy.

while attending Concordia University). Divestment, also

Admittedly, this might strike some people as an odd

known as disinvestment or divestiture, can be defined

claim. This might be, in part, because austerity has often

simply as the opposite of investment; it is ‘the process

been conceived as a process that has led to cutbacks – a

of selling an asset for either financial, social or political

stripping away of resources – from institutions rather than

goals’ (Divestment, n.d., para. 1). Apfel (2015) further

adding new powers. While this is true, it does not mean

expands on the distinction between the quiet purifying of

that traditionally powerful institutions and structures

portfolios for the sole benefit of investors and divestment

have necessarily been incapacitated or even reduced in

as a political act, ‘a public undertaking with the stated

the forms of power through austerity. In some ways, it

goal of influencing society’ (p. 917). Politically-oriented

has been quite the opposite. Austerity has, in fact, greatly

divestment campaigns thus move beyond a focus on

privileged many – usually those most aligned to benefit

the purging of specific financial investments to include

from dominant economic practices.While universities are

a broad range of activist activities aimed at critiquing

still addressing the wide-ranging implications of austerity

the financial relationships of institutions. Generally, such

practices, we have not witnessed a slowing down of

activities are situated within broader social movements

privatisation in terms of funding or commercialisation.

and constitute one strategy among many – a ‘solidarity

Further to this, while universities have openly and

tactic’ (Grady-Benson, 2014). The most widely-cited and

explicitly been involved in marketing their brand in an

influential example of divestment as solidarity tactic

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Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

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involved pressures to end apartheid in South Africa.

field. We would highlight, as well, that privatisation is not

Divestment has also notably been employed as a tactic

the only mechanism generated by this privacy. Austerity-

against the tobacco industry in the 1980s and 1990s

privacy generates a wide array of practices – we will return

and, perhaps with less success, the genocide in Sudan

to this in the last section of this essay as we trace how

in the early 2000s. In addition, it is a component of the

divestment movements face nuanced and complex hurdles.

three-pronged boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS)

Allow us to back up for a moment and unpack one

approach presently being enacted in opposition to the

of the larger assumptions underpinning this argument –

state of Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians.

that austerity has allowed universities a certain type of

As we can see, these campaigns challenge both the

privacy.This is not to suggest that institutions have agency

general nature of austerity-privacy and the specific nature

or are actors. Rather, the claim is meant to examine the

of the capitalist investments so closely associated with

social relations that produce the spaces, practices, and

this privacy. Resistance to divestment by postsecondary

relationships of postsecondary education and how all of

institutions in particular can be read not simply as a

these have emphasised solitude under austerity. Allow us

rejection of the coinciding political views but rather as a

to address each of these in turn in three distinct points.

struggle to retain privacy enjoyed as part of austere times. sections: The first engages with the concept of austerity-

Austerity-privacy and the space of university education

privacy across the spaces, practices, and relationships of

In David Harvey’s (1996) analysis of the production

Canadian universities.The second section examines larger

of space of cities, he is left with a tall task: How does

fossil fuel divestment campaigns in Canada and examines

one examine the production of space, and subsequent

how divestment poses specific challenges to the austerity-

effects of the space, in ways that does not conflate it

privacy of postsecondary education.

with actors or capacities of social agents? One partial

We organise the following paper into two main

answer, forwarded by Harvey, is to locate the city in

Austerity-privacy and Canadian universities

a ‘field of social action’ (p. 418). This means that for Harvey’s approach, there are three implications: First, he notes, ‘processes are more fundamental than things’

The

relationship

between

austerity-privacy

and

(p. 418); second, these ‘processes are always mediated

manifestations such as privatisation, commercialisation, and

through the things they produce’ (p. 418); and finally, that

corporatisation is a nuanced one. We would turn to Roy

which is produced – ‘permanences’ (p. 418) – are the

Bhaskar’s (1986, 1993, 1998a, 1998b) concept of stratified

more direct and tangible artefacts of which we come to

ontology to underpin the argument theoretically. It is

experience and understand the processes. While we cede

Bhaskar’s work that posits that the empirical phenomenon

that institutions of postsecondary education are not cities

we witness, comes from actualisations, which in turn are

(although many comparisons can be made), we would

derived from real, but more elusive, processes. In this way,

point to Harvey’s theoretical justification for analyses of

ontic states are comprised of a trajectory from the tangible

the production of space in relation to austerity-privacy.

(empirical), those that manifest (actual), from potential

Specifically, as a starting point of the discussion in relation

processes at work in the world (real). (It is also worthwhile

to mention Dave Elder-Vass’ (2004) review and commentary

we would turn attention to recent tensions about the

on Bhaskar’s stratified ontology for a wonderful summary

physical space of protest at universities, and the reaction

of the concept.) In this way, Bhaskar provides insight into

by university administration to maintain privacy of these

the nature of austerity-privacy as a demonstrative empirical

spaces. Canadian universities have seen many examples

state – however elusive – that has actualised from a real

of battles for the space of universities, not the least of

process. This helps us to understand the trajectory of

which involve divestment. These fights over the space

austerity with other processes such as neoliberalism as

of postsecondary education are not new, nor are they

we face a host of outcomes as actualised phenomena

localised to Canada. Jerome Roos (2015) comments on

– one such being increased privatisation. As such, this

the crisis at the University of Amsterdam as neoliberalism

paper is also situated within a growing body of literature

has come to grip the university.

on postsecondary education in Canada investigating the damaging consequences of what Polster and Newson (2015) highlight as an increasing corporatisation of the

contemporary

postsecondary

education

spaces,

Interestingly, it has been precisely the countries where this neoliberalisation of higher education has proceeded furthest that have experienced the most

Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

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spectacular student protests in recent years: from the Penguin Revolution in Chile to the Red Square movement in Québec, and from the campus occupations in California and the recent student debt strike at Everest College to the student riots in the UK. The Netherlands, still 10 years behind the curve, has long been eager to catch up with its neoliberal counterparts. (Roos, para. 5)

Leonard (2012) in their article ‘Post Neoliberalism and the Humanities: What the Repressive State Apparatus Means for Universities.’ Their research highlights the changing nature of neoliberal economies and how they are implicating postsecondary education institutions. Specifically, they note that they are ‘especially concerned with the impact of the repressive state apparatus on the

Other recent global events point to the battle over

critical public spaces tradition provided by a humanities

space in postsecondary education. Take, for example, the

background’ (p. 1). Utilising the phrase from Althusser,

much-publicised incident of pepper spray at University

the authors describe how the repressive state apparatus

of California, Davis, as a reaction to student protesters

– as demonstrated in the increased militarisation and

demonstrating against increasing tuition and in solidarity

policing of critique – has impacted the ability for

with the larger Occupy movement.The incident garnered

criticism through the university.

much attention as University police officer, John Pike,

We would make two points about their important

was captured as calmly walking down a line of sitting

work: First, the authors make a point of describing how

protesters, spraying them with pepper spray. As we have

this move from the ideological state apparatus (ISA),

mentioned, the regulation of campus space through force is not new. As such, it might seem that there is not really a shift in governance or practices in universities that

relates

austerity

created privacy. We would argue, however, that there is a subtly different approach to

instilling

solitude

... we would turn attention to recent tensions about the physical space of protest at universities, and the reaction by university administration to maintain privacy of these spaces. Canadian universities have seen many examples of battles for the space of universities, not the least of which involve divestment.

the

manipulation

consent, to the repressive state apparatus (RSA) hinges upon

post

neoliberalism.

Hyslop-Margison & Leonard do not use the phrase to suggest that the historical epoch of neoliberalism is ended. Rather, they utilise the term to ‘capture current

neoliberal economic decline’

university campuses.Take, for

(p. 6). Key to their argument

example, the Netanyahu protests at Montreal’s Concordia

and use of a phrase to differentiate between phases is

University in 2002. The protests, depicted in the NFB’s

that ‘the common sense myth supporting neoliberalism

documentary Discordia (Symansky, Mallal, & Addelman,

for all intents and purposes has been widely exposed’

2002) certainly chronicle the reaction by Montreal’s

(pp. 6-7). Further to this unveiling of illusion, or perhaps

city police (service de police de la ville de Montréal) in

it is best described as because of the unveiling, the

exerting control over Concordia’s downtown Sir George

explicit policing that marks the transition from the ISA

Williams campus. This is not to deny that, like the UC

to the RSA is necessary. As a point of interest, there has

Davis case, there is a state reaction to the policing of so

been little consensus on how to describe deteriorating

called radicalism on campus, but the more covert aspect

conditions of neoliberalism. Hyslop-Margison & Leonard

is how these incidents rationalise broad documents

employ the term post neoliberalism, while others have

such as student codes of conducts, which, when paired

not differentiated the aspect of decline or crisis from the

with the solitude of neoliberal universities have at the

term and ideology of neoliberalism. The second point

same time the contractual capacity for broad regulatory

we would emphasise is about the nature of universities

purposes of students and faculty while crafted in legalese

to provide the spaces of dissent and engage in them. To

and innocuous contractual language.

be clear, Hyslop-Margison & Leonard’s argument relates

Austerity-privacy and the practice of the new university

to the pressures external to the university (but not necessarily detached) and the restrictions on critique and engagement. We use this essay not simply to add to

Closely related to the ways in which the space is

this point, but to examine how austerity enabled privacy

a tension filled field for the retention of austerity-

has granted a power that has all too greedily engorged

privacy is the practice of the university. Allow us to

upon by postsecondary education to reserve the spaces

revisit the work of Emery Hyslop-Margison and Hugh

as private.To be clear, we will see the ‘continued and more

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Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

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funding/revenue models. She notes that, The university’s public service mission is also eroded as administrators and academics attend more to the research needs of groups that can help sponsor academic research. Further, as universities become more concerned with the latter’s research needs, they may also become more responsive to other of their needs or demands (such as industry’s demands for secrecy in research or the privatisation of knowledge) which may not only fail to serve, but may actually conflict with, the interests of other groups and/or the general interest. (p. 614) The implications of alternative revenue generation have led to a number of prominent cases of private

Figure 1: Representation of increasing alternate funding influence Source: CAUT (2014), p. 4

interest, and funds, and the mandate of the university. One such case has been the influx of funding by the conservative Koch family in the USA. Reports have detailed millions in contributions – often with excessive say in academic matters (Lurie, Schulman, & Raja, 2014).

forceful challenges to universities as potential sites for

While the vast majority of these donations have been

public democratic critique of structural design’ (Hyslop-

to like-minded aspects of American universities, recently

Margison & Leonard, p. 9). Our contention – and fear –

the CAUT highlighted that the Koch’s first venture into

is that along with the RSA attacks, the austerity-privacy

Canadian funding was ‘$24,000 in grant money to fund

opens up conservative cultural privilege. These two

a political theory fellowship with McGill professor

features, the attacks of the RSA and the retreat through

Jacob Levy’ (CAUT, n.d., para. 4). The move to Canada is

austerity-privacy cannot be read as separate.

new, but as Bruce Cheadle points out, ‘since 2005, U.S.

Austerity-privacy and the not-so-new neoliberal funding relationships

banking giant BB&T has spent millions to get colleges and universities to develop programs on Ayn Rand’s books and right-wing economic philosophy’ (Cheadle,

The third aspect of austerity-privacy, and perhaps most

2012, para. 33). It should be noted that the change in

directly relevant to the issue of divestment, has been the

private funding has a subtle, but important aspect:

ways in which the funding of universities in Canada has

Universities have had a long history for naming schools,

transformed. We refer to this new privatised model as ‘not-

centers, and buildings after donors. Take, for example, a

so-new’ as the march to neoliberalism has steadily eroded

partial list identified by the Financial Post:

the public support for many years.We argue, however, that compounded by austerity-privacy, the right to withdraw from the discussion about funding models has increased. This, we suggest, means that neoliberalism unto itself does not necessarily provide privacy of these funding discussions, but rather only privatisation. The Canadian Association for University Teachers (CAUT) has long monitored this trend of declining government funding.

Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., the Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources at the University of Manitoba, The K.C. Irving Chemistry Centre at the University of Prince Edward Island, and the Wayne & William White Engineering Design Centre at the University of British Columbia. (Tedesco, 2012, para. 11)

The chart (Figure 1) from CAUT highlights the declining

This type of philanthropy has existed for a long

percentile contribution to operating revenue in Canadian

period of time: the new aspect is the amount of input

universities from tuition and government sources in 1981

these donors can, or should, have in academic or

(96.9%) and 2011 (91.9%). Especially telling, however is

university direction. While funders in the past would

the drastic decrease in government contribution – 83.6

often have spaces, buildings, and monuments to capital,

% in 1981 to 55.2% in 2011 – when tuition is removed

new relationships seek to treat donors as a stakeholder

from the equation. Related to the cuts to the revenues

with a right – or at least a duty by the university – to

of universities, and an increase in private funds, Polster

participate in governance. Often, these relationships

(2007) highlights that the chase for grants adds to the

assume justification via a certain ethic of capitalism and

Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

are often sold to universities as extras – something that

divested from fossil fuels is unknown, although it may be

does not seek to replace the governance, even if they

understood as significantly less than $5 trillion).

do. The inclusion of philanthropists in governance is a

The latest available figures suggest some 635 campus-

development in the relationships of universities is a topic

based fossil fuel divestment campaigns in North America

that needs further unpacking than we can allow here.

– including about 30 in Canada – as well as 181 in Europe

To refine our discussion of the funding of universities,

and 42 in Australia and New Zealand (Maina, 2015; Rowe et

we will turn our attention to how divestment campaigns

al., 2016; http://www.gofossilfree.ca). But Kemp describes

have found themselves juxtaposed with austerity-privacy

the response from Australian postsecondary institutions

and illuminate a telling case study of how this privacy

as ‘patchy’ at best (2016a, para. 14). La Trobe University

manifests.

became the first in the country to commit to divestment, announcing in May 2016 that it would drop the top 200

The case of divestment in Canadian universities

fossil fuel companies from its $40 million portfolio within five years (Kemp, 2016b). (‘Dollars’ henceforth refers to the currency of the country in which the given institution

For our discussion, we focus on campaigns to divest

is based. As the Australian and Canadian dollars have had

the endowment and pension funds of postsecondary

roughly equivalent exchange rates since these divestment

institutions from the fossil fuel industry, as part of

campaigns began, we will not complicate matters

broader efforts to mitigate climate change and promote

unnecessarily.) The University of Melbourne has unveiled

environmental justice. The first such campaigns began

less audacious plans to develop a ‘sustainable investment

on US campuses in 2011 (Apfel, 2015; Grady-Benson &

framework’ by the end of 2017 and to divest from those

Sarathy, 2015), and the following year the climate justice

companies that do not adhere to this framework by 2021

organisation 350.org launched Fossil Free, a network

(University of Melbourne, n.d.), though it remains to be

of fossil fuel divestment campaigns that would soon

seen how stringent such a framework will be. Meanwhile,

spread abroad to countries like Canada and Australia

other institutions like Australian National University,

(About Fossil Free, n.d.; Beer, 2016). Since then, the global

University of Sydney, and Swinburne University of

push for divestment ‘has grown exponentially,’ with

Technology have committed to various degrees of partial

investors representing US$5 trillion (AU$6.3 trillion) in

divestment by seeking to sell their shares in some specific

assets pulled out of the fossil fuel industry by the end

companies, reduce the carbon footprint of their portfolios,

of 2016, led by ‘sectors not traditionally associated with

or subject fossil fuel companies to ‘particular consideration’

divestment,’ such as pension funds and private companies

(Australian Associated Press, 2014; Australian National

(Arabella Advisors, 2015, p. 1; see also Arabella Advisors,

University, 2016; Ong, 2015; Young, 2016; Swinburne

2016). As a result, the fossil fuel divestment effort is

University of Technology, 2015; 350 Australia, 2015). And

described as an ‘extraordinary success’ (Apfel, 2015, p.

Queensland University of Technology’s commitment to

936) and ‘the fastest growing divestment campaign in

ensuring that it has ‘no fossil fuel direct investments’ and

history’ (Beer, 2016, p. 506). It is further argued that it

‘no fossil fuel investments of material significance’ has been

has helped reinvigorate, and even become central to, the

challenged as vague and lacking a timeline (Kemp, 2016b;

climate justice movement as a whole (Klein, 2014; Apfel,

‘University Sets 2021 Fossil Fuel Divestment Target,’ 2017;

2015; Rowe, Dempsey, & Gibbs, 2016). This is despite the

Cooper, 2016).

fact that at least one of the earliest divestment campaigns,

Some Canadian postsecondary institutions have begun

campus-based Swarthmore Mountain Justice, was initially

responding to divestment calls with similar half-measures

focused not on climate change but on the more immediate

in order to divert attention and obfuscate critics. In 2014,

impacts of mountaintop-removal coal mining on frontline

for instance, Concordia University formed a $5 million

communities (Apfel, 2016; Grady-Benson & Sarathy, 2015).

‘sustainable investment fund’ separate from its $120

(Some clarification may be helpful here: The US$5 trillion

million endowment – a move decried by campaigners

figure indicates the ‘the value of assets represented by

there, including the second author of this paper, as merely

institutions and individuals committing to some sort of

a public relations trick and ‘a green-washing tactic’ (Divest

divestment from fossil fuel companies’ (Arabella Advisors,

Concordia, 2014). The University of British Columbia

2016, p. 1), and not the total value directly divested

created a ‘sustainable future fund’ in 2016 by dedicating a

from these companies. Because not all investors reveal

mere 0.7 per cent of its own endowment to ‘low carbon’

the contents of their portfolios, the total value directly

investments that include some of the world’s largest coal,

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

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oil, and natural gas companies and exclude solar (UBC350, n.d.-a). And there was considerable confusion surrounding the University of Ottawa’s pledge not to divest from fossil fuel companies but ‘[reduce] the carbon footprint of [its] entire investment portfolio by at least 30 per cent by 2030’ (uOttawa, 2016), with campaigners there claiming victory by pointing out a contradiction between the Finance and Treasury Committee and the Executive Committee (Fossil Free uOttawa, 2016). At the time of writing, the Frenchlanguage Université Laval is being credited as the first and only postsecondary institution in Canada to commit to full divestment, and after a comparatively brief four-month campaign, thanks in large part to an unusually sympathetic and forward-looking administration (Simard, 2017). Here we present a case study of Canada’s eight most active and prolific university fossil fuel divestment campaigns and the various ways in which they reveal and counteract the phenomenon of austerity-privacy. These campaigns operate across the country and were selected purposefully for their notable participation in the national divestment effort as well as the quantity of material they have made available for study. They are Divest Concordia (Concordia University), Divest Dal (Dalhousie University), Divest McGill (McGill University), Divest MTA (Mount Allison University), DivestSFU (Simon Fraser University), UBC350 (University of British Columbia), Fossil Free uOttawa (University of Ottawa), and Divest U of T

Figure 2: Divest Dal flyer revealing information about the University’s investments. Source: Divest Dal (2015)

(University of Toronto). All original campaign materials made publicly available by these campaigns – including web pages, blog posts,

in how much information they have been able to obtain,

press releases, reports, letters, newspaper opinion pieces,

how they have obtained this information, and how they

flyers, and videos – were collected and analysed for their

have used it. For example, by the end of 2013, Divest

messaging between July and September 2016. Other

McGill, which has identified itself as Canada’s oldest

campaigns were excluded from analysis due to their

fossil fuel divestment campaign (2015d), indicated in an

relative lack of such materials at that time, with the most

opinion piece published in a campus newspaper that

noteworthy exclusion being the short but successful

the University’s $1 billion endowment fund had around

uLaval Sans Fossiles campaign at Université Laval, which is

$29.2 million invested in the industry (2013d), although

certainly worth studying but was only formed in October

the figure cited in a blog post a year later would be

2016 (Simard, 2017). While we do not believe it detracts

closer

from the value of our study, it must be acknowledged that

com). Meanwhile, Divest Dal revealed in a June 2014

there may have been significant developments since then.

press release how much of Dalhousie’s endowment

Revealing the numbers

$70

million

(http://divestmcgill.tumblr.

was invested in the top fossil fuel companies (2014a), and included this information in flyers produced the

The first way in which divestment campaigns have

following year (2015c; see Figure 2). By contrast, Fossil

challenged the austerity-privacy of postsecondary

Free uOttawa only announced in a press release in late

institutions is to reveal information about their funds

2015 – two years into its own campaign – how much

and how they are invested. Divest Concordia (n.d.) has

of the University of Ottawa’s pension fund was directly

alleged on its website that ‘almost all of our colleges are

invested in fossil fuels (2015a).

invested in almost all of the worst environmental and

Some campaigns, such as DivestSFU at Simon Fraser

social offenders.’ However, the individual campaigns vary

University and Divest MTA at Mount Allison, did not

Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

appear to have any information at all about their

eyond knowing what the university’s direct holdings are,’

institutions’ investments at the time this study was

and argued that ‘having a general breakdown of U of T’s

conducted, while UBC350 simply mentioned on its

investment strategy would be helpful for addressing some

website that the University of British Columbia has

objections to divestment’ (Toronto350, 2015, p. 158).

‘approximately 6 per cent of [its] endowment’ invested in fossil fuels (n.d.-b, para. 1).Toronto350 – which now lists

Demanding transparency in governance

Divest U of T as one of its ‘past campaigns’ on its website

Some divestment campaigns go further than pushing for

(n.d.-a) – provided details of the University of Toronto’s

just greater financial transparency, seeking to uncover the

investments in a massive ‘brief’ that was updated in 2015,

processes by which decisions regarding those finances

but only cited figures from two years prior. Similarly,

are made. DivestSFU, for example, has suggested that the

Divest Concordia outlined that university’s investments

Board of Governors’fiduciary duty includes a responsibility

in a 2014 blog post that indicated it had actually made

‘to be transparent in the development and management

them less transparent year by year. Concordia had

of … long-term strategy’ (SFU350 & DivestSFU, 2014,

replaced ‘oil, gas, and pipelines’ in its 2011 financial

p. 1). Much of UBC350’s Divest UBC webpage, and its

audit with just ‘energy’ in 2012. By 2013, it had turned

2016 open letter to the Board of Governors, have been

to ‘third-party investors who are not obliged to disclose

dedicated to allegations that the board has failed in this

information about where and how they are investing the

responsibility. In the letter, the campaign criticised the

University’s money’ (fossilfree2020, 2014, para. 3).

board’s rejection of divestment as being based on ‘a

Calling for financial transparency

fundamentally inadequate and flawed process,’ a lack of respect for stakeholders, and an exclusive and prejudiced

The difficulty faced by some divestment campaigns in

decision-making process rather than on ‘an open,

obtaining accurate, detailed, and up-to-date figures has led

transparent, timely, and evidence-based consideration of

them to include among their primary demands increased

divestment’ (Divest UBC/UBCC350, 2016, para. 3-4).

transparency in terms of investments and investment

McGill University divested from apartheid South Africa

policy. Divest MTA argued in its 2015 report that ‘social

in the 1980s, and letters by Divest McGill (2013a, 2013b)

and fiscal transparency is of the utmost importance,’ and

have directed readers to records regarding that decision

called on the university ‘to make its annual reports of the

by the University’s Committee to Advise on Matters

endowment fund investment portfolio publicly available’

of Social Responsibility (CAMSR). However, turning to

(p. 9). The Board of Governors at Dalhousie reportedly

the issue of fossil fuel divestment, Divest McGill raised

agreed to a similar request, signaling the achievement of

concerns in those same letters about conflicts of interest

‘[o]ne of Divest Dal’s three campaign goals – increased

on that committee – concerns that apparently went

transparency of the investment portfolio’ (Divest Dal,

unheeded. Two years later, Divest McGill criticised both

2016a, para. 2; see also 2014d). At the same time, DivestSFU

the process and the outcome of CAMSR’s 2013 rejection

has gone further with a letter requesting that the chair

of divestment, including the fact that ‘several serious

of the Board of Governors ‘publically release detailed

conflicts of interest were subsequently identified in the

bi-annual reports of SFU’s investments’ as well as ‘require

proceedings, about which the board has taken, to our

the inclusion of carbon liability reporting in annual SFU

knowledge, no disciplinary or corrective action’ (Divest

financial statements’ (Azevedo, 2014, para. 3 & 4). Fossil

McGill, 2015a, p. 2). In a letter posed to its blog, Divest

Free uOttawa (2015a) reported in a press release that the

McGill denounced further ‘procedural missteps by

University of Ottawa has committed to the latter.

CAMSR’ (2015e, para. 4), as well as its continued lack of

Although not a central part of its campaign, Divest

transparency – to which principal Suzanne Fortier would

Concordia has also called for greater transparency in

respond by making public the testimony provided by five

institutional investments, claiming this ‘isn’t as simple

of six experts.

as pulling out a list of companies in which your college

Meanwhile, Divest Dal has called into question ‘the

invests’ (Divest Concordia, n.d., para. 13). The campaign

problematically close relationship between fossil fuel

has suggested on its website that greater transparency

companies and Dalhousie’s decision-makers’ on its blog

could include revealing more information about the

(2015b, para. 1), and even alleged that the institution

external fund managers the University employs, its overall

‘has been co-opted by the influence’ of these companies

asset allocation, and its investment policies. Similarly,

(2014d, para. 8). Campaigners raised a so called

Divest U of T expressed in its 2015 brief a desire to go ‘[b]

Shellhousie flag in protest of a $600,000 contract signed

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

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Members of Divest McGill might be skeptical of their university’s CAMSR being held up as a model of accessible governance. To be fair, following a ‘rare’ series of community consultations (Divest McGill, 2014a, para. 2), the campaign touted improvements by the Board of Governors such as ‘adding grave injurious impact … on the natural environment to their parameters of unacceptable corporate behavior’ (Divest McGill, 2014b, para. 2, emphasis in original) and ‘[giving] the ethical investment committee a more active role’ (para. 3). Since then, however, Divest McGill has called for the establishment

Figure 3: Divest Dal unveils the ‘Shellhousie’ flag to protest the University’s cozy relationship with fossil fuel companies Source: www.facebook.com/DivestDal

of an additional ‘Working Group to determine the most appropriate process for divestment of [sic] the remaining top 200 fossil fuel companies’ after immediately divesting from Enbridge and Royal Dutch Shell (2015b, p. 16). Nevertheless, in looking for the campaign that has gone

with Shell Canada in 2011 (see Figure 3), and their blog

the furthest in promoting institutional transformation for

includes a link to the contract, obtained through a formal

increased community participation, at least in terms of

request for access to public information. Conversely, they

rhetoric, we may need to turn back to Divest Dal. It has

have alleged that another request for public information,

argued on its blog that ‘the bureaucratic and administrative

intended ‘to uncover the internal conversations which

systems to which we belong are presently unfit for rising

took place prior to the Board’s decision not to divest,’

to the challenges presented by the climate crisis,’ and that

was ‘illegally withheld for nearly 200 days’ by university

if our institutions should indeed fail to do so, ‘we must

president Richard Florizone (2016c, para. 2). A flyer

replace them with those who will’ (2014d, para. 6).

produced for the occupation of his office proclaims, ‘We are tired of the #fossilfools controlling this university and

Monitoring reinvestment

we demand the administation [sic] show #whoseside

Beyond divestment, campaigns can challenge institutions’

they are on’ (2016b).

austerity-privacy through their interest in how funds

Encouraging Community Engagement

pulled from fossil fuel companies would be reinvested – although at the time this study was conducted most

Not content to simply observe how the university invests

either made little mention of it or seemed willing to leave

its funds or how decisions about those investments

these decisions to their Boards of Governors. For example,

are made, Divest Dal and Divest MTA have both cited

Divest Concordia’s website (www.divestconcordia.org)

‘meaningful participation’ in university decision-making

has simply ‘[called] on Concordia University to remove

processes as one of their commitments (Divest Dal, n.d.;

its investments in fossil fuels, and adopt a responsible

Divest MTA, n.d.). ‘Divestment is democratic,’ declares

investment policy.’ Similarly, Divest Dal initially ‘[asked]

one member of Divest Dal in a video, evoking the need

only that the endowment be free of investments in [the]

for community voices in questions of university finances

top 200 companies’ (Divest Dal, 2014c, p. 25), and it

(Arnell, 2014).

Another explains that ‘[m]aking big

appeared that it would rely on the Board of Governors

decisions on how we spend our money and making

‘to implement consideration of [environmental, social,

institutional changes on what’s okay to invest in and

and governance] factors and incorporate UN Principles

what’s okay to believe in, for future generations, is a

on Responsible Investments into their practice’ (2014d,

huge step.’ Meanwhile, Divest MTA (2016a) has called on

para. 4), although the University Senate has since imposed

its university to establish a new committee that would

additional guidelines (2016a).

include members of the university community ‘to create

According

Divest

MTA’s

report

(2016a),

a [socially responsible investment] policy and, later, to

decisions regarding reinvestment should be left to the

formally advise the Board of Regents on all SRI matters’

aforementioned hypothetical SRI committee, which

(p. 1), citing similar bodies at the University of Toronto

would include community members and ideally also sign

and McGill as examples of ‘commitments to accessible

on to the UN PRI. Conversely, neither Divest U of T nor

governance’ (p. 6).

DivestSFU have focused on establishing new committees

Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

or permanent investment policies. While Divest U of T ‘does not insist on any particular use or location for these divested funds’ in its brief (Toronto350, 2015, p. 158), it does propose alternative investments such as improving on-campus energy efficiency and using ‘new or existing financial instruments designed with climate change in mind’ (p. 159). In the same way, DivestSFU has asserted it will ‘leave reinvestment decisions to the Board,’ but has also expressed a desire to ‘work alongside [it] to develop a reinvestment strategy’ (SFU350, 2014, p. 8).

Drawing attention to the financial benefits of divesting (or the costs of not divesting) A further way in which divestment campaigns challenge the austerity-privacy of postsecondary institutions is to reveal the financial gains they could enjoy through divestment or, inversely, the losses they incur by refusing

Figure 4: Divest McGill compares how much the University has lost due to austerity measures and how much it has lost from failing to divest. Source: Divest Dal (2016b)

to divest. For example, several campaigns have pointed out that alternative investments could yield similar

cost of fossil fuel investments in its brief (Toronto350,

or even greater returns (Divest Dal, 2014c; SFU350 &

2015), although only Divest McGill has offered relevant

DivestSFU, 2014; Divest MTA, 2015; Toronto350, n.d.-b).

institution-specific figures. By virtue of its $11 million

More specifically, Fossil Free uOttawa argued in 2015

invested in the top Canadian fossil fuel companies, it

that the University of Ottawa’s pension fund ‘would have

is claimed that ‘McGill University “owns” (in the form

grown by’ (2015a), or ‘could have saved’ (2015b), $21.5

of carbon reserves) social harm worth $7.1 million in

million had it divested from fossil fuels three years prior

Canada alone’ (2015b, p. 68). The institution is allegedly

– drawing attention to this fact by presenting university

banking on a total of $2.9 trillion in social harm being

president Allan Rock with an oversized novelty cheque at

inflicted on the planet, and ‘the social cost of carbon rises

a Board of Governors meeting. Divest McGill claimed the

every day meaning that the harm of McGill’s investments

same year that that university’s failure to divest had cost

rise [sic] too’ (p. 66). In addition, the campaign asserts

it even more: $43 million over the same period, compared

that McGill ‘would lose from $2.8 to $4.3 million in its

with the $39 million lost in budget cuts by the provincial

Canadian fossil fuel investments alone’ should ‘the spectre

government (2015f, para. 1, see Figure 4). The campaign

of climate change [be] avoided’ (p. 68).

has gone even further in suggesting that members of the Board of Governors ‘are not maximising the returns

Making connections and moving forward

of McGill’s investments, and thus may not be satisfying

We believe that our notion of austerity-privacy helps to

their fiduciary duties in the most fiscally prudent manner’

explain why administrators resist divestment,despite being

(2015b, p. 87).

‘a “pragmatic” and relatively easy’ measure with a strong

In addition, Divest McGill announced in a 2016 blog post

moral, financial, and public relations case (Rowe et al.,

that ‘a $2 million donation to McGill had been withdrawn

2016, p. 20).Those who advocate a more radical approach

due to the Board’s failure to vote for divestment’ (para.

might even criticise divestment for being too pragmatic

3). The Divest U of T website has urged alumni there to

and easy, a reformist measure that fails to challenge the

do likewise and pledge to ‘refuse to donate money to

supremacy of market logic and the fundamental injustices

the University of Toronto until the University divests’

inherent in neoliberalism and even capitalism (Apfel, 2015;

(Toronto350, n.d.-b). Conversely, in making the case for

Beer, 2016). But administrators resist divestment because

divestment in its 2015 report, Divest MTA brought up its

of its hidden subversive potential as a slippery slope to

potential benefits in terms of increases to both donations

an increased democratisation of capital. Even when not

(as seen at nearby Unity College in Maine) and enrollments

among the primary aims of divestment campaigns, their

– both critical to a small but prestigious institution like

very existence serves to cast a certain amount of public

Mount Allison.

scrutiny on institutions and call into question their level

Finally, Divest U of T cited concerns regarding the social vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

of austerity-privacy. Although yielding to calls to divest

Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

’

might dissipate such scrutiny in the short term, it could

groups as Demilitarize McGill (http://demilitarizemcgill.

represent an institutional acknowledgement that this

com). On the same campus, Divest McGill has already

scrutiny is sometimes legitimate, opening the door to

connected its efforts with the anti-austerity fight (2016)

future challenges to their austerity-privacy.

as well as the BDS campaign against Israel’s human rights

Appeals to administrators’ often distorted notions

abuses (2015c). Several divestment campaigns have

of fiduciary duty – notions that mistakenly prioritise

similarly highlighted the rights of indigenous peoples

the short-term maximisation of returns from individual

in North America (Divest McGill, 2013c; Fossil Free

investments (Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, 2005) – are

uOttawa, 2014; Divest MTA, 2015; Toronto350, 2015),

commonly employed as part of the counter-argument to

while Divest MTA has also declared its support for Black

divestment.To be sure, considering the hegemonic market

Lives Matter Toronto (2016). Finally, Divest Dal has drawn

logic and neoliberal ideology, to appear to fail in their

links between its campaign and the feminist and LGBTIQ

fiduciary duty could attract much more public scrutiny to

movements (2014b, 2015a) – in addition to its remarkable

institutional finances than their complicity in ecological

call, cited above, to dismantle and replace institutions that

destruction and climate catastrophe. Apfel (2015) claims

fail to respond to community needs. By continuing in this

that the main reason fossil fuel divestment campaigns

direction, we wonder like Rowe et al. ‘if the [divestment]

have been so uniquely successful is their argument

movement might begin to articulate a prefigurative vision

that divestment is compatible with this duty, although

of how to more democratically control our public wealth’

divestment from South Africa and tobacco also benefitted

(2016, p. 21).

from this argument (Posnikoff, 1997; Wander & Malone, 2006). Nevertheless, the same evidence used to support the claim that divestment is compatible with fiduciary

Conclusion: austerity-privacy and the long-term vision for our public institutions

duty could be used to support the further claim that, in the name of this duty, divestment is actually required,

A great deal of criticism has been directed at the

even without factoring in the costs of social injury: fossil-

increasing privatisation seen at most levels of formal

free portfolios provide comparable or even increased

education as part of the austerity agenda over the past

returns and avoid the risks of the carbon bubble and

decade. However, the related feature of privacy – that

stranded assets (Apfel, 2015; Arabella Advisors, 2015; Beer,

is, the social power to withdraw from critical public

2016; Rowe et al., 2016). Building on the work of Divest

discourse – has been underinvestigated. In this paper, we

McGill (2015b) in particular, campaigners may find it very

have suggested that the privacy granted to institutions

productive to argue that administrators are really failing

through austerity has enabled the process of privatisation

to meet their fiduciary duty by not divesting from fossil

and sped up the neoliberal march. Although austerity is

fuels (see Arabella Advisors, 2016). If administrators are in

often thought of as a stripping away of resources, the

fact as motivated as we suspect to maintain and increase

new form of privacy it grants is a valuable commodity

their level of austerity-privacy, they will actively seek to

to these institutions. The manner in which they leverage

avoid the kind of public scrutiny that might result from

privacy is analogous to, though distinct from, the way in

the perception of such failure.

which individuals do it: their relationship to markets and

On the other hand, if campaigners seek to go beyond

private interests, and their willingness to sacrifice their

influencing administrators at specific institutions to divest

accessibility to the general public, allows some more

from one particular industry, if they aim to ‘merge the fights

access than others to the forms of capital necessary to

for economic justice and climate action with the kind of

limit and mediate public scrutiny.

good faith and urgency required to build a real Climate

Just as austerity-privacy helps to explain why university

Justice movement’ (Grady-Benson, 2014, p. 75), they

administrators would resist calls for fossil fuel divestment,

may need to think outside the framework of prevailing

we believe that it – along with the drive to curry favour with

institutional and market logics. They may need to follow

government in conditions of artificial scarcity – also helps

the lead of Foster, Clark, and York (2010) and Klein (2014)

to explain why they counterintuitively seek to undermine

and further explore the intersection of the environmental,

community

anti-capitalist, and anti-colonialist movements. Rowe et al.

themselves, measures which so directly and negatively

(2016) suggest that a good place to start in the US would be

affect conditions on campus. Administrators are driven

an alliance with the private prison divestment campaign,

by a desire to defend the short-term gains offered by the

and in the Canadian context we would recommend such

new status quo, even if it means quashing movements to

opposition

Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism Robert McGray & Jonathan Turcotte-Summers

the

austerity

measures

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

protect the long-term interests of their institutions – from fossil fuel divestment campaigns to anti-austerity protests. We would encourage further research on our concept of austerity-privacy, but in the meantime it appears that the best way forward for those seeking to reverse antidemocratic trends in our institutions’ finances, and in our institutions as a whole, is to explore the common ground between such campaigns as that for divestment and those that more directly challenge austerity, neoliberalism, and capitalism generally.

’

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/15/anu-fossil-fuel-divestmentdecision-stupid-tony-abbott-says Australian National University. (2016, April 1). Update on ANU Socially Responsible Investment policy. Retrieved from http://www.anu.edu.au/news/ all-news/update-on-anu-socially-responsible-investment-policy Azevedo, A. (2014). [Presentation follow-up e-mail – Request for an official response]. Retrieved from https://static1.squarespace. com/static/5380f07ae4b092b699c32fc7/t/54727e30e4b0eb3c9937 34b8/1416789552438/SFU+350-Request+for+Formal+Response.pdf Beer, C. T. (2016). Rationale of early adopters of fossil fuel divestment. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 17(4), 506-519. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-02-2015-0035 Bhaskar, R. (1986). Scientific realism & human emancipation. London: Verso.

Acknowledgements

Bhaskar, R. (1993). Dialectic: The pulse of freedom. New York: Verso.

The authors would like to acknowledge that Canada occupies the traditional territories of the First Nations, the Inuit, and the Métis. The authors would like to thank Canadian postsecondary divestment campaigners for the quantity of material they have made available for public study, without which this paper would not have been possible. Robert McGray, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education at Brock University, St. Catharines (Ontario), Canada. Jonathan Turcotte-Summers has an MA in Educational Studies from Concordia University, Montréal (Québec), Canada. More recently, he served as Foreign Expert with Thammasat Secondary School and the Faculty of Learning Sciences and Education at Thammasat University in Thailand. Contact: rmcgray@brocku.ca

Bhaskar, R. (1998a). Facts and values: theory and practice / Reason and the dialectic of human emancipation / Depth, rationality and change. In Archer et al. (Eds.) Critical realism: essential readings. New York: Routledge. Pp. 409-443. Bhaskar, R. (1998b). Societies. In Archer et al. (Eds.) Critical realism: essential readings. New York: Routledge. Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). (2014). CAUT almanac of post-secondary education in Canada 2013-2014. Ottawa: CAUT. Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). (n.d.). Koch money on campus: McGill. CAUT Bulletin. Retrieved from https://www.cautbulletin.ca/ en_article.asp?ArticleID=3930 Cheadle, B. (2012, Jul. 12). Carleton University admits to issues with $15-million donor deal for politics school. The Globe & Mail. Retrieved from http://www. theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/carleton-university-admits-to-issues-with15-million-donor-deal-for-politics-school/article4413773/. Cooper, E. (2016, September 5). QUT divests from fossil fuels, but more information needed. Pro Bono Australia. https://probonoaustralia.com.au/ news/2016/09/qut-divests-fossil-fuels-information-needed/. Divest Concordia. (2014, November 27). Divest Concordia denounces Concordia University Foundation refusal to divest from fossil fuels [Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/divest-concordiadenounces-concordia-university-foundation-refusal-to-divest-from-fossilfuels-516567711.html.

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Affirming humanity A case study of the activism of general/professional staff in the academy Ann Lawless General/professional staff are activists in Australian universities. Their activism has seldom been researched in scholarly approaches in higher education studies nor in activism studies. General/professional staff occupy a unique place in the labour force of higher education, and may work in a wide range of professions and trades. A case study of activism undertaken by ‘Rosemary’ is presented. A number of features of activism in the academy are revealed in the case study. Keywords: general/professional staff, activism, case study, Habermas, critical theory

Introduction

the rhetoric of a binary division among the workforce persists in scholarly literature. Macfarlane has described

General/professional staff in universities perform a very

it as ‘one of the most disrespectful of othering dualisms’

wide range of functions, roles and duties in the academy

(Macfarlane 2015, p. 107), warning higher education

and are accorded different, usually lower, status in the

researchers of the dangers in this and other dualisms such

university workforce to that of academics. They may

as obscuring the complexities of the situations studied,

work as gardeners, security staff, cleaners, catering staff

missing nuances, neglecting the political agenda that

and as semi-skilled and unskilled labourers. They are

drives dualisms, and masking a continuum of experiences.

often women and have career mobility limited by the

The terms used to describe their role differs in national

industrial conditions in which they work e.g. promotion

settings, showing a persistence of local and national

is not available to them as it is to academics. They are

effects in higher education: for example, in New Zealand

also known as non-academics although some act in roles

they are often referred to as allied staff (Wohlmuther,

that have overlap with research, teaching and community

2008).What little scholarly literature there is, is dominated

engagement and thus with academic labour but without

by a small number of authors such as Maree Conway, Ian

its status. In this space, they are sometimes referred to

Dobson, Judy Szekeres, Joan Eveline and Michael Booth

as ‘third-space professionals’ (Whitchurch 2013) in the

in Australia, Sue Wohlmuther in New Zealand and Celia

academy. They may be librarians, lawyers, laboratory

Whitchurch in the United Kingdom. The focus of these

technicians,

technologists,

researchers has largely been on senior administrators,

architects or accountants. They may be members of

managers and other senior level functions: those with high

professions, subscribe to professional codes of practice, be

status (by virtue of higher salaries and influence) in the

published in eminent academic journals,hold postgraduate

university workforce. However, Eveline and Booth (2004)

qualifications and engaged with careers, not just jobs in

conducted a feminist poststructural analysis of junior-

the academy. In practice, the dualism in the university

level staff who work in the ‘ivory basement’ (occupying

workforce – between academics and non-academics – is

lower level positions in an Australian university) where

disintegrating because of professional practice overlaps

‘administrative, emotional and relationship work’ (2004,

and other nuances, as noted by Macfarlane (2015) but

p. 244) is performed; and Crawford and Tonkinson (1988,

counsellors,

information

Affirming humanity Ann Lawless

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

35) interviewed a university cleaner as part of a study

aims of social change, a sort of ‘prefiguration’ activism,

of the history of women at the University of Western

bringing positives into immediate reality and realisation.

Australia. Non-scholarly literature, grey literature, on

Prefiguration, argue Barker, Martin and Zournazi (2008),

general/professional staff can be found in Australian trade

is the matching of the means and the end. If you want

union publications and websites but it can be regarded

a compassionate society because your analysis tells you

as further evidence of a different class of work allotted to

the current one is alienated and alienating, practice

general/professional staff within the academy to that of

compassion here, now and everywhere.They note that this

academics that it is relegated to the grey literature rather

is emotional labour or emotional work. Used reflexively

than the more prestigious light of scholarly literature.

and mindfully, such emotional work fosters wisdom,

In the Encyclopaedia of Activism and Social Justice, Martin (2007, pp.19-20) has defined activism as

and relates to the development of activist wisdom. This sort of activism by general/professional staff draws on

...action on behalf of a cause, action that goes beyond what is conventional or routine......Activists are typically challengers to policies and practices, trying to achieve a social goal, not to obtain power themselves. Much activism operates behind the scenes. Activism is action that goes beyond conventional politics, typically being more energetic, passionate, innovative, and committed. ......It is also possible to peak of activism inside an organisation, such as a corporation, government department, political party, or labor union. ......If employees organise to challenge a decision or try to alter the usual decision-making process, this can be called activism, though it is much less visible than activism in public places. What counts as activism depends on what is conventional.......Activism is typically undertaken by those with less power, because those with positions of power and influence can usually accomplish their aims using conventional means.

both institutional wisdom and relationship wisdom, and

For the purposes of this article, activism involves

Three interviews with Rosemary revealed that in

political

orientation

that

favours

includes or integrates both the interpersonal domain with agency in political and cultural domains.This article offers insights from Rosemary as to some of the emotions and emotional labour congruent with activist practices in the academy, adding to the work of Barker et al. (2008), and to the work done by Debra King (1999, 2006) who uses the theory of Touraine to examine the role of emotions in activism. A case study of activism undertaken by ‘Rosemary’ is presented. She is a long-term career professional in higher education in the general/professional staff labour force at an urban campus of an Australian public university. She is female, in her forties, has university qualifications, works full-time, and is a white Australian.

progressive

addition to her paid work in junior-level professional

understandings of social justice and social change, where

positions, into which she introduces concerns about

progressive refers to perspectives of social justice which

poverty and homelessness by organising staff events

are both emancipatory and oppositional to conservative

around them, she is an active member of campus clubs

and reactionary perspectives.

with feminist and anti-racist concerns.

Studies of the activism of general/professional staff is almost absent from scholarly literature, a silencing effect

Methodology and research design

in research from higher education research and activism studies, although grey literature such as union publications

The pseudonym ‘Rosemary’ was chosen in consultation

may report on their activism. Yet in Australia a university

with the research participant. The research received

gardener, Eddie Mabo, had a critical conversation while at

ethics clearance from the University of South Australia.

work in the garden beds on campus with colleagues that

Single case studies have transferability to other contexts

led to a long, and eventually successful history-making

by examining their meaningfulness in other contexts

activist win for recognition of Indigenous rights (Loos &

by maintaining connectedness to the specific case

Mabo, 1996).

(Simons, 2009) and in recognisable and familiar settings

This article draws on the concept that affirming

(naturalistic generalisation). Using appropriate forms of

humanity is a form or practice of activism which is

transferability and generalisation in a qualitative case study

positive, life-enhancing and pro-active: it is the immediate

(see Simons 2009, pp. 164-169 to examine six possible

action for the ideals, visions, values and inspirations

forms of generalisation of case studies) illuminates both

that impels other forms and expressions of activism. It

the possibilities of activism for general/professional staff

is congruent with resistant and contentious practices

in the academy and also its potential.

of activism but foregrounds features, such as direct

The case study method was blended with critical

expression and performance of the positive values and

ethnography. Ethnography is ‘an attempt to understand

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Affirming humanity Ann Lawless

’

and interpret a particular cultural system’ (Dey, 2002, p.

lifeworld resists this and our humanity asserts itself, and

188). Critical ethnography unsettles, disrupts and actively

does this in several ways. Activism is one response from

interrogates the reproduction of social inequality, and also

the lifeworld to the colonising effects of the systemworld

affords the researcher with sociological reflexivity, the

(Habermas 1973).

reflection on the conditions of the research itself (Chari

Habermasian analysis can be used to examine the

& Donner 2010). As Forester (2003, p. 48) has said, the

potential of a process to be an arena for deliberative

purpose of critical ethnography is to expose the politics

democracy (Wiklund 2005) and discursive democracy,

of ‘multilayered complexity’. Rosemary was interviewed in

three

semi-structured

interviews held off-campus and at her home in a comfortable quiet setting. The case study reveals a number of features of

and for the opening of

The case study reveals a number of features of activism in the academy, including the limits to activism as well as the threats to it, especially for junior women in the general/professional staff of the academy.

communicative

Reason 2009). These are emancipatory definition which lifeworld

posed

this

article) as well as processes

including

limits

processes

(and thus activist using the

activism in the academy, the

spaces

(Kemmis 2009; Wicks and

characterise itself,

and

the are

activism as well as the threats to it, especially for junior

transformative (see Ercan and Dryzek, 2015). If found,

women in the general/professional staff of the academy.

these lifeworld processes-in-formation have significance in a Habermasian analysis. In addition to the opening of

Theory

communicative spaces, and discursive and deliberative democracy, lifeworld processes include reflexivity and

Theory is chosen by a researcher for its interpretive

will-formation. Reflexivity is an important feature of

power. The research for this article is theoretically

emancipatory functions in critical theory, and thus may

informed by critical theory, and specifically by the

also be of activism.

Habermasian concept of the lifeworld as it offers insights

Will-formation

another

lifeworld

process-in-

into when and how general/professional staff perform

formation and has two forms, one of which is relevant

activism. Jurgen Habermas is an eminent critical theorist

here. Opinion-formation takes place in a ‘weak public

and his work is used in this study to illuminate the issues

sphere’ where ‘members participate in discourses and

and examine the significance of the work of activists in

negotiations regarding issues concerning themselves

the academy.

and the community’ (Habermas 1996; Wiklund 2005, p.

Commonly used Habermasian notions are those of the

248; Pederson 2009, p. 390). It is one organised around

lifeworld and the systemworld, and their relationship

communicative power. This is a process in which people

under advanced capitalism. The lifeworld and system

share opinions, discuss ethical considerations and seek

(or systemworld) are two distinct spheres or domains

a group dialogue and consensus which results in the

of life, with ‘distinctive rules, institutions and patterns

formation of will, of autonomy, of the capacity to have

of behaviour’ (Finlayson 2005, p. 51). The lifeworld is

active agency in the lifeworld. Habermas has described

an ‘unregulated sphere of sociality…… a repository

the academy as an ‘opinion-forming association’, one

of shared meanings and understandings and a social

designed to generate public influence in the public

horizon for everyday encounters with other people’

sphere (Habermas 1996, p. 355; Baert 2005,121-124).

(Finlayson 2005, p. 52). The system or systemworld is

If in the case study we can find (i) processes and

linked to instrumental rationality, with two sub-systems

practices of an arena for discursive or democratic

– money and power. These act as ‘inherent directing and

deliberation (ii) the opening of communicative spaces

coordinating mechanisms’ of the capitalist economy

(iii) reflexivity on rule-based systems, such as institutional

and its related institutions (Finlayson 2005, p. 53). The

wisdom or on the self as an active agent in the academy or

systemworld is necessary as an organising function in

(iv) opinion-formation among members of a community:

society: but in advanced capitalism, it ‘uncouples’ from the

then we have found significant features from which we

lifeworld and develops its authority in regulating human

can conclude that the lifeworld is asserting itself against

behaviour to such an extent that it colonises, distorts and

the colonisation of the lifeworld through activist practices

subverts the life-affirming functions of the lifeworld. The

and processes.

Affirming humanity Ann Lawless

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Limitations of the approach

’

and fostering engaged citizenship in a civil society, among staff and students in the academy, can be framed as an

There are limitations influencing the research for this

activist stance in the corporatised public university and

article.The first is in relation to time-lag since the original

its alienated landscapes.

field work was conducted for the case study. The second is in preserving the integrity of refreshed analysis without

The Case Study: Introducing Rosemary

violating the integrity of core concepts or the original case study which was developed for a doctoral study. The

Rosemary is an administrative officer in an equity unit

third relates to the risk of error through over-identification

at a university in South Australia. Equity units are usually

of the researcher with Rosemary and an over-focus on

central units located within the administrative structure

progressive activism without weighing other forms while

of the university, not in its academic or research areas.

framing conclusions about the academy.

Her duties include administrative coordination of

First, in relation to time-lag, the literature review

functions of the equity unit, including supporting the

was refreshed and updated. Reflexive contemplation

recruitment of Indigenous students and staff, committee

of both the original and refreshed literature and of the

work and organising public events such as concerts and

original fieldwork processes took place. The fieldwork

reconciliation events. She is a member of campus clubs

observations were compared to a study of IT general/

that support equity goals such as feminism and diversity.

professional staff in the academy (see Seeley 2016). which

She was born in Australia, the daughter of white

showed that despite the time-lag between my own and

British migrants. She attended public schools in the

her doctoral fieldwork, there was a sobering similarity in

northern (working class) suburbs of Adelaide. Of her class

the tone and content of descriptions of the conditions of

background, she said:

labour of non-academic staff, including their invisibility in mainstream higher education studies.

we didn’t have a lot of money but there were still lots of books around.

There has been opportunity for critical reflection and mindful reflection (see Webster-Wright 2013), including consideration of the possibility of researcher error because of the limitations declared here.This contributed to a test of the rigour and viability of the research for this article, and influenced the analysis. Third, the exclusive focus is on progressive activism. This research decision has risked the skewing of the conceptual development of understandings of activism

Her activist values are attributed to her family background: My values were formed growing up in my particular family. Very interested in social justice as a family. Even though my father was a white-collar worker... he was very interested in equality. He wasn’t much of an activist himself but my mother was.......and my uncle was a conscientious objector [during the war in England].

in the academy; and risked error by over-focusing on one form of activism and the over-identification of the researcher with the research participant. The possible error has not been remedied in the research design,

The orientation of her family to activism felt right for her and: I never changed it.

and remains, leaving some likelihood of obscuring the complexity of campus activism and its political agendas.

The Context – higher education in Australia

Rosemary is 48, divorced and has one adolescent child.

Collegiality as an activist practice Can collegiality take on an activist orientation? During

The conditions of labour and work in the academy

the interviews Rosemary revealed that she consciously

form the context of this case study. The editorial of

and deliberately acts to align her collegiality with

this issue elaborates on neoliberalism and the academy.

concerns to redress alienation and marginalisation in

Neoliberal economic and associated discourses drove

the academy. Despite a heavy task-related workload she

the transformation of the management of public

attends consciously to relationship-related work, drawing

institutions into entrepreneurial and corporatised forms.

on relationship wisdom, to inform her attentiveness to

This displaced collegial governance and the student

redressing alienation and exclusion.

as learner-citizen into the margins of the educational enterprise (Olssen & Peters (2005). Therefore, promoting vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Rosemary practices and encourages collegiality because she values human needs saying: Affirming humanity Ann Lawless

I think it is very important to treat people as human with human needs. And you know – one of my staff on Friday, yesterday, suddenly had a crisis with her daughter you know ‘I need to get home’ now she catches the bus, so I got another staff member to drive her home and come back. They asked ‘Can I do this?’ [I said] Of course – Go go go! Rosemary struggles to find time to be active but uses strategies to find and manage time in order, for example, to support colleagues experiencing alienation and exclusion: I’ve been consciously I might not call it networking but getting together with other women in a similar role to me .......sit down and you might talk about work and might talk about other things....but it is so important I think to have that interaction Q: Why is it important to you? A: If somebody, at your own level at work, you ...... feel more free to talk, I think, about issues. A lot of them have similar situations, so they might have solutions for you or you might have solutions for them. You realise that …. they haven’t been travelling in the way that you thought they were, they’ve got issues and that can explain certain things that happen in the workplace or might affect the way you deal with them in the future. I have got (a contact) in the faculty office, and I thought she was travelling really well but now I realise that she’s not…so, you know, I want to be a support for her.

’

units from funding cuts, managing threats to their security, funding and the public image of equity units. These are formal parts of her job and also have activist dimensions embedded in the role, concerns in common with those of progressive activists: You’ve got a university that’s funded by the numbers of student, [effecting] staff student ratios and things. This had a huge impact on [equity unit]…..we’re under huge pressure because we don’t have a very good student-staff ratio and we don’t get many EFTSUs for it......And the rest of university is saying well why are they getting all this money? <laughter>.....we can barely keep our head above water! .......and that’s why you know they’ll ......argue with a lot of courses that have large student numbers in them.....ones that are popular, that are vocational, so you know, there goes learning for learning sakes and .......Their talking about mainstreaming it and if you mainstream it that means getting rid of it – quite frankly.

Rosemary’s collegiality is more than conviviality

......How do we resist it? If we had enough funding it would be easy to resist it because I think a lot of it is based on that you know (a) students having to pay and (b) getting rid of courses (c) mainstreaming specialist units which, you know, because they are seen as non cost effective – horrible – the need to have huge vocational programs like <program name>which is where the university gets its money, or courses that will attract a lot of [full-fee paying] international students.

towards colleagues.The activist orientation of conviviality

Rosemary’s concern to resist the downsizing and

and collegiality comes from the values that inspire her to

mainstreaming of equity units shows her activist

this perspective and her conscious willingness to frame

orientation to resisting the negative impacts of change.

it as supporting marginalised members of staff – this is

Rosemary is reflexive, a work skill that applied to her

a social justice orientation to the effort she makes. She

activism leads her to awareness of self and others, and

manages very heavy workloads and also prioritises

awareness of complicity with and contradictions in

practices that humanise the alienated workforce. For

activist practice:

example, she mentioned that she puts time into praising, acknowledging and developing colleagues, ensuring that family friendly practices are followed and doing extra work in order to support vulnerable colleagues and their families, enabling them for example to attend funerals or attend to sick family members.

Oh we are complicit with a lot of stuff, no doubts about it, it is easier.......When looking at power relationships..... where you are in the organisation, where you are in that particular group. If you are in a meeting and things happen you don’t agree with you ....yeh think ‘not right’. But you might think you’re not be in a position to say something into that relationship.

She has been active with others in organising informal fundraising events on campus for homeless people,

Australian workplaces are multicultural. Having cross-

raising funds to support soup kitchens and shelters; she

cultural skills is valued by employers but for Rosemary

uses these informal activities at work as opportunities to

developing her cross-cultural skills is transferred to her

deepen peoples understanding of poverty, its causes and

activism, for they are part of her concern to find ways

possible social interventions in poverty.

of working with others which prioritises attention to

Administration duties with activist dimensions

injustice, and supports a humane and empowering approach to social change. In working with ethnic

Rosemary’s work in an equity unit that serves minority

and race minorities she has developed cross-cultural

and marginalised cultures involves her in defending equity

communication skills:

Affirming humanity Ann Lawless

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

I remember having to teach myself to do this. <Laughter>. Relax my body and wait, it’ll come when it comes. Let’s move on – no – stay – some [waiting] time [is needed]. With [an Indigenous staff member] I sit there. Q: Part of cross cultural richness is stillness? A: Just sit back and wait. I have to find that stillness within myself.

’

[it is your] role in that organisation, lack of seniority, or [being] the only woman in the room. I think also for women, there are often consequences of being named as a ‘feminist’. Well, putting down with the feminist label. Asked about her understanding of the nature of social change she identified its slowness in succeeding at changing society and the persistence of sexism. An example of this is the expectation that junior level women prepare catering for and organise informal collegial social

Rosemary identifies here the development of her own

events among colleagues, showing that conservative

skill in transcultural communication, but also made clear

gender roles persist for junior women. Rosemary noted

that this has served both her professional development

that senior women have moved into eminent non-

and her activist concern to work well with colleagues

traditional positions in the university workforce while

from minority cultures in order to promote common

junior women continue to occupy more traditional

social justice and anti-racist objectives.

service roles:

Obstacles and limits to activism Rosemary identified a number of limits on her activism. These include her marginal status as a member of the general staff and as a feminist in a junior role in the hierarchy of the university; time-poverty and workloads; the loss of cultural knowledge of key activists; and the silencing of activists such as anti-racist feminists: Well, there’s always a power relationship. You have to be careful of what you say, because it might be seen as pressuring someone, trying to influence somewhere, where really you don’t have the right to. So you have got to be very careful about the way that you say. Q: So you are saying that as you do it you are very mindful of your, your role at that event at that time at that place? A: The specific place and time yes. The lack of time to attend to core duties as well as activism acts as a limit:

Social change effects so much in the workplace and obviously and that’s a slow change – sometimes you wish it would go faster, <laughter> sometimes it goes backwards!! <laughter> And the slow change in sexism? Well even during this week we had a thing for Melbourne Cup. Who at work cooks at functions, we had a thing for the Melbourne Cup, who was in the kitchen doing the cooking? The females and who is in the boardroom waiting? The males <Laughter>. Having helped organise a workplace function for homeless people, Rosemary was inspired to expand her activist interests: But that affected me, from then on, I usually buy two, I buy one for me and one for the church that I’m in. I do what I can collecting food for people, it’s expensive. The obstacles to Rosemary’s activism are numerous, and include her junior female status in the academy, and caution about managing her public image and credibility

I think it could be a lot more activist than it is, you know, the university. I think a lot of people just don’t have time…... Everybody I talk too, and I think its endemic, is overworked. Just getting through what you have to get through in a day is enough for everybody…so those other things about university life that you think are important are not happening any more.

with senior male colleagues. She talked of the time constraints, the busy and demanding workloads, and the persistence of sexism in the workforce around junior level women in the general staff.

Features of the case

Another obstacle to activism is the loss of cultural

This case study reveals how Rosemary consciously and

knowledge when activist staff leave. Talking of a valued

reflexively adopts activist stances as a member of the

fellow activist she says:

general/professional staff. She humanises her workplace

she one of the ones who just works to death. Because of her huge, you know, desire to make that whole place work.......We’ll be lost when she goes.

through her collegiality and supports collegiality among

Another obstacle is the silencing of activists when

collegiality for it is inspired by the values of social justice

labelled as trouble-makers or when they are hesitant to

and grows from active and activism-inspired deliberate

speak out. She identified factors that act as obstacles:

interventions in daily life in the academy. Her work on

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

others, giving spaces for care and concern to be expressed as part of working relationships. This is more than ‘just’

Affirming humanity Ann Lawless

’

homelessness and poverty are more than just charitable

analysis of this case study is not part of this research,

support events among colleagues: it takes on an activist

here we can see that the working-class background of

flavour because she adds education for and inspiration

a feminist and anti-racist activist acts as an asset to her

for social change into her approach. This disclosure by

activism in the academy and we also see her reflexivity

Rosemary indicates significant features of the lifeworld

in relation to her working-class origins and rich life-

– the practices of discursive deliberation in an arena on

affirming family history.

campus; the opening of communicative spaces on campus;

This case study reveals that activist stances can be and

and opinion-formation among members of a community.

actually are deployed on campus by general/professional

We have found significant features from which we can

staff. They deploy practices specific to their place in

conclude that the lifeworld is asserting itself against the

the academy, making strategic use of the mission of the

colonisation of the lifeworld through activist practices

university to match activist goals; and also accommodating

and processes revealed by Rosemary.

their junior status, gendered roles, their invisibility and

Her mainstream role in an equity unit is, in itself, related to the activist possibilities still available in

silencing in a hierarchical and bureaucratic culture in the corporatised university.

the academy: serving the educational aspirations of

The success of progressive activism, and dissection of

a marginalised community, defending the equity unit

the activist and their practices, were not key concerns of

against mainstreaming and budget cuts, and collaborating

the research. However, Rosemary suggested a definition

with Indigenous and non-Indigenous colleagues to

of successful activism as ‘turning up’: a process-rich

ensure that equity goals are met. She infuses her ‘equity

engagement with the issues of social justice in which

job’ with a passion and vision of progressive activism,

turning up for activism in the alienated workplace of the

bringing activist reflexivity to her work as she considers

modern academy is an activist ‘outcome’ in itself.

and actively manages heavy workloads, stress and other

The practices deployed by activist general/professional

obstacles to activism in the academy. This reflexivity on

staff have been shown to be able to be revealed in

both rule-based systems of the academy and her own

forms such as ‘communicative action’, by opening

agency as an actor in the academy – significant features

communicative spaces and sustaining campus lifeworlds.

of the assertion of the lifeworld – leads her to an analysis

Discursive democracy is fostered in the workplace

of the other obstacles to and limits to activism in the

in several instances in the case study; the opening of

academy for general/professional staff such as sexism,

communicative spaces in the academy; reflexivity on rule-

gendered roles, silencing, compromising her stance

based systems within the academy, such as institutional

for the sake of pragmatics, junior status in a hierarchy,

wisdom and also on the self as an active agent in the

the upward management of senior staff and the loss of

academy; and opinion-formation among members of a

key allies such as other activists in the academy. She is

community.

reflecting on rule-based systems, drawing on institutional

Smith, Salo and Grootenboer (2010) have shown that

wisdom and reflects on the self as an active agent in the

collective praxis addresses the practice of communicative

alienating landscape of the academy.

action and addresses the risks of alienation and injustice

Rosemary can be seen practicing relationship-

in the academy. They argue that it does this, as can be

wisdom in her activist practices: she joins with others

seen in this case study, by acting in collective ways (such

in genuine caring for colleagues, a form of activism in

as to ensure that care work is recognised as collegiality

itself sometimes referred to as ‘prefiguration’ in which

and therefore recognised as valued paid work); being

an activist ensures that the means equals the ends, for

reflexive (such as when Rosemary reflects on her

example where caring collegiality is practiced as an

own complicity with the silencing effects of proxy

activist-inspired strategy and value-orientation, and

substitution for more senior staff); and emancipatory

leads to caring collegiality as an activist outcome in

(such as when she uses her cultural competence to

the alienated landscape of the corporatised university

establish a quiet receptivity to Indigenous colleagues

(Barker, Martin, Zournazi 2008). She also shows emotional

that enables communication and shared decisions). In

wisdom in managing her activism, knowing how to

such spaces as this equity unit, they argue, safe havens

self-care and mutual-care (see King 1995, 2005, 2006).

develop in the academy (Smith et al., 2010).

Rosemary links some of her engagement with activism

Smith et al. (2010, p. 60) argue that another response

in the workplace with the inspiration of a working-class

to neoliberalism in the alienated landscape of the

background and role-models in her family. While a class

university is the deployment by an activist of a ‘duality

Affirming humanity Ann Lawless

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

of purpose’, a merging of activist goals with university

of activism which ask for the courage to face opposition,

goals, one with a strategic intention and purpose. We

contention and conflict.

can see a duality of purpose in this case study when for

This case study challenges stereotypes of activism by

example Rosemary mobilises her activist vision to serve

revealing how activism can be embedded in the daily

the defence of the equity unit against mainstreaming

work practices of the general/professional labour force

and to enable it to continue to function in serving the

of the university and offers conceptions of activist work.

educational aspirations of marginalised communities. In this way the lifeworld asserts with vigour its collegial,

Ann Lawless is a Habermasian scholar, sociologist and critical

collectivist and communicative functions, and does

higher education researcher.

this through the vision and practice of activists in the

Contact: lawlesszest@yahoo.com

academy. Activists that mobilise the ‘duality of purpose’ are lifeworld enablers and make significant contributions to the lifeworld affirming functions of the academy. The features of, and processes of, campus activism emerge in this case study. Rosemary is redefining and interpreting the university, her alternative career in it and reinterpreting one of its core purposes, serving equity and the common good, as a site of emancipatory interests. The work of an equity unit in the academy is seen here to be a potential site of activism and emancipatory interests. As Kemmis (2006, p. 461) has pointed out, the activist stance means truth-speakers bring ‘unwelcome and uncomfortable news’ into the academy. He says of this sort of stance that it will ‘require of those who do it that they display the courage and conviction of the parrhesiastes – the obligation or duty to speak with the greatest courage and conviction we can muster when the time comes to speak honestly to the tyrant, the assembly, the head of the department, or our friend.’

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invisibility in scholarly literature of the activist orientation of general/professional staff in the academy. This is an under-researched area which awaits the attention of future Critical Higher Education researchers. The case study challenges the pessimistic tone of many studies of activism by revealing the optimism and hopefulness of meaning-making and life-affirming practices in activist work. It takes courage and conviction to do this work in the alienated landscape of the corporatised university – and to do so revitalises and energises the lifeworld of campus and its potential, and reaffirms the common good purpose of the university. Alternative conceptions of the university exist. This sort of activism through affirmation of humanity draws from relationship wisdom and remains connected to practices vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

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Wiklund, H. (2005). A Habermasian analysis of the deliberative democratic potential of ICT-enabled services in Swedish municipalities, New Media and Society 7(2), 247-270. Wicks PG. & Reason P. (2009). ‘Initiating action research: Challenges and paradoxes of opening communicative spaces’, Action Research 7(3), 243-267. Wohlmuther, S. (2008). ‘Sleeping with the enemy’: how far are you prepared to go to make a difference? A look at the divide between academic and allied staff, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 30(4), 325-337.

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vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

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Resisting the ‘employability’ doctrine through anarchist pedagogies & prefiguration Natalie Osborne Griffith University

Deanna Grant-Smith Queensland University of Technology

Increasingly those working in higher education are tasked with targeting their teaching approaches and techniques to improve the ‘employability’ of graduates. However, this approach is promoted with little recognition that enhanced employability does not guarantee employment outcomes or the tensions inherent in pursuing this agenda. The increasing focus on employability seems to suggest that the primary role of contemporary higher education is to produce skilled (yet increasingly un/der paid and precarious) workers. Although graduate employment is undoubtedly an important outcome, we do not consider it our primary purpose or the yardstick by which the quality of education (and our teaching) should be measured. To do so would be to cede ground on what the role of higher education is and can be, potentially impacting negatively on both students and those who teach them. Drawing on anarchist pedagogies and prefigurative politics and our own experiences as educators and researchers in vocationally-oriented disciplines, we consider the possibilities for resistance within the academy to the dominant discourses of employability. We highlight the tensions inherent in the neoliberal pursuit of employability, characterising them as fissures through which possibilities for resistance and transformative praxes may take hold and indeed thrive. Keywords: unpaid work, employability, anarchist pedagogies, graduate employment, prefigurative politics, higher education

Introduction: Creating unpaid workers for capitalism?

university education and our teaching is, or should be, assessed (Jackson et al., 2013). Academics have been instructed to re-write and re-structure courses to improve

In recent years there has been an increasing emphasis

the ‘employability’ of our graduates, in everything from

on ‘employability’ as a metric by which the success of a

scientific and vocational fields to arts and humanities.

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Resisting the ‘employability’ doctrine Natalie Osborne & Deanna Grant-Smith

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Further, those tasked with curriculum re-structuring may

workers; and the compression of time and restriction of

or may not be working in positions where this kind of

resources alongside increasing performance expectations,

labour is acknowledged or properly paid for; the increasing

surveillance, and bureaucracy (Fisher, 2009; Giroux, 2016;

casualisation of higher education often precludes access

Hil, 2016; Mountz et al., 2015). So pervasive is this project

to the professional development that informs and

that many academics now believe neoliberalism has

supports curriculum-level work, and sessional contracts

consumed the horizons of education and of universities

may or may not have any allocation for this kind of

in Australia and abroad (Alvanousi, 2009; Brady, 2012;

work. Further, there is seemingly little acknowledgement

Heath & Burdon, 2013; Lorenz, 2012). Proposals for fee

that ‘employability’ does not necessarily equate to

deregulation, for instance, received widespread (albeit

‘employment’ (Brown et al., 2004), or that job seeking is

not universal) support from management across the

largely a zero-sum game. In the context of high graduate

sector, including from Universities Australia (Batterbury

and youth un/deremployment the unspoken reality is that

& Byrne, 2017). The relative lack of overt resistance from

there are not enough jobs, and for every graduate who

academics against the neoliberalisation of the sector (Hil

succeeds in finding work, many others have missed out (Cuervo & Wyn, 2016; Denny & Churchill, 2016). Students’ self-perceived employability (Qenani et al., 2014) has become

the

benchmark

for a university system that requires to

take

most on

& Lyons, 2017), including

In this paper we highlight the pedagogical practices we employ which are aimed at critiquing the professions we ostensibly prepare students for. We also critique the increasing emphasis on unpaid internships...

students

to the reduction of higher education to little more than a conveyor belt transporting workers

from

as it is dangerous. A

preoccupation

employability

considerable

school

industry is as disappointing

above

with all

other educational outcomes

financial debt and to compromise in other life domains

presents an existential threat – not only does it make

(Grant-Smith & Gillett-Swan, 2017; Grant-Smith et al.,

it conceptually easier to reduce or shut down non-

2017). The only way to rationalise that debt is to position

vocational disciplines, particularly in arts and humanities

it as an investment, one that pays dividends upon

departments (see Lyons & Hil, 2015), but it reifies the idea

achieving (white collar) employment. Education for its

that higher education exists to produce ‘oven-ready and

own sake – seeking education in order to become a better

self-basting’ workers (Atkins, 1999, p.267) for capitalism.

thinker, to improve one’s understanding of the world, of

We argue that employability is not the point of education,

others and of oneself – becomes untenable. Taking on a

and that positioning it as such limits, and indeed exploits,

non-vocationally-oriented degree, or any kind of study not

teaching and learning (and our students) and encourages

explicitly tied to enhancing future employment prospects

us, as academics and educators, to become complicit in

becomes characterised as a luxury or irresponsible

this exploitation.

indulgence (Kenway, Boden & Fahey, 2014).

Despite this the neoliberal university is still home to

There have been lamentations for at least the last two

radical scholars and thinkers who work to prefigure

decades regarding the creation of the ‘McUniversity’, the

alternative practices of education, while meeting the

increasing power of management and corresponding

requirements of the qualification they teach into.

diminishing autonomy of academics (Parker & Jary,

However, those who practice such politics occupy uneasy

1995, p.319; Batterbury & Byrne, 2017), alongside the

spaces, and their occupation of such spaces is uneasy.This

near complete capitulation by university administration

article does not seek to resolve the uneasiness inherent

restructuring

to our positions; rather, we explore the transformative

(Thompsett, 2016). Characteristics of the neoliberal

potential within these tensions. We argue that as

university include: the widespread adoption of free-

academics and individuals we must simultaneously work

market ideology and discourse; the construction of

outside the systems of oppression that govern and

students as consumers of education; declining public

oppress (Butler, 2005) while also resisting the neoliberal

spending in teaching and research with resulting

institutionalisation that disciplines us (Pullen, 2016).

neoliberal

policies, reforms, and

emphasis on personal gain, commodification, commercial

This is not a comfortable or unproblematic position

and corporate outcomes; uncoupling higher education

to occupy, and the increasing institutional adoption of a

from ideas of the public good; increased precarity for

range of industry-facing, output-focussed and financially-

Resisting the ‘employability’ doctrine Natalie Osborne & Deanna Grant-Smith

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

centred metrics are not conducive to perpetuating

share experiences of trying to find the everyday, radical

radical, emancipatory, or ‘free’ thought (Kaltefleiter &

potential within fissures in the neoliberal university,

Nocella II, 2012; Mountz et al., 2015). This is particularly

and ways of supporting each other and our students in

the case for early career academics and those in

a radical re-imagining of a different way of doing and

precarious positions, and/or those situated in more

benefitting from higher education.

conservative and technocratic disciplines which have been less accustomed to critique or radical politics. While other contributors to this special issue consider

Applying accidental autoethnography to learn about learning

the links between activism and academia from the perspective of research and outward-facing engagement, we explore the role and implications of resistance to neoliberal discourses and practices in our teaching and internal engagement. Drawing from accidental autoethnography (Poulos, 2010), we employ a series of vignettes to recount our experiences as academics in explicitly vocational disciplines (planning and management respectively)

It is useful for anyone who thinks that they teach to explore their urge to do so. This urge is an intimate matter, the libidinal support for the innocent claim that good ideas ought to be passed on to others. I call the claim innocent in that it usually leaves the good of ideas (and the Idea of the Good) implicit and unexamined; since the good remains unexamined, people may obtusely invoke their mere participation in efficient schooling as evidence that teaching is possible (de Acosta, 2012, p.303).

but whose teaching praxes are informed by critical and radical pedagogies, and who are seeking to contest

Autoethnography is a ‘learning tool’ (Butz, 2010, p.138)

the dominance of the employability narrative with our

for generating knowledge by reflecting on our situated

colleagues, in our classrooms, and in our engagements

standpoints and selves within systems and cultures. This

with students. In this paper we highlight the pedagogical

makes it a particularly appropriate approach for exploring

practices we employ which are aimed at critiquing the

questions of praxis and pedagogy – in a sense, we are

professions we ostensibly prepare students for. We also

learning about learning. It is a way for us to consider

critique the increasing emphasis on unpaid internships

the proposition de Acosta raises in the above quote – to

(an increasingly common form of work-integrated

examine the nature of teaching and learning itself and our

learning or pre-graduation work experience) and their

motivations as educators.

potential to undermine the emancipatory potential

To explore these questions, we take as our data stories

of education and to further implicate the academy in

about our own experiences as early career academics

neoliberalism by supplying not only workers, but unpaid

teaching

workers, for capitalism. Further, we consider how job

order to explore, understand, and engage in critical

obsolescence through automation and computerisation

reflexivity about the context in which we operate,

and the possibility of post-work futures call into question

and how we operate within it (Butz, 2010). Accidental

the uncritical deployment of ‘employability’ as the

autoethnography

primary rationale for education, and the implications of

mundane, everyday moments and informal conversations

this for our pedagogies.

and considers them sites rich with meaning and insight

vocational/professional

elevates

disciplines

relational,

unplanned,

Our experiences provide a space in which to examine

(Fujii, 2015; Kohl & McCutcheon, 2015). This particular

resistance from within, identifying moments of radical

approach to autoethnography, sometimes known as

potentiality in everyday academic existence, and the

‘accidental autoethnography’, is part ‘method’, ‘attitude’,

tensions associated with directing this critical gaze at

and ‘process’ (Poulos, 2010, p.46) and can be understood

our own institutions and disciplines. We reflect on our

as the learning and knowing that emerges when, as

personal attempts to contest the neoliberal construction

researchers, we are trying to know other things (de

of the ‘employable’ graduate that now intrudes upon

Andrade, 2014). That is, as researchers we are situated

higher education (Noterman & Pusey, 2012), and

within institutions, structures, systems, and relationships

to implement elements of radical, transformative

– the act of producing other knowledge also gives us

pedagogies in vocational disciplines, in part by drawing

the opportunity to know things about those institutions,

on our own activist praxes and preferences (Kaltefleiter

structures, systems and relationships.

& Nocella II, 2012). Our goal in this paper is to use these

As such, in this paper we build on our sometimes

vignettes, and analysis of them drawing from radical,

uncomfortable lived and embodied experiences in the

anarchist and prefigurative pedagogies literatures, to

academy, generating narrative accounts by being attuned

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Resisting the ‘employability’ doctrine Natalie Osborne & Deanna Grant-Smith

to everyday moments and encounters.The specific events reflected in our vignettes emerged from a mix of journaling, conversations and interactions, and recollection (Kohl & McCutcheon, 2015).This is not a wholly new approach to research on the neoliberal university – see, for instance Mountz et al.’s (2015) work centred around a series of personal accounts from the authors. Of course, such an

’

The university as it currently exists, is clearly not an institution of our own making. When we work within it, as students and academics, we are grappling with it as a messy and contested space of, often contradictory, values and ethics. On the one hand the role of the university is (increasingly) about social reproduction: creating docile, debt-ridden workers for capital. On the other hand, the university is a potential space of community and commons.

approach to research does not produce outcome-focused findings, nor a set of generalisable statements. Rather,

Let us take seriously this claim that universities – despite

it provides a structure for us to explore the mundane

their neoliberalisation – retain the potential to foster

and relational as sites for the production of experiential

transformative spaces, for ‘community and commons’.

knowledge. Sharing these experiences has the potential

In these institutions not of our own making, where

to connect to the experiences of readers in their own

might we find these spaces for community, commons,

attempts to identify fissures in the neoliberal university.

and resistance in which we can prefigure an education

The knowledge produced through this co-reflection

underpinned by multiple and irreducible motivations,

is thus networked and relational, yet also personal,

including those which cannot be commodified? We

embodied, and situated.

turned to radical and anarchist pedagogical theories, as these offer hope for transformation and for the discovery

Possibilities emerging from anarchist pedagogies and prefigurative politics

of possibilities (Amsler, 2013). The academy, despite its problems, its flaws, its injustices, its sometime violence, is not territory we are willing to cede. Possibilities

Yet another well-meaning colleague has expressed concern that I over-invest in my teaching; prepared too many tailored learning resources, responded too quickly and in too much detail to student emails, spent too much time providing feedback they expect no-one will read. How can we not? Higher education is more than a transaction. I can’t perform as though teaching is merely the transmission of knowledge and skills in neat weekly blocks any more than I can accept that the purpose of higher education is to meet the needs of industry. Education is more than infotainment or teaching to assessment. It is a trust, and a commitment that they will leave me with more than they came with and that I will advocate for, and act in, their interests even before they are mine.

emerge from our occupation of these spaces (DeLeon, 2012); we posit that a prefigurative approach to politics and pedagogy may assist our occupation in productive and nourishing ways. Central to the idea of prefigurative politics is that the new possibilities, institutions, organisations and relationships may be built from, within, and of the systems we currently find ourselves in (Amsler, 2013; Thompsett, 2016). Rather than waiting for a revolutionary moment, we can grow transformative change in the cracks of the present, as imperfect and constrained as that present might be. We can grow, and experiment with, and experience different ways of relating to each other now, and in doing so create

Building on Mark Fisher’s (2009, p. 46) provocative

spaces for new possibilities (Curnow, 2016).The effects of

question:‘Are students the consumers of the service or its

neoliberalism – alienation and precarity, climate change

product?’ we must ask ourselves whether ‘an education’

and other environmental and ecological disasters and

is a product we sell to students, or is ‘getting educated’

economic instability can be understood as opportunities

a service we provide to students? Or, are ‘graduates’ our

to open up fissures in which we can create better modes

product, and are we producing future employees for the

of being (DeLeon, 2012). Automation is opening another

market? Must then our success (or indeed, our funding

fissure – one that destabilises not only ‘employability’, but

– see Harvey, 2017) be measured or apportioned by the

the very idea of ‘employment’ itself (Frase, 2016). In these

proportion of students employed?

spaces we can learn what works, how to better relate to and

As our vignettes will illustrate, we experience extreme

learn with and from one another. Prefiguration also helps

frustration at the seemingly uncritical acceptance of the

avoid the trap of romanticism; universities have always

employability imperative, and the fact that rather than

been exclusive, hierarchical, and flawed. Liberating the

challenging this discourse universities across Australia

university from neoliberalism must mean a fundamental

have, by and large, capitulated to it. But what constitutes

transformation, not a return to the past (Haworth, 2012).

effective action in the present context? Noterman and

As Thompsett (2016, p.62) argues, universities’ ‘recent

Pusey (2012, p.180) argue that:

history does not represent the desertion of a formerly

Resisting the ‘employability’ doctrine Natalie Osborne & Deanna Grant-Smith

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

pure moral pedigree, but merely the capitulation to a new

challenges of youth un/der employment and employment

dominant power: capitalism’.

precarity (badged as entrepreneurialism, the gig economy,

Theories of anarchist pedagogies are often drawn from

or agility) many of us working in higher education have

how learning is done in social movements and other radical

been directed to focus on the employability of our

projects, which have a different orientation toward the

graduates and find ways to embed contact with industry

purpose and content of education, and who is involved in

and potential employers in our courses.

it (Amsler, 2013; Gahman, 2016; Shantz, 2012; Thompsett, 2016).

Such

projects

emphasise

There is a significant body of literature extolling the

empowerment,

virtues of participating in internships, with advocates

possibilities in and for local transformations, enable

promoting the benefits of increased workplace exposure

exchange outside of capitalist frameworks, and engage in

in enhancing graduate employment prospects by

prefigurative politics (Shantz, 2012;Thompsett, 2016).The

developing professional networks and a wide range

goal of anarchist pedagogy is not to produce workers, but

of interpersonal, social and professional skills (e.g.

rather:

Coiacetto 2004; Jackson, 2013). Others, however, highlight

learning should help people to free themselves and encourage them to change the world in which they live…Anarchist pedagogy aims toward developing and encouraging new forms of socialisation, social interaction, and the sharing of ideas in ways that might initiate and sustain nonauthoritarian practices and ways of relating. At the same time it is hoped that such pedagogical practices might contribute to revolutionary changes in people’s perspectives on society, encouraging broader social changes (Shantz, 2012, p.126).

potentially problematic aspects, including the potential

Such an understanding of the purpose of education

to other workers’ (Sukarieh & Tannock, 2017, p.250).

destabilises

the

current,

dominant

narrative

for exploitation and further entrenchment of social and economic class divides (Allen et al., 2013; Grant-Smith & McDonald, 2016; 2017a; O’Connor & Bodicoat, 2017; Regan Shade & Jacobson, 2015). Critics further suggest that the characterisation of work-integrated learning experiences as ‘not working but learning’ can be used to ‘legitimately den[y] a whole raft of rights, protections and claims to wages and working conditions that are granted

Similarly the pedagogical focus of such experiences has

employability. Employability may be a goal in higher

been challenged where ‘instead of “learning to labour”,

education, but it need not be the only goal, nor should

interns are expected to be productive workers’ (Chillas

it uncritically take precedence over all others. Certainly,

et al., 2015, p.1).

the world needs capable and competent workers who

Although unpaid work in the form of work-integrated

possess the skills required to undertake their jobs, but

learning is rationalised based on the purported importance

that’s not all we need.

of experiential learning in an authentic workplace setting, there are increasing critiques of the effectiveness of this

Casting a critical gaze on employability

approach, especially in relation to graduate employment outcomes (Grant-Smith & McDonald, 2017b; Rickhuss,

I hear the snide comment whispered behind me after I question the equity implications of our new targets for participation in work-integrated learning opportunities: ‘If they aren’t willing to do unpaid work experience they obviously aren’t hungry enough to deserve a job’. I wonder if she realises that some of the students who do take up these opportunities actually are going hungry to participate in extended periods of unpaid work. But really what is most troubling is that these students have been conditioned to be grateful for this ‘real world’, if unpaid, experience, believing it to be the difference been future employment and unemployment, and going hungry now is the price they are willing to pay.

2015). There is little empirical evidence to support

The increasing dominance of the employability discourse

popular belief, that young people are not willing to work

in higher education today can be readily understood

– they do and often for free in unpaid internships – but

through the ‘logic’ of neoliberalism in which education

rather it is the combination of the changing nature of

is positioned as an investment in one’s future; the return

work and the employment market and an increasing trend

on this investment is a ‘better’ job. Despite the structural

toward casualisation of the workforce that has created

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

claims that participation results in securing ‘good’ employment or that these benefits are equally shared across disciplines (Peters et al., 2014). Research that suggests that participation helps graduates to obtain employment is typically based on surveys of student (eg. Matthew et al., 2012) or employer (e.g. Gault et al., 2010) perceptions rather than actual employment statistics. Furthermore, such analyses generally overlook the impact of labour market issues, like the supply of graduate jobs, on employment outcomes. Michael Newton (2017) observes it is not, despite

Resisting the ‘employability’ doctrine Natalie Osborne & Deanna Grant-Smith

employment barriers. Within this context, unpaid work has been critiqued as being a prop for neoliberal market economies where ‘capital finds novel ways to offload its

’

cialist; opportunities to pursue particular interests or specialisations; can travel nationally or internationally’. It tastes gritty in my mouth. I don’t just make employees, do I?

responsibilities for a workforce’ (McRobbie, 2002, p. 518) particularly in terms of training and development. It has

Declining public funding is a key characteristic of

also been argued that the expansion of unpaid work may

the neoliberal university, seen across both teaching and

act to cheapen all labour by applying downward pressure

research. As government funding in research declines we

on the wages and employment opportunities of others

are expected to build relationships with industry, in the

in the labour market (Siebert & Wilson, 2013; Standing,

hopes that they will fund our work. It is easy to see how

2011) and create the expectation that participation in

this expectation threatens free, independent and critical

unpaid work is an obligatory rite of passage (Discenna,

research, as well as the very existence of research that

2016). The increasing focus on providing more and

cannot be monetised.We would also argue that embedding

longer work-integrated learning experiences may be a

industry in teaching may have a similarly limiting effect. Is

contributory factor in conditioning both employers and

there a point at which the goal of a robust and critical

graduates to expect that unpaid work is the only path to

education comes into conflict with what employers

paid employment. In this context we must consider anew,

are looking for in graduates? That is, is there a point at

and perhaps defend, the purpose of a university education

which the educated (or rather, educating, as education is

(McDowell, 2004), or at the very least ensure that the

a continual process of becoming) citizen diverges from

rights and safety of students who undertake unpaid

the employable citizen? Arguably, the marketised, heavily

learning through university sponsored or mandated work-

monitored and metrics-driven system we are in,

integrated learning programs are safeguarded.

not a neutral enterprise; indeed for some it can only come

reconstructs the idea of education as a politically barren field of activity, into which no critical life can seep and upon which nothing critically creative or transformative can possibly grow – or indeed, in the framework of the competitive knowledge economy, upon which nothing radically transformative should grow, unless it can demonstrably contribute to the consolidation of elite power (Amsler, 2013, p.1).

at a considerable personal cost and compromise (Brough

If that is the case, and if our view of education includes

et al., 2015; Grant-Smith & McDonald, 2016, 2017a, 2017b;

the possibility for transformative thinking and being, we

Grant-Smith et al., 2017). It is only through the act of

may find ourselves unable to equally or simultaneously

recognising the emotional and embodied experiences

pursue education and employability for our students.

of students’ attempts to enhance their employability

Employers might value the skills attached to critical

that we can we begin to advocate ways of ensuring their

thinking, like the ability to evaluate information, and

wellbeing is protected, and that educational outcomes

critique and defend arguments and positions. ‘Self-

are not sacrificed to graduate employment aspirations

regulation’ is sometimes described as an attribute of

(or worse – metrics) or to attempts to meet the needs of

critical thinking, and that is also likely to be a valuable

capitalism at any cost. It also returns to us our students’

skill to employers (Pithers & Soden, 2000). However, the

humanity as we respond to and recognise them as people

attributes of critical thinking that relate to self-awareness,

rather than numbers.

independence, self-determination and freedom (hooks,

Teaching staff – including tenured academic staff and casual and sessional teachers – are an important line of defence on this front and it is imperative that we remember, and remind others, that participation in workintegrated learning and exposure to the world of work is

2010), and which encourage a critical approach to

(Re)Imagining successful graduate outcomes

power, obedience, and hierarchies may present a threat to some employers. The capacity to analyse, evaluate, and critique with confidence may make employees more

I might be at the Tertiary Studies Expo, or at Open Day, or some other event promoting my employer and our degree offerings. My smile is warm, and so practiced I can sustain it, even hearing, for the fourth time today, the question I loathe: ‘Will my child get a job out of this?’ I give practiced answers: ‘No guarantees of course; tends to be cyclical; affected by the economy; transferable skills; generalist degree rather than spe-

likely to identify and challenge unethical practices in the workplace, and may make them harder to discipline. An effective employee understands and can deftly navigate the systems and structures in which they work. But what of an employee whose critical thinking and reflective practice has developed such that they problematise those same systems and structures? The employee

Resisting the ‘employability’ doctrine Natalie Osborne & Deanna Grant-Smith

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

who recognises that they cannot achieve the goals of

& Messner, 2013), with the goal of developing a critical

ecological sustainability or justice within these structures

reflexivity towards university and other organisational

as they stand, and who may seek to overthrow them all

structures, and a greater appreciation of students’ own

or in part? Perhaps critical thinking pulls us in different

capacity for collective, transformative action.

directions – it is a skill that can be instrumentalised,

This broad approach lends itself to adaptation to

making us effective and desirable employees, and it can

disciplinary differences. Within planning, the first author

give us an orientation to subversion.

explores Nancy Hartsock’s (1983, p. 224) idea of power

This tension is particularly visible in planning

as ‘energy and competence’, and Hannah Arendt’s (1970,

education; planning students often enter their studies

p. 44) notion of power as ‘the human ability not just to

with a commitment to sustainability and justice – a desire

act but to act in concert’.These notions of power, distinct

to ‘save the world’, or at least substantially improve it.

as they are from hegemonic understandings of power as

Some of their education is geared towards this goal. Some

linked to dominance, violence, coercion, and scarcity, are

of it is geared towards learning to profit out of an unjust

used to explore the possibilities of collective activities.

and ecologically destructive system. A planning education

Within management, the second author discusses the

that develops their critical thinking skills may equip them

uses (and abuses) of power in terms of knowledge

with the capacity to develop and deploy the arguments

and the capacity to influence the behaviour of others.

and language they need to get poor developments

Servant-leadership philosophy (Greenleaf & Spears,

approved, to get around planning schemes, to negotiate

2002) and ethical engagement are posited as a means of

the waiving of contributions or commitments that might

exercising organisational, positional and personal power

be in the best interests of the broader community and/

in socially responsible and ethical ways. We include case

or the environment, and the planning project generally.

studies, activities, and assessments that seek to combine

It may also develop their capacity to critique present

critical analysis with identifying opportunities for

systems of planning and development, identify and analyse

positive change, and centre these considerations in our

why cities remain and in many cases, are increasingly

classroom discussions.

inequitable and unsustainable, imagine new possibilities,

This is the tension.We want our students to understand

and create alternatives.These capacities are unlikely to be

the realities of how power operates, and to have a clear-

valued equally by most employers.

eyed, robust understanding of the systems that have

Despite the potential for tension between certain

produced their world as well as the problems many

types of critical thought and employability, potentially

of them are hoping to solve, in full knowledge that in

‘dangerous’ attributes like higher order thinking skills

employment, they themselves will be tasked with the (re)

remain prized and rewarded in education. Bloom’s

production of those systems. But we also want to give

widely used and adapted taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002)

them some kind of hope, some sense of their own, and the

positions analysis, synthesis, critique, argument, and

possibilities of, collective agency. This praxis is inspired

creation as more advanced forms of thinking, and this

by Raymond Williams’ belief that: ‘to be truly radical is to

is reflected in our own rubrics. Students often cannot

make hope possible, rather than despair convincing’. A

receive the highest grades unless they demonstrate their

politics of hope and possibility (Cameron, 2007) must

capacity for critical, analytical and generative thought,

then be the goal of prefigurative pedagogies.

and unless they can name, analyse and debate the political, economic, and social structures that influence (and limit) their vocation and what is possible in it. This

Preparing students for the future work or post-work futures?

is, perhaps, a promising fissure – we have not yet yielded this ground, even in the vocational, often conservative disciplines in which we work. It is important to direct this capacity for critique in a way that opens up possibilities for transformation and that moves beyond the ease of despair. One approach is to subject the structures that shape our classroom experiences and beyond to critical and collective scrutiny in situ. We use shared experiences of university systems to illustrate

Will the person officiating the graduation ceremony mention that study – you know the one – that 40 per cent of all our jobs will be automated imminently? Will he wave that statistic at a room of graduates from largely ‘professional’ programs, and tell them technology is doing them out of a job that they don’t even have yet? I heard it at my PhD graduation – somehow, it failed to inspire. Yep, there he goes! Try not to laugh. Try not to roll your eyes. You might be on the livestream.

structure and agency to students (adapted from Peretz vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Resisting the ‘employability’ doctrine Natalie Osborne & Deanna Grant-Smith

U In

S the

context

L of

increasing

automation

’

and

help imbue our lives with new senses of meaning and

developments in the computerisation of non-repetitive

purpose? What would education in our disciplines look

tasks, scholars and activists are discussing futures with

like if our disciplines were largely de-professionalised?

significantly reduced working hours, and even post-work

These are extraordinarily difficult questions, straying as

futures and full unemployment. Depending on the social,

they do into ideas and imaginaries that evoke science

political, economic and material context in which they

fiction more than what many of us thought our futures

emerge, such futures may be utterly dystopian, utopian or

would look like.

a mix of both (Frase, 2016). Of course a future where work

One

approach

preparing

students

for

the

is drastically reduced or eliminated is far from guaranteed,

de-professionalisation of their chosen profession is to

and the effects of automation and computerisation may be

not create a culture in which they think of themselves

unevenly distributed (Autor, 2015; Frey & Osborne, 2017).

as experts who will wield authority. We can instead

The debate over how likely such futures are is beyond

demonstrate and encourage the rejection of mastery

the scope of this paper, but the possibility presents an

(Halberstam, 2011), and foster ways for students to

interesting question: what kind of currency or benefit

operationalise their education without tying it to

does an education premised on employability offer in

exclusivity, or a specific type of employment – or indeed

such futures?

to employment at all. The planning studio offers a space

There is a persistent streak of dissonance in higher

to do this work. For example, the first author re-designed

education at present; on the one hand, institutions are

an introductory planning studio course to centre tactical

eager to demonstrate that they are responding to the

urbanism. This creates a space to critically interrogate

changes wrought by technology. Face-to-face learning

the forces, organisations and people currently producing

and support services are de-valued, de-emphasised, and

(neoliberal) cities through examples of people’s practical

sometimes de-funded, and there is increasing emphasis

resistance to and creative subversion of them. In doing

on digital interfaces and apps supported by burgeoning

so, it repositions planning as an activity that may be

artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the emerging

undertaken by many people in many ways; that making

obsolescence of many kinds of labour we currently train

collective decisions about how we live and work together

students for is acknowledged and discussed – even at

(Healey, 2006) is something that not only can be done, but

graduation ceremonies – and yet the implication seems to

may indeed best be done, with and through multiplicities.

be not that there is a growing tension in the relationship

The skills and dispositions they are developing in their

between education and employment and work as an idea,

studies do not require employment for legitimation; they

but that students will just need to re-train, or be more

can ‘practice’ as they choose.

‘agile’ in their careers and in how they apply their skills. Employability is increasingly reified by higher education

Conclusion

institutions even as the impact of automation on the fields of many graduates becomes more broadly acknowledged. One place where this tension is tacitly acknowledged is in the discourse of ‘entrepreneurship’ as a companion to ‘employability’. In the face of fewer jobs, students are asked to become entrepreneurs – to take responsibility for making their own job, taking on all the risks, in the context of a diminishing social safety net to catch them should they fail. This dissonance reveals a fissure. What would the role of higher education be in a post-work future? What should we be doing as educators and as learners to prepare ourselves and our students for declining employment, and what is the role of education in working to ensure such an outcome is not catastrophic? Work has long been a dominant component of how our lives are imbued with structure and meaning (Danaher,

As I head back to my office after seven hours of teaching first years, a colleague smiles compassionately and asks, ‘Corrupted them yet?’. ‘Working on it’, I reply, with a wry smile. We often joke about ‘corrupting’ the students with our radical politics, our critiques of capitalism and the necessity of overhauling a system that (re)creates fundamentally inequitable, vulnerable and unsustainable cities. It’s tongue-in-cheek, but why do we think about this as ‘corruption’? Aren’t we the ones seeking to ‘de-corrupt’? What does the notion of corruption-via-exposure-to-critique suggest about how we see our students, how we understand learning? Are we trying to inoculate them against what they’ll find in employment? (If, indeed, they find it?) Is this ‘corruption’ really that I am corrupting them against their future employers? Are my efforts to facilitate a systemic critique, a passionate commitment to a radical reimagining of a more just, more sustainable way to live entangled together on this planet as we are, a desperate act of sabotage? What are the ethics of this?

2017); if that is much diminished, how can education

Resisting the ‘employability’ doctrine Natalie Osborne & Deanna Grant-Smith

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

Prefigurative politics, and the possibility of prefigurative

that connecting ourselves to each other in supportive

pedagogies, offer us hope. Higher education publications

relationships of care, solidarity, mutual obligations,

are filled with stories of depressed and despairing

reciprocity, community and commons is fundamental to

academics, alienated students, crushing and demoralising

resistance within and beyond the academy (Baker, 2016;

managerialism,

Brooks-Tatum, 2012).

precarity,

insecurity,

and

cynicism.

Sometimes we find advice on how to better survive in the

Perhaps what we need to consider is that in resisting

system we’re in – how to be strategic, game the metrics,

and contesting the academy through daily practices we

tick the boxes – even amongst critical and/or progressive

are creating spaces of transformation, even if they are

researchers (McDowell, 2004). Not only is this insufficient,

only small and ephemeral – perhaps we are prefiguring

it will be the end of us. Rather than seeking survival

an entirely different kind of academy. Not just one where

in an ailing system, we must redirect our energies to

employability is not front and foremost, but where we are

transformative change. Following Moten and Harney’s call

creating new ways of relating to and learning with each

to be ‘in but not of’ the university (2004, p. 101), perhaps

other, and where we understand the work of education,

to work at the university means to work on the university.

and the work education does, differently – not in terms

But such change does not have to wait for immediate and

of services to capital or to future employers, but in terms

total overhaul; instead, it can mean locating the fissures in

of services to society, to the planet, to ourselves and to

our everyday work lives, and growing something there.

each other.

This might include, as Thompsett (2016, p. 65) reflects, rethinking classroom pedagogy, or linking universitybased learning with real social struggles, whether they involve university students and/or workers, or take place in the world beyond. If these appear to fall short of revolutionary imaginaries, perhaps this is because we are so attuned to looking for the revolutionary forest that we tend to miss the revolutionary trees.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank the two anonymous peer reviews for their thoughtful and critical engagement with our piece and their suggestions and comments, and to the editors for their assistance, advice, and for the opportunity to contribute to this special issue.

The activities and actions described herein may not yet be ‘revolutionary trees’ but perhaps they

Dr Natalie Osborne is a critical human geographer and

are revolutionary saplings or seeds, or perhaps they

Lecturer in Urban and Environmental Planning at Griffith

demonstrate the possibility of verdancy. They are not

University, with an emphasis on radical spatial politics and

nothing. They occur in the cracks, and thus both prove

social and environmental justice in cities.

the existence of those cracks in the neoliberal university that would very much like us to think it is has none,

Dr Deanna Grant-Smith is a Senior Lecturer in the QUT

and create opportunities to consider alternative ways to

Business School whose current research focusses on the

relate to and learn with one another.

exploitative potential of unpaid work in all its forms.

Relatedly, prefiguration also calls on us to embody and

Contact: n.osborne@griffith.edu.au

enact our ideals and our goals wherever we are (Solnit, 2007). The academy we hope to prefigure centres kindness and care in education and educating; adopting an ethics of care – such as the explicitly feminist and explicitly collective ethics of care advocated by Mountz et al. (2015) – towards our comrades (our colleagues and students) in the here and now is radical and transformative in the neoliberal university. This is not

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What might ‘bad feelings’ be good for? Some queer-feminist thoughts on academic activism James Burford Thammasat University, Thailand

The purpose of this article is to explore how we might understand ‘bad feelings’ and their place in academic activism. The article begins with a proposition that higher education scholarship reproduces certain habits of thinking about affective practices and their political utility. Often ‘strong’ feelings such as hope, anger, and frustration are associated with political agency, whereas ‘weak’ feelings such as depression, numbness and anxiety tend to be written off as political liabilities. This article draws upon queer and feminist debates on affect in order to disrupt these habits of thought. Rather than rushing to pathologise ‘bad feelings’ as politically useless, this article lingers with them, in order that they might teach us something about the complexity of political practice in the contemporary university. By interrogating affective-political norms, this article hopes to expand the pool of affective resources that may be available for academic activism in the present. Keywords: activism, affective-politics, depression, queer theory, feminist theory

It’s a search for utopia that doesn’t make a simple distinction between good and bad feelings or assume that good politics can only emerge from good feelings; feeling bad might, in fact, be the ground for transformation. (Ann Cvetkovich, 2012, p. 3)

often written off as political liabilities. The second thread of the article is theoretical: drawing on a wide body of queer and feminist literature on affect I make the case for higher education researchers to defamiliarise ourselves from common sense understandings of what ‘bad feelings’

Introduction

can and cannot do. Drawing in detail on Cvetkovich’s (2012) study of academic depression, I demonstrate not

This article draws two threads of argument together,

only the limits of some taken-for-granted affective-political

one emerging from higher education scholarship on

narratives, but also show how bad feelings may open up

affective-politics and another surfacing from queer and

possible routes of repair and transformation.

feminist theorisations of negative feeling. I begin the article by considering the ways in which higher education scholarship has tended to code the political utility of

Feeling neoliberalism: Affect as a diagnostic tool

emotions. I track two tendencies in existing research: 1) negative feeling is often used to diagnose political

This article is animated by a question: why might ‘bad

problems, and 2) feelings that are interpreted as positive

feelings’ be important when it comes to academic

and strong, such as hope and optimism, are often seen as

activism? Perhaps the most common way to answer this

resources with political potential, whereas weak or ‘bad’

question is to say that bad feelings matter because they

feelings, such as depression, numbness and anxiety, are

offer critical feedback about what may be occurring in

What might ‘bad feelings’ be good for? James Burford

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

the political sphere. Observing patterns of emotional

19 academics to explore how the ‘spirit’ of the university

suffering across different time periods and among

may have changed. Their poetic texts demonstrate that

differently positioned constituencies might be used to

the impacts of managerialism and the growing emphasis

teach activists things about the impacts of reforms. By

on research productivity reverberate differently for

this understanding affect is diagnostic, and tracing its

variously positioned academic subjects. Rather than stable

distribution can help us to narrate a political scenario.

and predictable, academics are revealed as ‘fragmented

Such a framing moves in the direction of what Margaret

and complex’ (p. 127) and experiencing a range of ‘messy

Wetherell (2012) calls ‘affective practice’, which allows

and contradictory’ (p. 127) emotional responses to these

for the tracking of clusters of feeling ‘across a scene, a site

changes.Yet, there is a clear sense that managerialism ‘gets

or an institution’ (2012, p. 14). Following this logic, we

under [the] skin’ (p. 123) of academics, ‘reshaping how

can look to the emotional sphere to examine the kinds

they feel about themselves, sometimes putting them “at

of affective subjects that tend to be constituted within

odds” with themselves’ (p. 123).

particular spaces, places and times.

This sense of academics being ‘at odds’ with themselves

Such a way of working with affect has become

is also considered by Rosalind Gill (2010) in her chapter

increasingly common in higher education scholarship.

‘Breaking the silence:The hidden injuries of the neoliberal

Indeed, a large body of work has now emerged which

university’. Gill identifies her aim as ‘understanding the

positions higher education climates as uneasy (Smith,

relationship between economic and political shifts,

Rattray, Peseta & Loads, 2016) and ‘on edge’ (Kelly, 2015,

transformation to work and psychosocial experiences’

p. 1158), set as they are within profound changes to

and ‘how we might resist’ (2010, p. 230). She characterises

the conditions and expectations of academic labour.

the academic present as replete with bad feelings such as

Neoliberalism, a form of political economy that ‘validates

‘exhaustion, stress, overload … anxiety, shame, aggression,

and valorises the so-called free market as the primary

hurt, guilt’ (p. 229) and embodied effects like ‘aching

mechanism for all human exchange and interaction’

backs, tired eyes, difficulties in sleeping’ (p. 232). Roger

(Kenway, Boden & Fahey, 2014, p. 261), has resulted in

Burrows (2012) follows up Gill’s work by arguing that

intensified regulation, expanding responsibility, growing

something indeed ‘has changed in the UK academy’ (p.

surveillance and the precaritisation of academic work.

355). Burrows agrees that this change has had injurious

While admittedly these changes are not unlike those

impacts, ‘one can observe it all around; a deep, affective,

in many twenty-first century labour markets, it remains

somatic crisis threatens to overwhelm us’ (2012, p. 355). In

worth considering their specific enactments across

his search for answers Burrows examines the relationship

particular higher education sectors. There is a growing

between ‘metrics, markets and affect’ (2012, p. 355),

consensus among Anglophone researchers from the

arguing that the ‘emergence of a particular structure of

Global North that the combination and intensity of

feeling amongst academics in the last few years has been

these changes to their institutions has shifted the ‘ethico-

closely associated with the growth and development of

emotive ground tone’ of the university (Zipin, 2010).

‘quantified control’ (2012, p. 355). Ordinary academic

The body of work which has explored the affective-

practices such as student recruitment, teaching, applying

political dynamics of the contemporary university is now

for research funding or publishing have all become

well established (Barcan, 2013; Burrows, 2012; Bryson,

‘metricised’ (Burrows, 2012). In the neoliberal university,

2004; Court & Kinman, 2008; Cvetkovich, 2012; Davies,

these metrics ‘function as a form of measure able to

2005; Davies & Petersen, 2005; Ditton, 2009; Gill, 2010;

translate different forms of value. Academic value is,

Grant & Elizabeth, 2014; Hey, 2011, 2013; Kelly, 2015;

essentially becoming monetised’ (Burrows, 2012, p. 369,

Kenway, Boden & Fahey, 2014; Kinman, 2014; Leathwood

italics in original). Burrows leaves the question of the

& Hey, 2009; Pelias, 2004; Saltmarsh & Randell-Moon,

appropriate response for readers to contemplate: ‘other

2014; Sparkes, 2007; Sullivan & Simon, 2014). I do not

than episodic declarations to “KIS my FECing AcSS”, or

intend to rehearse the ins and outs of this entire archive

suchlike, how do we resist?’ (p. 369). How, indeed?

of work. Instead, I will pick out several examples that I view as illustrative, beginning with Vivienne Elizabeth and Barbara Grant’s (2013) article which considers

‘Emotions do things’: Feelings as political resources

how neoliberal transformations to the university are felt by individual academics. Elizabeth and Grant (2013)

In order to approach the question of how academics might

created poetic transcripts from an empirical study with

resist and rework neoliberalism within their institutions I

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

What might ‘bad feelings’ be good for? James Burford

’

suggest that activists and researchers need to think about

that characterises much progressive analysis of the

emotions in an additional way to the ‘diagnostic’ model

contemporary university’ (2014, p. 259). While a body of

I introduced at the outset of this article. While clearly

critical scholarship has been developed, they argue that it is

complex emotional experiences should be understood

questionable whether such work has had a transformative

as influenced by political phenomena, they may also be

impact. As the authors note, on the contrary it seems that

understood, in a more active sense, as forces that steer

‘the situation just gets worse’ (2014, p. 259). In particular,

political decision-making and practice. As the cultural

Kenway, Boden and Fahey question the normative affective

theorist Sara Ahmed has argued, ‘emotions do things’

practice of ‘gloom’ (2014, p. 261) in the production of

creating ‘the very effect of the surfaces or boundaries of

critical higher education knowledge. Expanding from

bodies and worlds’ (2004, p. 117). Ahmed contends that:

Raymond Williams’ argument that ‘to be truly radical is to

we need to consider how [emotions] work, in concrete and particular ways, to mediate the relationship between the psychic and the social, and between the individual and the collective (2004 p. 119)

make hope possible rather than despair convincing’ (1989,

Following Ahmed’s argument here means understanding

the authors set about assembling their own archive of

emotional experiences as not only consequences of

p. 118), Kenway, Boden and Fahey (2014) question whether practices of critique in higher education research have contributed more to the latter than the former. In response, hopeful academic practices.

political processes, but seeing them as constitutive in the

In pursuit of ‘resources of hope’, Kenway, Boden and

construction of the political sphere. If emotions do things,

Fahey (2014) offer examples of both institutions and

this means they can be potential resources for political

individuals who provide compelling alternatives to

thought and practice. Indeed, many critical higher

prevailing neoliberal norms. For institutions, they suggest

education scholars have also written about emotions in

further inquiry into comparatively collaborative models

this way. Those who have called for political intervention

of organisation, such as the Mondragón Co-operative

in universities have often called for radical responses such

Corporation in Spain (Greenwood, Wright & Boden 2011,

as collective action (Gill, 2010; Pereira, 2016), unionisation

41). For individuals, they offer particular ‘figures of hope’

(Thatcher, 2012) and protest (Gill, 2010), which are often

including the cultural theorists Meaghan Morris, Sneja

understood to be animated by particular kinds of feelings.

Gunew and Rosi Braidotti. Describing these scholars as

Indeed, if we take a closer look at how higher education

‘insurgent intellectuals’ (p. 274), Kenway, Boden and Fahey

scholars write about what emotions do politically, we

suggest that their optimism of the will has offered much

can see particular habits of thought that have tended to

needed alternatives to neoliberal discourse. Kenway,

frame the claims made on the affective-political. Certain

Boden and Fahey (2014) also identify hope as residing with

affective practices appear to have achieved ‘an aura of

collective action and ‘civic courage’ (p. 279).They recount

legitimacy, and political recognisability, while others tend

examples of hopeful student activism which coalesced in

to be regarded with suspicion’ (Burford, 2015b, p. 776). On

opposition to budget cuts to the Faculty of Humanities

the recognisable end are ‘strong’ feelings like hope, rage,

and Social Science (HUSS) at La Trobe University, as well as

anger and frustration, which critical scholars have often

2013 staff strikes at the University of Sydney. As a parting

looked to for their capacities to spark collective political

image, Kenway, Boden and Fahey (2014) offer academics

resistance. On the suspicious end are ‘weak’ feelings such

the figure of the ‘man on a wire’. Recounting the story of

as numbness, shame, exhaustion, depression and anxiety,

Phillippe Petit, the young tightrope walker who walked

which seem to offer limited political use.

along a wire suspended between New York’s Twin Towers

A piece that demonstrates the lines of the argument in

in 1974, they remind us that ‘foolish acts can be beautiful,

favour of strong ‘political’ feelings is Jane Kenway, Rebecca

sublime and inspirational’ (p. 281). Such symbolic acts

Boden and Johannah Fahey’s 2014 chapter entitled ‘Seeking

might remind critical academics of ‘the importance

the necessary “Resources of Hope” in the Neoliberal

of optimism of the will, intellect and spirit’ (Kenway,

University’. This paper echoes those I have cited above,

Boden & Fahey, 2014, p. 281). Kenway, Boden and Fahey’s

offering a valuable critique of creeping neoliberalism

hopeful archive is of ‘small spaces’ within academic

in higher education institutions. Despite diagnosing the

practice where, despite the larger picture of declining

current state of higher education as toxic, the authors ask

conditions, ‘academics still manage to find various orders

researchers of academic life and labour to move beyond

of “old fashioned” satisfaction, even pleasure in their

seemingly common ‘dirges of despair’ (p. 259). Kenway,

working worlds’ (Kenway, Boden & Fahey, 2014, p. 261).

Boden and Fahey identify a ‘constant descent into critique

They declare that the ultimate goal of their chapter is

What might ‘bad feelings’ be good for? James Burford

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

to contribute to ‘a new economy of hope, where these

concern is not a general disavowal of projects grounded

precious resources and their strategic utilisation combine

in positive affect, rather it is more narrowly conceived as

so as to achieve a multiplier effect’ (2014, p. 261). For

a project which attends to the capacities of practices that

Kenway, Boden and Fahey, now is the time for academics

tend to be configured on the other side of the affective-

to be audacious, precisely because ‘audacity is in short

political dichotomy. My point is, quite simply, that I am

supply, but cynicism, fear and even hostility and despair

concerned that some affects like cynicism, fear, hostility

are not’ (p. 266).

and depression are frequently written-off without

The remainder of my article might be understood as

due consideration of their agentive capacities. While I

an extended reply to Kenway, Boden and Fahey’s (2014)

understand desires to move academics on from ‘dirges

incisive piece. I claim solidarity with their departure

of despair’ (Kenway, Boden & Fahey, 2014, p. 259), I am

from prevailing practices of critique in higher education

suggesting that it may be politically profitable to think

research, and also share an interest

documenting

the existing ways in which academic life can already be

made

livable.

However, the key area where our projects diverge is that Kenway, Boden and Fahey

about what happens when

While it is my goal to animate queer and feminist concepts in order to tarry with the negative, I wish to be clear that I see this as a continuation of recent higher education thinking on affective-politics rather than a rejection of this work.

(2014) fix their attention

kinds these

transformations negative

felt

experiences might generate. I am hopeful that such an analysis might compliment Kenway, Boden and Fahey’s (2014) useful work, and keep

on the political utility of tracking optimism and hope, whereas I focus mine on

academics feel bad, and the

feelings – both good and bad – in critical circulation.

feelings like depression and burnout. I agree with the

In the section that follows I introduce the queer and

authors that there is no shortage of cynicism, fear, hostility

feminist criticism that my own thinking emerges from

or despair among academic workers, and yet I argue this is

before moving on to reconsider how higher education

why it is so important that we come to understand these

researchers may approach academic depression.

feelings better. It is my view that researchers with an interest in activism (or activists who see research as their day job) should suss out the potential logics and activist

Queer and feminist accounts of the politics of negative feeling

possibilities of such felt experiences that appear to be so prevalent. By advocating for the investigation of these

Over recent years there has been growing interest among

objects I am building on the work of a number of queer

feminist and queer cultural theorists to ‘challenge the

and feminist scholars who have also been thinking about

idea that feelings, emotions, or affects properly and only

the agentic potentials of negative feeling over recent years

belong to the domain of private life and to the intimacies

(Ahmed, 2010; Berlant, 2012; Blackman, 2015; Cvetkovich,

of family, love, and friendship’ (Cvetkovich & Pellegrini,

2012; Love 2007; Probyn, 2005).

2003, p. 1). Instead, within these debates feelings have

While it is my goal to animate queer and feminist

been recast as ‘central to public life, from the deployment

concepts in order to tarry with the negative, I wish to

of affect to produce national patriotism, to the rallying

be clear that I see this as a continuation of recent higher

of audiences on behalf of social forms of oppression and

education thinking on affective-politics rather than a

violence, to passionate calls for activism’ (Cvetkovich &

rejection of this work. Indeed, I myself have participated

Pellegrini, 2003, p. 1). Rather than viewing this work as

in identifying both affective practices that appear to be

situated only within the “affective turn” in cultural theory

politically helpful such as pride (Burford, 2015a), and

and the social sciences, much of this work traces its roots

those that appear to have limited political use, such as the

back to earlier feminist resources including the mobilising

invitation to ‘keep calm and carry on’ writing amid a scene

idea that “the personal is political”. In recent times, queer

of growing pressure on academic subjects to ‘measure up’

and feminist scholars have attended to the emotional

(Burford, 2014, 2015b). It is not my desire to argue against

dynamics of an ordinary life contextualised by economic

scholars who have curated possible pathways for hope

precarity, ongoing wars, racist violence, and enduring

and optimism, and I do not mean to suggest that affects

sexism and homophobia. Much of this work has tracked

like audacity and hope are lacking in activist potential. My

the ways in which emotions are weaponised in the public

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

What might ‘bad feelings’ be good for? James Burford

’

sphere and targeted toward women, and racial and sexual

Probyn, 2005), failure (Halberstam, 2011), depression

minorities, among others.

(Cvetkovich, 2012) and anxiety (Burford, 2015b). Rather

This article builds on a particular strain of queer

than ‘pastoralising or redemptive accounts of negative

and feminist cultural theory that has explored the

feeling that seek to convert it into something useful or

politics of negative affect (Blackman, 2015; Ngai, 2005;

positive’ (Cvetkovich, 2012, pp. 5-6), these scholars have

Wiegman, 2014). These debates have involved attempts

sought to see what potential may come out of negativity

to debunk commonsense attachments to positive

itself. The primary methodology taken up has been one

feelings (Ahmed, 2010; Berlant, 2011; Halberstam, 2011)

of de-familiarisation, whereby commonsense associations

as well as renewed interest in negative affect as ‘offering

of pathology have been re-considered, in order to ask

productive possibilities for political practice and social

questions about the possible routes to agency and

transformation’ (Blackman, 2015, p. 25).

transformation ‘bad feelings’ might open up (Blackman,

At one end, scholars have cast a more critical eye over

2015). Reflecting on why queer theory has such a

the political liabilities of positive affects like pride and

penchant for negative affect, Cvetkovich (2012) sets these

positivity (Halberstam, 2005), happiness (Ahmed, 2010),

debates inside the political disappointments of queer

love (Kipnis, 2003) and optimism (Berlant, 2011). For

activism in the 1990s, ‘as radical potential ...mutated into

example, Ahmed (2010) has critiqued the conventional

assimilationist agenda and has left some of us wondering

‘promise of happiness’, observing the way that feminists,

how domestic partner benefits and marriage equality

queers and migrants are often positioned as troublemakers

became the movement’s rallying cry’ (p. 6).

and ‘killjoys’ who disturb its normative conditions. She

A further example of this strain of work is Heather

also offers a sceptical take on the (heteronormative, racist,

Love’s Feeling Backwards (2007), which explores

sexist) forms of happiness that tend to be promised. In a

why theorists ought to consider the bad feelings of

similar vein Berlant ‘stalks optimism’s cruelty’ (Wiegman,

‘queer’ historical figures not only as evidence of their

2014, p. 6) with the aim of exposing its ability to ‘tether

backwardness, but also to see how these histories of

people to objects that impede their flourishing’ (2014, p.

feeling may have enduring effects. Love problematises

6). Jack Halberstam has also called out the limiting political

the common portrayal of ‘useless feelings’ such as envy,

horizons opened up by certain positive feelings. He has

despair and anxiety as unsuited to political action. To

pointed out the associations of the LGBTI Pride parade

the contrary, Love (2007) argues such feelings may not

with consumerism (2005) and critiqued the ‘saccharine

indicate a disinterest in action, but may instead express

message’ of the “It gets Better” campaign which targets

something about ‘how and why action is blocked’ (2007,

LGBTI young people who are bullied or suicidal with

p. 13). They may even contribute to queer kinds of

messages to hang on to hope. As Halberstam observes,

political activity that are not currently visible. Exploring

‘only a very small and privileged population can say with

the possibilities of often written-off affects is important

any confidence: “It gets better!”’, and videos created by

because, as Love notes, ‘the small repertoire of feelings

‘impossibly good looking and successful people smugly

that count as political – hope, anger, solidarity – have done

recounting the highlights of their fabulous lives is just

a lot. But...a lot is not nearly enough’ (2007, p. 27).

PR for the status quo’ (2010, para. 3). This interest in

Usefully, Love outlines how her argument for a queer

thinking against positive affect is present within existing

politics that encompasses negative affect might work in

higher education scholarship too. For example, Valerie

practice. She describes a Chicago-based group called Feel

Hey (2004) has scrutinised the perverse pleasures of

Tank, which has:

intellectual labour for feminists, and Eva Bendix Petersen (2012) has examined the ‘monstrousness’ of love in the neoliberal university. Yet what has thus far been absent from higher education research is the re-consideration of critically de-valued affective practices and subject positions.

attempted to mobilise negative feelings such as paranoia and despair in order to make social change; they have established public events such as a yearly depression march, where marchers wear bathrobes and slippers, pass out prescriptions for Prozac, and carry placards that say things like ‘Depressed? It might be political’ (Love, 2007, p. 26)

Fortunately, queer and feminist scholars have been attending to this absence. Much queer and feminist

Love’s account here is helpful for the purposes of this

work on affect in recent years has been investigating the

article for at least two reasons. In the first case it supports

possibilities and potentials of feelings that are typically

the broad argument that I am pursuing that queer and

coded as ‘bad’ like shame (Halperin & Traub, 2009;

feminist conceptualisations of affect may offer nuanced

What might ‘bad feelings’ be good for? James Burford

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

methodologies to interrogate commonsense affective-

understand how depression is also a ‘cultural and social

political imaginaries. But in a second and more immediate

phenomenon’ (p. 1) that is linked to structural forces,

sense it is helpful because it is to queer and feminist

such as colonisation, slavery, and neoliberalism. Indeed,

conceptualisations of depression that I turn to next.

she suggests that the word ‘depression’ itself might be a way of describing the felt experience of the legacies of

What can depression do?

violence and discrimination and the ways these forces shape the contemporary political economy. In line with

In her latest book, Depression: A Public Feeling. Ann

Elizabeth Wilson’s (2015) Gut Feminism, Cvetkovich

Cvetkovich (2012) describes her work as one of the ‘cells’

does not dismiss biology outright in order to advance

of a broader scholarly collaboration called ‘Public Feelings’

her social account of depression. Instead, she suggests

which began in 2001. According to Cvetkovich, this group

that an intermediary position, which combines both

of researchers is interested in exploring ‘everyday feelings

psyche and soma, may allow us to avoid numerous

as an entry point on to political life’ (2012, p. 132). She

either/or choices ‘between body and mind, medicine

describes their interest in the ways in which:

and politics, biology and culture, nature and nurture’

the systemic forces of capitalism, racism, and sexism make us feel, and it is curious to work with despair, burnout, hopelessness, and depression rather than dismissing these ostensibly negative affects as debilitating liabilities or shameful failures (2012, p. 132-133).

(Cvetkovich, 2012, p. 104).

Cvetkovich’s (2012) book carves out a unique space

within Cvetkovich’s (2012) queer-feminist approach to

between genres, being part memoir and part critical essay.

depression there are ‘no magic bullet solutions, whether

In this turn to memoir her work can be read alongside

medical or political, just the slow steady work of resilient

a number of other scholars who have explored their

survival, utopian dreaming, and other affective tools

personal experiences of negotiating emotional ill-being

for transformation’ (p. 2). Cvetkovich explains that her

(Davis, 2008; Trivelli, 2014). The memoir component

departure from customary forms of political response

of the book – called ‘The Depression Journals’ – is set

emerges out of questions about whether ‘direct action and

inside Cvetkovich’s working context of academia, where

critical analysis’ still work ‘either to change the world or to

the bumps and isolations associated with developing

make us feel better’ (Cvetkovich, 2012, p. 1). Furthermore,

an academic career (searching for a job, finishing a

simply making the argument that depression is socially

dissertation, writing a first book) as well as activist and

produced also ‘provides little specific illumination and

ordinary life (moving city, the end of a relationship, family

even less comfort because it’s an analysis that frequently

bereavement, the HIV/AIDS epidemic) led to a personal

admits of no solution’ (Cvetkovich, 2012, p. 15). As

struggle with depression, and various forms of treatment.

Cvetkovich notes, ‘saying that capitalism (or colonialism

Importantly, Cvetkovich situates her depression within

or racism) is the problem does not help me to get up in

ordinary academic experience, evoking a context

the morning’ (Cvetkovich, 2012, p. 15). For Cvetkovich, an

that many of us probably know too well, ‘where the

alternative methodology is needed in order to respond to

pressure to succeed and the desire to find space for

academic-activist political despair and burnout.

In addition to critiquing the medical model, Cvetkovich (2012) is also critical of traditional forms of progressive critique. Where Left political analysis might ordinarily ‘advocate revolution and regime change over pills’ (p. 2),

creative thinking bump up against the harsh conditions

The alternative methodology she proposes involves

of a ruthlessly competitive job market, the shrinking

exploring what depression might teach us about our

power of the humanities, and the corporatisation of the

personal and public lives. While as individuals we might

university’ (Cvetkovich, 2012, p. 17). Yet this ordinary

wish to rid ourselves of bad feelings, Cvetkovich suggests

scene also produced extraordinarily powerful feelings,

that taking them as objects of inquiry might facilitate

including a sense that ‘academia seemed to be killing me’

new insights about why they arise and how we might

(2012, p. 18).

repair them. By advocating an approach that would see us

Cvetkovich is critical of the way the medical model

work with depression rather than dismissing it outright,

dominates our responses to depression. She views

Cvetkovich explores responses infrequently considered

psychological narratives of bad events experienced in

within traditional forms of progressive critique. She states

childhood, or biomedical disorders as ways of narrating

that her goal is to produce work that can ‘explain why

social problems as personal ones. For Cvetkovich

we live in a culture whose violence takes the form of

(2012), rather than only a medical disease, we ought to

systematically making us feel bad’ (p. 15), as well as to

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

What might ‘bad feelings’ be good for? James Burford

’

offer ‘some clues to survive those conditions and even to

Let me return to the question I asked in the subheading

change them’ (p. 15). The objective of finding tactics to

above: what can depression do? I suggest that by starting

travel through depression means starting with different

with different feelings, Cvetkovich demonstrates that we

questions. One I have found helpful to ponder is this: if we

can open up different ways of thinking about life in the

accept that feeling bad may be one of the consequences

neoliberal university. Depathologising depression allows

of life in the neoliberal university, then how should we

us to become more curious about what depression may

seek to live our academic lives?

have to teach us about living life and doing politics. I

Cvetkovich found her answers in ordinary practices:

am sure that some readers might be wondering if

‘if depression is conceived of as blockage or impasse or

this discussion simply replaces one prescription for

being stuck, then its cure might lie in forms of flexibility

revolution with another for workplace wellness in a way

or creativity more so than in pills or a different genetic

that evacuates the social and political sphere. I accept

structure’ (p. 21). She details how she addressed her own

that ordinary acts like ‘going swimming, doing yoga,

feelings of despair and stuckness via regular practices that

getting a cat, visiting a sick friend’ (p. 82) may be seen as

‘both accommodate depression and alleviate it’ (p. 26). For

insufficient responses to the political challenges that face

Cvetkovich (2012), the development of everyday routines

us. And yet I find value in Cvetkovich’s work because it

was a key aspect of ‘the reparative work of daily living’

remains sensitive to the ways in which transformation

(p. 26). For example, ordinary self-care practices like

is a ‘slow and painstaking process, open-ended and

swimming and yoga, the construction of a spiritual altar

marked by struggle, not by magic bullet solutions or

at her office, swallowing antidepressant medication and

happy endings, even the happy ending of social justice

making regular trips to the dentist were all important. As

that many political critiques of therapeutic culture

was going for dinner with friends and finding community

recommend’ (p. 80). For Cvetkovich, ordinary routines

in queer and feminist art scenes. Even the memoir writing

are one answer to the difficult questions of what makes

process itself became part of her reparative practice.

life meaningful and how social transformation can occur.

Building on process-based approaches to writing extolled

She offers us tools to think about how the revolution

in popular books like Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird (1995)

and utopia might be made via ordinary habits in our

and Natalie Goldberg’s Feeling down the Bones (2005),

academic lives rather than ‘giant transformations or

Cvetkovich argues that writing can present opportunities

rescues’ (p. 80).

to attend to the present moment. The cultural texts Cvetkovich (2012) analyses in the remainder of her book also highlight everyday practices of sacredness, communal

Conclusion: So, what might ‘bad feelings’ be good for?

feminist ‘craftivism’ and other creative practices that work both alongside and through depression.

It has been my proposition throughout this article

Cvetkovich is careful not to over-claim. She recognises

that critical higher education researchers tend to tell

that the practices she sketches are ‘modest forms of

particular kinds of stories about academic activism,

transformation’ (p. 80), but also wishes to recognise

which reproduce certain habits of thought about the

the meaningful impact they had for her. Indeed, while

transformative capacities of affective practices. In their

she suggests that ‘transformative daily habit’ (p. 76) may

analyses of the changing context of academic work and

be conceived as an ‘antidote to despair and political

what should be done about it, critical higher education

depression’ (p. 80) this suggestion is offered in the form

researchers tend to discern particular emotions which

of a contextualised life story rather than a list of tips

might open onto political practice, and others which

and tricks one might commonly see in the self-help

might forecast the opposite. Often ‘strong’ emotions, such

literature. The lesson that academic activists might draw

as anger or hope are viewed as having significant political

from this is that if academic depression is an ordinary

value, while those affects seen as consequences of the

occurrence, then the responses we contemplate may also

precarious present – such as depression – are viewed

be grounded in daily life rather than ‘the stuff of heroic

as unlikely to transform it. Insofar as some feelings are

or instantaneous transformation’ (p. 80). The point is to

customarily characterised as politically unhelpful, they

do something. Certainly, this something might be small,

afford what the queer theorist Annamarie Jagose (2011)

because sometimes, for some people, and in some places

might call ‘a welcome because improbable’ (p. 518)

‘just getting by’ remains an important political practice

opportunity for rethinking the relationship between

(p. 159).

feeling and politics. It has been my goal in this article to

What might ‘bad feelings’ be good for? James Burford

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

interrupt critical common sense, and to ask questions

Development, 34(4), 776-787. doi:10.1080/07294360.2015.1051005.

about the political utility of bad feelings.

Burrows, R. (2012). Living with the h-index? Metric assemblages in the contemporary academy. The Sociological Review, 60(2), 355-372. doi:10.1111/ j.1467-954X.2012.02077.x.

I would like to circle back to the spark that prompted this article – engaging with Kenway, Boden and Fahey’s (2014) argument in favour of curating examples of ‘spaces of hope’ in the neoliberal university. I agree with the authors, that hope is an important political resource for activist academics. Yet I believe that we ought to remain curious about the other end of the affective spectrum too. While it may be counterintuitive to think of depression as potentially agentic, this article has demonstrated why such queer ways of thinking may be fruitful. This article has not sought to advocate being miserable, instead, I have tried to explore what might happen if concepts from the ‘negative turn’ in queer and feminist theory were brought into contact with higher education accounts of affectivepolitics. Such approaches may call us to re-position the affective-politics of academic work in more messy and multi-directional ways. For example, we might challenge fixed notions of what the political energies of bad feelings may be, or understand that hope and despair often ‘remain entwined’ (Cvetkovich, 2012, p. 2). The significance of this queer-feminist theoretical analysis is that it troubles common sense modes of recognising which affective or political practices may open onto possibility for action in the present. James Burford is a lecturer at the Faculty of Learning Sciences and Education, Thammasat University Thailand. Email: jburford@tu.ac.th

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A career in activism A reflective narrative of university governance and unionism Agnes Bosanquet & Cathy Rytmeister Macquarie University

This paper examines what it means to be an activist and to do activist work in the Australian contemporary university. In a context of globalisation, massification and marketisation, what does academic or scholar activism look like? In a time of political uncertainty about fee deregulation, further cuts to public funding and changes to the income-contingent loans scheme, what does it mean to be an activist or to do activist work? And what happens when activist attention turns to the higher education sector and the operations of the university? This paper examines these broad questions at an intimate level, presenting a reflective narrative of an individual career in academic activism marked by a long-standing scholarly interest in the nature and work of universities, academic and professional roles, teaching experience in multiple disciplines and involvement in union representation. In this paper, the reflections of an individual academic activist, Rosie, are embedded in a contextual discussion of university governance, regulatory and auditing frameworks, the academic workforce, gender inequality, and learning and teaching in higher education in Australia. Keywords: academic activism, university governance, NTEU

This paper examines what it means to be an activist and

funding with contestable funding reliant on market-like

to do activist work in the contemporary university. It

competitive mechanisms. This marketisation reorients

takes as its context the big picture trends of neoliberalism

higher education towards competitive markets on local,

in Australian and international higher education over

national, regional and global scales. It is largely the result

the last three decades: globalisation, massification and

of public policy underpinned by an assumption that

marketisation. The extent to which these factors are

market or quasi-market mechanisms are effective tools

causes or consequences of each other is arguable, but

for the efficient regulation of higher education (Meek,

makes little difference to their observable impact on what

2000). Simultaneously, the increased global mobility of

is now the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;businessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of higher education.

information, finance and people, and the formalisation

Massification refers to the global phenomenon of

of regional trading blocs, removal of trade barriers and

increasing participation in higher education. Australian

establishment of a range of free trade agreements have

higher education is now a mass participation system

impacted higher education.These aspects of globalisation

(30-50 per cent of the school-leaver age cohort enrolled in

have enabled the establishment of global, national and

higher education) and may move into high participation

local markets in higher education and provided an

status (>50 per cent enrolled) in the near future

opportunity to supplement domestic funding with full-

(Marginson, 2015). On its own, massification should lead

fee-paying international students (Marginson, 2004).

to greater demand for academic staff and opportunities

Together the forces of globalisation, massification

for continuing employment. But at the same time,

and marketisation have resulted in a higher education

governments have systematically withdrawn per-student

system marked by increased regulation and reporting

public funding from universities, substituting secure base

(Vidovich, 2002) and widespread casualisation of the

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

A career in activism Agnes Bosanquet & Cathy Rytmeister

’

academic workforce (May et al., 2011). Casual staff

II. This paper demonstrates opportunities to influence

appointments, also known as adjuncts, contingent, non-

change within a values-based conception of academic

tenure track and sessionals, now dominate the higher

identity and purpose.

education sector. Increased labour market flexibility is a key feature of the economic ideology underpinning the

That little voice that annoys

systemic intersection of globalisation, massification and marketisation The negative impacts of casualisation for

Rosie’s academic and activist career is marked by a

individuals are significant and well documented: multiple

scholarly interest in the nature and work of universities,

jobs; high teaching workloads, limited or no research

academic and professional roles, teaching experience in

time, low pay, lack of job security, marginalisation in

multiple disciplines, and involvement in union and political

decision- making, last-minute appointments and minimal

representation. The experience of serving on national

professional learning opportunities (Harvey, 2017). The

policy committees of the National Tertiary Education Union

proliferation of terminology to describe casual or sessional

(NTEU) and participation in local and national advocacy

employment in higher education is illustrative: ‘tenuous

work triggered a particular interest in university governance

periphery’ (Kimber, 2003), ‘frustrated career’ (Gottschalk

and the political, social, economic and human factors that

& McEachern, 2010), ‘post-doctoral treadmill’ (Edwards et

impact on the practice and effectiveness of university

al., 2010) and ‘academic aspirants’ (May et al., 2011). The

governing bodies. With experience as an academic in

related shifts in public policy directions influenced by

Statistics and Education, her current professional role

neoliberalism and ‘new public management’ principles are

leads the coordination of internal and external teaching

felt at all levels of higher education, from macro (national/

development and quality assurance indicators and analytics

sectoral) and meso (institutional) to micro (institutional

across the university. Looking back over fifty years to her

unit and individual).

childhood, Rosie reflects that her stance on social justice

This paper asks:What does academic or scholar activism look like in this context? In a time of political uncertainty about fee deregulation, further cuts to public funding and

and equity, and her identification as an activist, started in her childhood in the 1960s:

narrative to articulate the ‘messiness’ and multiple layers

My parents were quite progressive politically and my father had little lessons he’d pronounce every so often. One of them was, you should always do the right thing. He had this very strong sense of justice – and he said, if you see something wrong, you should stand up for it, even if you’re the only one. I think this came from his wartime experiences, because he was a child of the Holocaust … born in Poland. They were Jewish and ended up fleeing Warsaw and … they ended up in labour camps in Siberia … I think he saw the rise of fascism as popular scapegoating of a whole group of people. He said there were people who knew it was wrong and lots of people didn’t speak up … My mother … always said she was politicised when I started school … She started to think, why are kids being taught this way? What are they being taught? What does it mean? … She was always very insightful, she’s very intelligent and … she’s a thinker … We were otherwise a fairly traditional family. She was at home caring for kids, my dad went to work … When I went to high school she decided she would go to university and, thanks to Whitlam’s change to make it free, she could go.

of academic practice and affect. ‘Messy’ seems an apt

Fast forwarding through the post-World War II

descriptor for the relationship between academic and

modernisation of Australian higher education, we

activist work. We have chosen not to name the individual

encounter the capacity-building agenda of the 1940s and

in this case study as the narrative is not intended to

50s, the establishment of recurrent Federal funding in the

represent a singular story. We use the pseudonym Rosie

late 1950s, formalisation of the binary system (universities

in a nod to the iconic Rosie the Riveter, who represented

and colleges) in the 1960s and the establishment of

women’s participation in the workforce during World War

several new universities to absorb increasing demand

changes to the income-contingent loans scheme, what does it mean to be an activist or to do activist work? And, in universities marked by corporate management structures and audit culture, what happens when activist attention turns to the operations of the higher education sector and the organisation itself? This paper combines personal narrative and political commentary. These broad questions are examined at an intimate level through a rich reflective narrative of an individual career in academic activism embedded in a discussion of university governance, leadership of learning and teaching and the contemporary and historical context of higher education in Australia. Connelly and Clandinin (1990) coined the term ‘narrative inquiry’ to describe analysis through story-telling. Developed to challenge researcher objectivity, narrative inquiry foregrounds lived experiences of a phenomenon. Jones (2011) utilises

A career in activism Agnes Bosanquet & Cathy Rytmeister

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

from the baby-boomer generation. Rosie’s mother, and

principally individual students and their families) (Pick,

subsequently Rosie, started university after the Whitlam

2006). Recent proposed reforms have focused on fee

Labor Government abolished tuition fees in universities

deregulation for Commonwealth-supported students

and colleges in 1974. In 1989 student tuition fees were

(to date effectively resisted politically); reduction in the

reintroduced, albeit in the form of income-contingent

level of funding per student enrolment (with further

loans to be repaid through the tax system on the student’s

reductions proposed in the 2017-18 Federal Budget); and

attainment of a particular income level, the Higher

the extension of government-subsidised places to private

Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) (Forsyth, 2014).

providers and sub-Bachelor awards (Marginson, 2013).

Like her mother, Rosie’s nascent activism was fuelled by

Rosie has been active in questioning these reforms and

education during this time:

their impacts on universities:

When I first went to uni (then an Institute of Technology) … there were a lot of real lefties in there … It was actually in the middle of ideological warfare in the School. The university had appointed this conservative Professor as the Head of the School to sort it out because it had become a hotbed of radicals. The students, of course, were on the side of the hotbed of radicals and there were mass meetings and strikes and walk-outs and arguments and fights and people throwing things at this guy. It was quite turbulent. In subsequent studies at another university in her midtwenties, Rosie became more closely involved in student representation: In those days, it was a very low distance organisation. You got to know your lecturers quite well if you were involved ... I’ve got a very good academic record, so I was noticed I guess … I was a student representative on Academic Senate and [other committees] and supported union strikes and actions and things like that. Rosie’s studies coincided with a period of rapid change in Australian higher education. The ‘Dawkins revolution’ (named for the Labor education Minister from 19871991), post-Dawkins expansion and acceleration during

I use the language of higher education management a lot. You’ll hear me say some fairly horrific things. It sounds like I’m saying management’s horrific things and I’m not, I just play the language game sometimes to make sure I’m heard by people who speak that language… Because of my research and because of my knowledge of the sector … that comes from the work I did with the union … I tell people straight about the horribleness of it. But it’s speaking truth to power. You’ve got to do it. These are my small targeted acts of resistance. That’s what I do. Just that little voice that annoys everyone … but also pricks consciences about passive complicity in the neoliberal agenda. There is a neoliberal agenda, but it’s not just neoliberalism. There’s a rampant individualism that’s being encouraged … That’s shifted the way government handles public policy, from handling public policy as a provider of things to handling public policy as a purchaser of services on behalf of the people … That’s been reflected in universities by … regulatory pressure and continued cuts in funding and the cost shifting of what we do onto students. That turns education into a much more commercial transaction than it’s ever been, for both students and the university. Once you’re looking at commercial transactions, then you have interests other than the traditional interest in quality education taking over.

Howard’s Prime Ministership (1996–2007), resulted in new challenges for university management and

As Rosie points out, the accountability and regulatory

governance, with the rise of multi-campus universities

regimes that Australian universities currently work under

formed through amalgamations of Colleges of Advanced

are manifold, with an increased emphasis on efficiency,

Education,Teachers’ Colleges and Institutes of Technology,

effectiveness, quality and performance of higher education

expansion of student enrolments, a greater level of

systems and institutions, accompanied by development of

accountability required by governments, a shift from State

metrics, regulatory reporting, quality audits and standards

to Federal accreditation and regulation, opening up of new

for qualifications, institutional operations (including

markets for education, the (re)introduction of a ‘user-pays’

governance) and (in some disciplines) learning outcomes

model for student contributions and an accompanying

(Stensaker & Harvey, 2011). Sector-wide, they include

decrease

for

the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency

universities (Marginson & Considine, 2000; Meek & Wood,

(TEQSA), established in 2011 as an independent statutory

2002; Forsyth, 2014). This era laid the foundations for

authority, whose role is to regulate the Australian higher

subsequent higher education policy directions, creating

education sector. TEQSA takes a standards-based and risk-

the conditions for massification, growth in international

proportionate approach to accreditation and audit, using

student enrolments, increased reliance on market and

the Higher Education Standards (HES) framework to

performance-based approaches to funding, and the shift

identify the minimum acceptable institutional conditions,

from public to private funding sources (the latter being

arrangements and levels of performance for the

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

direct

Commonwealth

funding

A career in activism Agnes Bosanquet & Cathy Rytmeister

’

provision of higher education and for the granting of self-

several categories of activism within and beyond the

accrediting status (traditionally a defining characteristic

academy:

of universities) to higher education providers. To date TEQSA has granted full or partial self-accrediting authority (SAA) to only 11 the 123 non-university higher education providers operating in Australia (TEQSA, 2017). Most broadly,government influence on universities works politically through the mechanism of funding. Standards are also applied through the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) for all formal qualifications in Australia, which ensures learning outcomes and levels of attained skills are consistent across institutions; and the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), a metrics-based research evaluation program intended to evaluate the quality of research in Australian higher education institutions and

The first he terms the oppositional professional intellectual … [which] directs us to do political work where we are, in the academy, perhaps through critiques of the production of knowledge and the regimes of truth … A second, related position is that which centres on the building of critical groupings within the academy, using academic resources to build comradely networks, sustaining and nourishing oppositional intellectual communities … So, what of the academic outside the university? … First is the position of the professional political intellectual. Here the call is for direct critical intervention by intellectuals in public debate …. Finally, … the critical organic catalyst [who] … function[s] inside the academy … whilst also being grounded outside the academy in progressive organisations (p. 30).

allow for international comparisons. In addition to these, there are also national surveys of students and graduates

As a representative on university academic governing

(employment, course experience, engagement); various

bodies, a passionate teacher, a union leader and a political

professional bodies that accredit or register professional

party member, Rosie’s activism brings together political

degree programs; and international rankings schemes

work within the academy, networking across the sector,

(Croucher et al., 2013; Marginson, 2013).

and participation in progressive and political organisations

These regulatory and competitive pressures on

outside the university. The descriptor of ‘critical organic

universities are the result of many factors in the

catalyst’ seems appropriate. Shaped by her experiences

intersection

and

as an activist across these spheres, Rosie upholds a

marketisation, but also serve to uphold these processes.

globalisation,

massification

philosophical and ideological approach to education that

From 2000, one driver of the approval process for national

values university as a public good:

standards for higher education (now the responsibility of TEQSA with agreement of the States) was to uphold Australian higher education as a ‘brand’ of high standing and integrity internationally (TEQSA, 2017).This has stood Australia in good stead in the competitive international markets for students and staff.

Accountability and

regulatory systems operate in this way at the macro and meso levels, and are becoming more apparent at the micro level outcomes (Stensaker & Harvey, 2011). The academic work of individuals, especially research output which is readily quantified, is increasingly subject to the measurement of defined metrics (e.g. specific annual targets for research funding, number of publications

We are a public good-producing institution operating in … an increasingly unrestrained market capitalist society worldwide … Holding the line on the meaning and importance of a public good in that context is increasingly difficult, but …has never been more important ... It’s about maintaining this great institution as a public good … My activism in university governance stems from … my intellectual interest in the structures and organisation and politics of it all, and my … more emotional and ideological commitment to education as a public good, and the value of education – the intrinsic value of it – to a society and to people … Education, if done well, can make you a better person, I believe. It makes people better, more insightful, more active, more engaged citizens.

and citations, grant income) (Tyler & Wright, 2004). As

The systems of globalisation, massification and

Burrows (cited in Pereira, 2016) argues, this means that

marketisation – with their emphasis on regulatory

auditing procedures function to ‘enact competitive

pressure, cuts in funding, cost shifting to students, and

market processes’ within the university itself (p. 104). To

commercial interests – work against universities as a

echo Rosie’s words, interests other than quality education

public good (Marginson, 2011). In an indication of the

dominate at all levels.

tensions and contestations for academic activists, the language Rosie uses to describe graduates – insightful,

Holding the line

active, engaged citizens – is the same as that universities emphasise in statements of graduate attributes. Graduate

Blomley (1994) defines academic activism in relation

attributes are the skills, capabilities and knowledge

to West’s concept of ‘intellectual vocation’, identifying

universities want students to have achieved by the

A career in activism Agnes Bosanquet & Cathy Rytmeister

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

completion of their studies. The language of graduate

epistemological understandings and interpretations of

attributes is a complex blend of market-driven and social

reality by offering new insights’ (Skelton, 2005, p. 33). For

reform agendas. A synthesis of the graduate attributes

Rosie, whose teaching focuses on the study of leadership

literature reveals various conceptions of their purpose:

and management in higher education organisations, this

employability, lifelong learning, preparing for an uncertain

means examining the political, social and economic

future, acting for the social good, managing change and

purposes of higher education from multiple perspectives,

community leadership (Winchester-Seeto et al., 2012).

and asking who is included and excluded from

University policies and strategies evoke an uncertain

participating. Rosie makes this explicit, starting classes

future characterised by rapid technological advancement,

and meetings with an acknowledgement of country, in

climate change, resource constraints, political instability

recognition of the fact that learning at university, and the

and social surveillance.In order to manage these challenges,

privilege it bestows on a daily basis and across a lifetime,

graduates require particular capabilities, including the

is the result of the ongoing displacement of the traditional

capacity to manage ambiguity, complexity, flexibility and

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owners of this land.

creativity to solve complex problems, underpinned by

Rosie

describes

herself

teaching

from

a commitment to social justice, community service and

emancipatory interest, following Habermas’s (1972)

a preparedness to enact and lead change (Bosanquet,

theory

knowledge-constitutive

Winchester-Seeto & Rowe, 2014). on

Recent citizen

reconsiders

research scholarship

the

purpose

of graduate attributes and advances maintaining

their

role

universities

in a

interests.

emancipatory

Recent research on citizen scholarship reconsiders the purpose of graduate attributes and advances their role in maintaining universities a public good rather than a private benefit.

public good rather than a private benefit. Arvanitakas

An interest

strives for empowerment, rational

autonomy

freedom,

freeing

and others

from ‘false ideas, distorted forms and

communication

coercive

forms

social relationships which constrain

human

action’

and Hornsby (2015) are explicit that citizen scholarship

(Kemmis & Fitzclarence, cited in Fraser & Bosanquet,

has a critical social mission: ‘we believe that a central

2006).Teaching is a shared struggle towards emancipation

purpose of higher education is to improve the societies in

and functions to challenge common understandings and

which we live and foster citizens who can think outside

practices, and to enable students and teachers to change

of the box and innovate with the purpose of community

the constraints of the (learning) environment. The end

betterment’ (p. 11). This opens up the possibility for

result of an emancipatory interest is ‘a transformation

enacting social and political change:

of consciousness in the way one perceives and acts in

[I am] definitely an emancipist … There’s no point saving the world for the interests of capital. If you don’t upset the systems of power and oppression and control, then you’re not really going to advance … I want everyone to go and be a revolutionary in one way or another … I don’t push an ideology, my strategy in teaching is to get [students] to think .... What’s good for you? What’s good for your family? What’s good for your world? What’s good for your neighbour? What’s good for the society as a whole? What’s good for people you never see? … Our privilege actually comes from someone else’s dispossession. Don’t ever forget that. You’ve got a duty. Being educated puts you in debt to society.

the world’ (Grundy, cited in Fraser & Bosanquet, 2006). Two aspects of transformative learning have particular application to teaching as activism: consciousness-raising (based on Freire, 1970), where students are encouraged to critically reflect on the world and their part in it; and change in perspective (based on Mezirow, 1991) where students are urged to analyse key assumptions within which their perspectives and world views are constructed. Transformative learning involves notions of empowering students as agents of social change (Winchester-Seeto et al, 2017). In other words, students become insightful, active, engaged citizens – Rosie’s ‘revolutionaries’.

Rosie’s teaching is driven by a passion for social change. Defining a social reform perspective on teaching, Pratt and

A place that used to suit me

Collins (2000) refer to teaching as a collective process that examines values and ideologies implicit in social practices

In her doctoral thesis, Activism in the Academy, Lawless

and challenges the status quo. The critical pedagogical

(2012) argues that ‘activism is essential to the lifeworld of

role of the teacher is to ‘disturb the student’s current

the university and that universities need activists and their

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

A career in activism Agnes Bosanquet & Cathy Rytmeister

’

activism in order to engage with communities, educate

board (Senate). The devolution of decision-making from

the next generation and generate new knowledge’ (p.

Government to institution, often referred to as ‘steering

viii). She identifies the work of numerous academics

at a distance’ (Marginson, 1997; Vidovich, 2002) has

who have ‘persisted in preserving and celebrating [the

increasingly required a separation between the functions

university’s] role in civil society and its lifeworld against

of these groups. This separation ensures seemingly

the encroachments of neoliberal inspired systemisation

contradictory

of market logics’ through their teaching, research and

strengthening the university governing board’s internal

community engagement (p. 54). Rosie recognises this

oversight role to support external accountability, as a

encroachment at a personal level:

proxy for direct governmental control of the institution;

Being a student representative on Academic Senate, that’s where I learnt a lot about how the university really works. I’ve always been fascinated with how things work and how education works and I’ve always been interested in education. I tutored kids younger than me, even when I was at school. I guess as I got older, not just education itself, but the politics of education, what makes it what it is. There was sort of no question in my family that I wouldn’t go to university. I mean, it was assumed I would and I have to say it’s a place that suits me, or used to suit me. Maybe not so much now. Rosie learnt about the structures of university governance from within the academic board or Senate. From a political perspective, governance distributes power through organisations. The rules and policies are mechanisms or technologies for distributing power and ensuring accountability for the exercise of power at different levels. Another perspective frames governance as being about value creation, with growing external (i.e. government) expectations of the social and economic value extracted from institutions (Huse, 2007). Governing

aims

are

achieved

simultaneously:

maintaining internal accountability and control via a corporate management structure; and preserving the academic board as a symbol of the core values of independence and autonomy that define the institution as a university. This is how Rosie describes this in practice: A good example: the quality indicators [for learning and teaching] we just devised through a working group went to Senate … All Senate could do, or was empowered to do, was approve the academic worth of using these quality indicators. Operationalising the quality indicators has budgetary implications, because people have to spend money to achieve the outcomes … and that is not the business of Senate, that’s for the University Executive … Senate used to argue over budget when I first joined as a student rep, but that’s now entirely off the agenda… So the nuts and bolts of my activism is often around calling out that pressure, making it explicit. I don’t think we can stop it, but I think people on Senate who are making decisions … should be cognisant of the budget implications of its decisions … If they can then be completely thrown out because there’s a budget contingency, then what’s the point? They’ve got to be meaningful.

bodies also have an important cultural role, involving

This example of Senate’s responsibility for the academic

interpretation between different constituencies and

worth of quality indicators, but not their budgetary

stakeholder groups.For the Council,sitting in the contested

implications, demonstrates how the roles of governance

space that is both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the university, a key

and management in universities are increasingly separate

role is explaining the value and work of the university

but inter-related action systems, although the boundary

to its external stakeholders, and interpreting the demands

between them remains indistinct and subject to

of the outside world to its internal constituencies. For

contestation (Rytmeister, 2009). It is not only the blurred

the academic board (Senate), the meaning-making

boundary between governance and management roles

occurs particularly between academy and executive, and

that makes attempts to draw distinctions between them

between parallel structures like faculties, and between

somewhat problematic; the language used to delineate

the University’s constitutive elements – students, staff and

these action systems is also imprecise. For example,

Council (Rytmeister & Marshall, 2007).

while the term ‘governance’ may be used holistically to

University governance has changed greatly over the

refer to the entire system of academic administration,

last two decades. In particular, the enterprise imperative

inclusive of boards, executive managers, department

(Marginson & Considine, 2000) and the adoption of

heads and committees, it is also used more specifically

structures and practices from the commercial corporate

to refer to the function of, and activities undertaken by,

world (Bennett 2002; Shattock, 2002) have changed the

the overall university governing board. In the latter case,

relationships between the university governing board

‘management’ activities are seen as the preserve of the

(Council), executive management (Vice-Chancellor and

Vice-Chancellor and Executive or senior administrative

senior managers of the university) and the academic

group (Rowlands, 2013).

A career in activism Agnes Bosanquet & Cathy Rytmeister

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Over the last two decades, the NTEU, the industry union open to all higher education and university employees, has played a key advocacy role in higher education policy in the areas of regulation and governance, workforce issues, funding, legislation, and the key areas of university work: learning and teaching, research and community service and engagement. The Union’s broader objectives include maintaining staff participation in governance, ensuring universities work in the public interest, and defending the principles of academic freedom. Rosie has played a leadership role in these union actions: I just gradually moved into union work through campaigning and bargaining and being friends with people. I joined the branch committee. I was on the national Women’s Action Committee … I was … state Assistant Secretary for a term. I was lead bargainer, joint lead bargainer, on the Branch committee all that time, Vice President, and then I became President six and a half years ago. I just stepped down from that six months ago. I was also on the state executive for several terms and the national executive for one … At Branch level, we ran some really good strike actions … We had exam result bans and people went out. Some people were out for two weeks and they were taken off the payroll. It was awe-inspiring …We had around 60 or 70 members off the payroll and they stuck to it … It was a big action to take. It was very brave and they stuck to it and I was absolutely utterly humbled by it. It was incredible.

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I’d do polling booths at elections, and I did preselection counts and things like that, and I’m on the industrial relations working group of the Greens …So local group meetings, going to state delegate councils. I’ve been elected to the Greens political education trust committee, which uses the money that the party gets for public political education. The other thing I do, which is a nice way of combining two things I really love, is sing in two activist choirs, so Ecopella [an environmental choir that sings about the beauty of our world and the struggle to protect it from exploitation and degradation] and Solidarity choir … Solidarity’s original repertoire was largely African songs from the anti-apartheid movement [which] expanded considerably to take in other international struggles for freedom and liberation … We also sing a lot of union songs … It’s incredibly sustaining … to be able to go and sing with people about people’s struggles for liberation … It kind of gives you that sense of international solidarity [and] solidarity through time … What you’re singing about is how strong we are in our diversity when we come together and act together. That’s exactly what a choir does. You’ve got four parts, who all sound completely different, and when you sing in harmony it’s magic … You can see why music is really important to social justice movements. For Rosie, singing in choirs is energising and uplifting, and at times this has sustained her through challenges in her university working life.

Don’t give up

Rosie describes how her work with the union contributed to feminist activism: When we won parental leave … it was the first time the women of the union really showed their power. It was when it became obvious that we had power at the bargaining conference [the Union’s preparation mechanism for collective bargaining]. We’d had an exemplary lead up to it by going through all the state caucuses and coming to women’s conferences and developing a claim of parental leave. We had a campaign. We had badges, we had the nappies on the clothes line hanging up … But we had this campaign and it was running in all the states and everybody – all the branches – all the women were running it… I probably had a calculator, calculating these figures … I madly calculated what this would cost roughly … I got up and I said, look, … I said, it comes to 19 million … I said, it’s peanuts. It’s peanuts. I said, divide it by 40 universities. It’s trivial. It is 0.05 per cent of the salary budget. Not of the university budget, of the salary budget. It’s bugger all… I think it was the first time we’d used the strategy of leading sites with delegation to the national executive to settle the mandatory settlement point for a claim other than pay. I may be wrong about that, but it was a bit of a landmark thing. Consistent with West’s description of the ‘critical organic catalyst’ (cited in Blomley, 1994), Rosie is politically and socially active beyond the university: vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Academic activism is often seen to involve conflicts and incompatibilities between activist and academic roles and standards, but ‘current transformations in academia have … actually created new possibilities for the development of forms of publicly and politically engaged academic practice’ (Pereira, 2016). Rosie offers a nuanced view of the affordances and the challenges for her: It’s been a detraction from my career in a way, in that I couldn’t really have a successful academic career … [but] the [non-academic] job I’ve got now has stemmed from … the knowledge of the sector that I’ve gained through my union work. My political awareness of how to negotiate in this job comes from those years of negotiation. I’m sure part of the reason I was chosen for this job was because the university needs an advocate and a negotiator in implementing the strategy. [There are] negative consequences [for] my family, I guess. My daughter … knows that I’m committed to [activism] and I have to do it. She knows there’s something in me that means I have to do it. But it’s been hard for her. I’ve paid less attention to her than I should have and there have been consequences for her and for me. There’s a bit of a cost to health … I quit my PhD … It does feel bad. It does feel like a failure. It always will. You’ve got to forgive yourself … A career in activism Agnes Bosanquet & Cathy Rytmeister

’

I did have the realisation – this was at the time of … increases in fees, and the screwing over of universities, and cuts, and all that stuff. The horrible things happening here with management and just the rampant managerialism. I realised that researching governance, nobody cares … I was writing insightful things about governance, but no one would take any notice. It wasn’t going to change the way things were. So I went back to union activism because to me that seemed like a better way to raise the issues and try to fight for change. I’m not an academic anymore.

of interest of institutional management, organisations

I want to make it really clear though, having said all that, I don’t regret any of it. I don’t regret any of it … I don’t regret being involved. I don’t regret being active. I’ve gained more out of it qualitatively than it has cost me. When I walk away, I’ll have two choirs to sing in, I’ll have my guitar to play, I’ll have more solo gigs to do, I’ve got more songs to write, and I’ll have a rich, rich circle of friendship and comradeship … I can slot into campaigns, community campaigns, Greens campaigns, whatever. I’ll just slot back into being active and doing that and I’ll have that richness of relationships around me.

contribute to career advancement, and as a rallying site

Academics who take on activist roles are increasingly vulnerable to formal censure.

Academic activism is

conditional, as Pereira (2016) describes it: ‘Institutions embrace critical research and do not raise problems about academics’ activism as long as they produce and keep producing [research outputs]’ (p. 103). Flood et al. (2013) describe the obstacles faced by academics involved in activist work within and beyond university contexts, including risks to job security and advancement, and make suggestions for practical strategies to alleviate these risks.They note the particular challenges of meeting research output expectations for academic activists, due to the nature of their scholarly work and the intended audiences of their activist-oriented research, and offer practical strategies for navigating academic activist careers. Writing in the context of academics’ involvement with community groups, Jackson and Crabtree (2014) articulate the challenge of conflicting priorities and pressures:

such as unions, and individual academic and activist work. Throughout this paper, with a combination of personal narrative and political commentary, we have emphasised how the changing context of higher education both works against and fuels academic activism. The pervasive neoliberalism of academia is impactful for academic activism, both as a driver to repress the practices of activism and participation in activities that don’t of resistance. Rosie offers her advice for those navigating this terrain: Be brave. Be brave. Sometimes speaking out is your best defence. Passivity allows you to be pushed around. I know that nowadays it’s a lot harder, because people are casual and it’s their livelihood at stake if they speak out … [Paraphrasing a well-known folk song] ‘Join the union while you may. Don’t wait till your dying day. That may not be far away, you dirty, blackleg academic.’ Get as involved as you can and don’t give up hope. Spend time with people who you feel believe the same things as you do, because that’s affirming and strengthening, but balance that with spending time talking to people who don’t, because that grounds you in reality …Keep people around you who will challenge you. If you move into a position of power, if you have any power, own that power … Everyone’s got a scope of influence. Knowledge is power. Learn more and use it wisely and ethically. The only way to use power ethically is to be transparent about it and to be consultative about it … Whether it’s just in your classroom leading your students’ learning, or leading an idea in your workplace, you can be a leader, you are a leader. If people are listening to you talk, you’re a leader. Own that. It’s power … I’m saying, be a moral person. That’s my advice. Be aware that you will have compromises if you’re going to be effective and sometimes you do have to do that … You should agonise about them, because you should know exactly what you’re compromising … Know where your own line is … And don’t give up. You will have moments of despair. That’s when you go back to your members, if you’re a union activist, you go back to your members, spend time with your members, see what they’re thinking, know that they are looking to you to help change their lives for the better, but that they have to do that themselves as well. Go back to the constituency. Go and look after yourself a bit. Take some time off. This is all advice I should take myself.

Community-based researchers must answer to institutional metrics and norms alongside the demands of the research and the expectations and agendas of nongovernment groups that are often under-resourced … Generating impact is a complicated process … and contributing to both scholarly understanding and the addressing of real-world problems is an extraordinarily difficult task (Jackson & Crabtree, 2014, p. 150).

activism in university governance and unionism. This

This paper has presented a reflective account of

For academics whose activism centres on the structures

intimate voice has highlighted various tactics for activism

of the university itself, as in Rosie’s case, these challenges

in academic contexts, including using managerialist

have an additional layer of complexity as they navigate

language, speaking truth to power, and engaging in small

the tensions, competing priorities and perceived conflicts

acts of resistance. The reflection also identifies impacts

A career in activism Agnes Bosanquet & Cathy Rytmeister

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

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and risks to career pathways, research activity, health and

NewSouth Publishing.

relationships with family. As with any reflective account,

Fraser, S. & Bosanquet, A. (2006). The curriculum? That’s just a unit outline, isn’t it? Studies in Higher Education, 31(3), 269-284.

there are lots of stories that are not included, and which may form the basis for future reflections, including Rosie’s role as a mentor and mentee, alliances formed, working with diverse stakeholders and union leadership. These stories are important. There is a legacy of unionism in higher education, and it’s time to celebrate, remember and harness the energy of activism in academic contexts.

Acknowledgements Thank you to the anonymous reviewers who welcomed the paper and offered constructive feedback for its improvement. And to all the Rosies out there – thank you, and be brave! Agnes Bosanquet is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Human Sciences at Macquarie University whose research in critical university studies examines changing academic roles and identities Cathy Rytmeister has experience and expertise in higher education policy and governance and leads Quality Assurance and Professional Learning at Macquarie University

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder. Gottschalk, L. & McEachern, S. (2010). The frustrated career: casual employment in higher education. Australian Universities’ Review, 52(1), 37-51. Habermas, J. (1972) Knowledge and human interests (J. Shapiro, trans.) (London, Heinemann). Harvey, M. (2017). Quality learning and teaching with sessional staff: systematising good practice for academic development. International Journal for Academic Development, 22 (1). Huse, M. (2007). Boards, Governance and Value Creation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jackson, S. & Crabtree, L. (2014). Politically engaged geographical research with the community sector: Is it encouraged by Australian’s higher education and research institutions? Geographical Research, 52(2), 146-156. Jones, A. (2011). Seeing the messiness of academic practice: Exploring the work of academics through narrative. International Journal for Academic Development, 16(2), 109–118. Kimber, M. (2003). The tenured ‘core’ and the tenuous ‘periphery’: The casualisation of academic work in Australian universities. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 25(1), 41–50. Lawless, A. C. (2012). Activism in the academy: a study of activism in the South Australian higher education workforce 1998-2008 (PhD thesis, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia). Marginson, S. (1997). Steering from a distance: Power relations in Australian higher education. Higher Education, 34(1), 63-80.

Contact: agnes.bosanquet@mq.edu.au

Marginson, S. (2004). Competition and Markets in Higher Education: a ‘glonacal’ analysis. Policy Futures in Education, 2(2), 175-244.

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REVIEWS

Stemming the attrition of women in STEM Women in Global Science: Advancing Academic Careers through International Collaboration, by Kathrin Zippel ISBN 978-1-503-60149-9, Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 206 pp., 2017. Reviewed by Kate White This book uses the science, technology, engineering

distribution practices, administrative procedures and

and mathematics (STEM) fields as a case study of how

evaluation processes that can privilege the US at the expense

gendered cultures and structures in academia have

of international research collaborations. Nevertheless, she

contributed to under-representation of women. It then

argues there are forward-looking discourses that call for the

highlights how gender relations are reconfigured in

US to maintain its position on the cutting edge by engaging

global academia. Zippel argues that for US women in

in collaborations across the globe.

particular, international collaboration offers opportunities

Women in Global Science explores what Zippel calls

to step outside exclusionary networks at home. While

the .edu bonus that depicts US scholars as competent, and

international collaboration is not necessarily the answer

can benefit academics marginalised at the national level

to gendered inequalities in academia, Zippel considers

by gender, minority background or field.There are various

that it may help to stem the attrition of women in STEM

accounts of how women academics have been able to

fields and develop a more inclusive academic world.

build international networks and have been taken more

Kathrin Zippel is Associate Professor of Sociology

seriously as researchers internationally than at home.Thus,

at Northeastern University in Massachuseets, USA. She

being a woman and a foreigner in another country can be

grew up in Germany and did her first degree at a publicly

a positive combination rather than ‘an accumulation of

funded university. After undertaking postgraduate study

disadvantages’ (p. 26).

in the US, she became an academic there. Her dual

Zippel maintains that glass fences can be a challenge for

German/US citizenship informs her analysis of women’s

women who wish to build international collaborations.

academic careers in the US.

These fences emerge when institutions and individuals

The data for the book were drawn from several related

construct safety abroad as a gender issue. She argues that

projects on international collaboration and mobility. Data

global academia is gendered ‘through the organisation of

on the international experiences of STEM faculty included

academic work around norms, values and expectations

a survey of 100 principal investigators of National Science

that fit the ideal of an elite male global scientist with the

Foundation (NSF)-funded international STEM projects;

personal, social and academic resources to climb fences’

phone and face-to-face interviews with more than 100

(p. 27).

university STEM faculty, and eight focus groups with STEM faculty.

The book challenges the conventional view that family responsibilities make it impossible for academics to

The book argues that while claims of US scientific

engage in international collaborations and mobility and

supremacy persist, the experience of academics in trying

provides examples of how both women and men have

to build international collaboration can be mixed. It notes

managed to juggle dual-careers, family and international

the ‘contrast between faculty perceptions of international

travel. But it claims that if funding agencies and academic

research and collaborations as extremely positive … and

institutions do not provide institutional help for

their experiences of lack of institutional recognition and

academics with families, these obstacles will keep more

support’ (p. 26). Zippel asserts that US funding agencies

women than men from participating in and benefiting

and universities can create obstacles through resource

from international research collaborations.

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Stemming the attrition of women in STEM Reviewed by Kate White

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Zippel concludes that we must eliminate gendered

It is particularly valuable for women in STEM in its analysis

structural barriers – or fences – so that women can play

of the challenges and opportunities that the globalisation

an active role in international science and contribute their

of scientific work can bring for them.

expertise to advancing research and reap the personal and professional benefits of travel and work abroad. This is an important book, especially for early career

Kate White is an author and adjunct associate professor at Federation University, Ballarat, Australia. Her latest

researchers. Given that STEM postdocs in various countries

book (with Pat O’Connor) is Gendered Success in Higher

often head to the US to build their academic careers, it

Education: Global Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan).

provides valuable insights into how US institutions and

Contact: kate.white@federation.edu.au

funding agencies may regard international collaborations.

Psyched up in Adelaide A History of the Psychology Schools at Adelaide’s Universities by Tony Winefield & Ted Nettelbeck (Eds) ISBN 978-1-925261-36-3 (pbk), 978-1-925261-37-0 (ebook), Adelaide, SA, Barr Smith Press, 218 pp., 2016. Reviewed by Michael Proeve

The editors’ note that they were initially invited to edit

a visit in 1948. He found that there was no psychologist at

a book on the history of the School of Psychology at the

the University of Adelaide and only a course in psychology

University of Adelaide. However, they instead decided to

taught in the philosophy department. By 1951, the

take a more inclusive approach and extended the project

first lecturer in psychology had been appointed in the

to encompass the history of psychology in all three

Philosophy Department and the first chair of psychology,

universities in the city of Adelaide, and indeed the state

Malcolm Jeeves, was appointed in 1959. Sixty-five years

of South Australia. The result is that they have produced

after that first appointment, the city of Adelaide can boast

a richer book than might have been, which tells the

three highly performing schools of psychology with

story of the development of psychology, ‘the study of

around 80 academic staff.

mind and behaviour,’ in the state of South Australia. The

The chapters by Tracey Wade, Kurt Lushington and

eight chapters in the book contrast the past and recent

Anna Chur-Hansen concerning recent history at the three

history of the schools of psychology at the University

schools of psychology describe the diversity in research

of Adelaide, Flinders University, and the University of

and teaching offerings as well as the support for applied

South Australia. Chapter authors include past and present

practice at all three universities, although the Flinders

heads of psychology schools at the three South Australian

chapter does not tell us about contemporary teaching

universities as well as other influential and long-serving

activity.These chapters show how psychology has indeed

academics from the South Australian universities.

flourished in Adelaide and South Australia.

The book demonstrates how much psychology as a

I found it interesting to juxtapose these chapters

basic scientific discipline, an applied discipline, and a

of recent history with the chapters describing the

profession, has developed in Adelaide in a relatively short

development of schools of psychology in the three

time. Chapter 2, by Tony Winefield and Malcolm Jeeves,

universities. Although all three universities are active

describes the first tentative steps towards establishing

psychology schools with diverse teaching and research

psychology at the University of Adelaide. Norman Munn, a

endeavours, the origin stories of each of the universities

distinguished author of psychology textbooks from North

differ. Clearly, there are different paths to success.

America, born in South Australia, returned to Adelaide for

Psyched up in Adelaide Reviewed by Michael Proeve

According to the history given by Jeeves and Winefield vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

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about psychology at the University of Adelaide, the

South Australia. In their respective chapters, Kirby and

development of psychology at this university followed

Lushington reflect on the challenges of developing and

a process of gradual expansion, from formation of the

maintaining applied training programs, which include

Department of Psychology in 1956, to growth in staffing,

recruitment of staff members with specific expertise,

teaching and research from 1960 onwards. Research

acquisition of testing resources, pressure for external

interests spread from an early focus on psychometrics and

and internal training opportunities. They also note

neuropsychology to learning research with marsupials,

that increasing regulatory and practice standards and

to human factors research. In addition, academic staff

financial pressures on universities in recent years make

members

it difficult to meet these challenges, with result that some

formed

and

consolidated

collaborations

outside the University in the areas of health, aeronautics,

professional programs have been discontinued.

and intellectual disability. Chur-Hansen’s chapter also

Finally, authors describe social aspects of the

describes further consolidation of research in the areas

schools of psychology in Adelaide. Sporting activities

of modelling decision making, health psychology, and

are an important part of their history, including the

collaboration in defence research. Jeeves and Winefield

idiosyncratic and lawless Australian Rules Volleyball

also describe incremental social change at the University

competition which Winefield describes, the apparently

of Adelaide with the appointment of tenured women

more civilised volleyball code practised at Flinders, and

academics in the 1970s and in the 1990s.

the staff-student soccer matches. Readers may also be

The history of psychology at Flinders, described by Leon

interested in Lack’s recounting of a notorious piece of

Lack and others, seems to have involved more deliberate

Flinders history, the curious incident in which students

planning. Following the decision to establish Flinders

occupied the Registry building and rummaged through

University in the 1960s, interested academics decided that

files of psychology research, and its later repercussions, as

psychology at the new university should complement

students denounced psychology research and psychology

the University of Adelaide by taking a strong focus on

academics and the Australian Psychological Society came

social psychology. However, because it was important to

to their defence. In Adelaidean fashion, readers can also

teach social psychology with an understanding of other

explore the historical connections between psychology

aspects of human psychology, Norman Feather notes

academics in South Australia and other parts by perusing

that there was deliberate recruitment of academic staff

the lists of doctoral students and their supervisors in

with interests in fields such as experimental, personality

chapters 2 and 3 and the list of movements of individuals

and organisational psychology. Feather also describes

between the three universities in chapter 5.

a deliberate approach aimed at fostering research

Reading this book led me to appreciate the efforts of

productivity at Flinders in many areas, through academic

many dedicated individuals over many years to expand

recruitment and visits from prominent overseas scholars.

and consolidate psychology in Adelaide. It also made me

In contrast, the birth of the school of psychology at

nostalgic for aspects of university life which to my mind

the University of South Australia in 1994, as described by

have decreased in these more managerial times. I give

Jacques Metzer, is a story of organisational and ‘political’

two examples: the celebration of colourful characters in

struggle. A group of dedicated academics lobbied for

academia; and the occasions for social connection and

four years, against considerable opposition, to emerge

scholarly discussion, such as daily morning tea time which

from service teaching to other professions to forming a

most staff members attended, and regular Friday drinks.

school of psychology with its own identity. The fact that

Would that we could recapture these and other aspects of

the school was born out of their efforts and then grew

a more collegial university life.

and prospered in professional training and research endeavours is a tribute to those determined academics. Various chapters in the book also describe innovations in applied professional training in psychology, including

In conclusion, I recommend the fond celebration of research and teaching in psychology by the editors and chapter authors in this book to readers who are familiar with or curious about psychology in South Australia.

fourth year diploma training and then masters programs at Adelaide in clinical, health and organisational psychology,

Michael Proeve is a senior lecturer at the University of

development of the first masters clinical psychology in

Adelaide. His restless history includes various periods of

South Australia at Flinders, and development of masters

study and work at all three universities in Adelaide, as well as

and professional doctoral programs in organisational,

a couple of other universities outside South Australia.

forensic and clinical psychology at the University of

Contact: michael.proeve@adelaide.edu.au

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Psyched up in Adelaide Reviewed by Michael Proeve

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Reclaiming the urban economy from urban economics Reconstructing Urban Economics: Towards a political economy of the built environment, by Franklin Obeng-Odoom ISBN 978-1-78360-659-7 (pbk), London, UK, Zed Books, 256 pp., 2016. Reviewed by Andrew Martel Proposing that urban economics is most commonly

via primitive accumulation, expanded reproduction, and

understood in terms of the economics of buildings,

(from Harvey) ‘accumulation by dispossession’ (p. 25), with

construction and real estate, with the tools for analysis

consideration of social and the spatial characteristics of

firmly planted in a mainstream market framework, the

cities from Castells, Lefebvre, and Soja. Georgism, with its

author of Reconstructing Urban Economics endeavours

emphasis on the centrality of land as a source of wealth

to challenge this through a political economy ‘that studies

and focal point for analysing the city, and Post-colonialism,

the economics of cities in its wider social, political,

in particular in highlighting how contemporary capitalism

and ecological aspects’ (p. 18). In doing so, the book is

is entwined with past practices such as colonisation

broad in ambition (undermining the hegemony of neo-

in shaping cities. One of the strengths of the book is its

classical economic orthodoxy), methodological approach

inclusion of multiple references and sources from a range

(through four separate though complementary analytical

of disciplinary fields (there are 36 pages of references) that

frameworks), and scope (covering poverty, the informal

allow for further exploration by the reader, but it is in the

economy,

discussion of post-colonialism that the author draws on the

housing,

transportation,

and

sustainable

development). I come to this review not as an urban

most diverse sources from outside the built environment.

economist, but as a housing researcher with an architectural

The second part looks at the material conditions of cities

and construction background, and as someone often

stemming from economic growth and global trade, and

frustrated with a discourse around housing that insists on

effort is made to evaluate these conditions across a range

applying a simplified, black-and-white, supply-and-demand,

of urban realities, including New York, London and Tokyo

economic framework to complex issues like affordable

(labelled as tier 1 cities), Sydney (tier 2) and Accra (tier 3).

housing, apartment quality and the appropriateness of

The resulting disconnect between mainstream economic

housing design for people with disabilities. So, after a brief

theory and ‘facts on the ground’ prompts a more thorough

overview of the book’s format and contents, the review will

investigation of informal economies and socio-spatial

focus on the housing chapter (Chapter 7), with a view to

inequality (poverty) in urban and regional systems.

assessing its potential usefulness to practitioners, teachers and students of the built environment disciplines.

The third section looks forward to anticipating how a more enlightened and encompassing view of urban

The book is composed into three parts. The first sets

economics may create a ‘socio-ecologically sensitive

out a framework for (re)analysing urban economics using

future’.The three chapters in this section focus on housing,

four theoretical viewpoints and establishing the urban

transportation, and sustainable urban development

challenge, broadly, managing urban growth, but also to

respectively.

understand the dynamic, circular and cumulative (not

The housing chapter begins with a short review of the

equilibrium-approaching) nature of key elements of the

central role housing played in the financial meltdown

urban economy.The viewpoints applied individually and in

in the US in 2008-2009, with its global consequences,

combination throughout the book cover Institutionalism,

although it does not mention that the different structure

an evolutionary and inductive approach to understanding

of housing production in Australia compared to the US

cities through interactions between institutions including

meant a very different outcome here (see Terry Burke

the market, the state, community, church, family, and trade

and Kath Hulse’s 2010 work in Housing Studies for

unions (p. 22). Marxism, through a lens of capital growth

a good account as to why). It is then arranged in three

Reclaiming the urban economy from urban economics Reviewed by Andrew Martel

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

sections, firstly a ‘reconceptualisation of the housing

to the detriment of large institutional investors, resulting

question’, recognising the breadth of the housing market

in recent news reports of Australian superannuation

which includes production, exchange, consumption, and

funds investing $1 billion in affordable housing – but not

management elements across multiple disciplines in

in Australia. Low-end speculation where small investors

forming a complex supply and demand dynamic. A focus

compete against first home buyers for dwellings at the low-

is on insisting that labour market exploitation must be

cost end of the market is as damaging as land speculation

considered as part of the housing equation.

at the high-end. While some initial attempts at partial

The next section reviews a number of supply and

redistribution of housing wealth that have been proposed,

demand side policies proposed to facilitate the efficient

including restricting negative gearing to new dwellings and

running of the housing market when distortions become

stamp duty relief for first home buyers but not investors, are

obvious.This includes the Commonwealth Rent Assistance

a start, putting the house as financial asset genie back in the

(CRA) program, new social housing, the now discontinued

bottle will not be easy. As long as wages growth remains

National Rental Assistance Scheme (NRAS), the American

stagnant, job security tenuous, and pressure is applied to

Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, and

the welfare system, it seems hard to see the flight to real

public-private partnerships as advocated by Jane Jacobs

estate for those who can afford it tapering off.

in the Death and Life of Great American Cities. Viewing

This highlights the dilemma that while it is relatively

these through the prism of Institutionalism, Marxism, and

easy

demonstrate

how

conventional

economic

Georgism, the author concludes that ‘conventional demand-

approaches to the urban environment are flawed, and

and supply-side policies are short sighted and reductionist,

act to consolidate and legitimise an unfair and unequal

[and that they] do not go far enough in correcting a

system, history has shown that widespread redistribution

problem based on systemic inequality and contradictions in

of wealth in any society has only ever happened by means

capitalist cities’ (p.176). Demand-side solutions effectively

of ‘mass mobilisation warfare, revolutions, state collapse,

absolve the state of responsibility, while cost is socialised

or devastating plague’ as Walter Scheidel has shown in

and profit is privatised, and supply-side solutions still end

his book, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of

up delivering most benefits to landlords and investors.

Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century.

The final section includes a call to the right to adequate

So it is probably better to work within the system than to

housing, with a discussion of some of the arguments for

bring it down.To that end, neoliberalism has shown itself to

this including different responses to the neoliberal attack

be nothing if not pragmatic when existing power structures

on public housing policies in many western countries,

are threatened, as David Harvey among others has noted,

as well as some small scale practical building projects

so continued agitation for greater housing quantity, quality,

focussed around self-build and informal (or non-market)

access, and affordability is warranted.

cooperation.

And indeed, the whole point of books such as

It is hard to argue with much of this assessment. In terms

Reconstructing Urban Economics is not to convince that

of housing inequality, almost all of the solutions proposed

a particular approach (or group of approaches) is going

on the demand- and supply-side will make matters worse.

to solve all of the complicated problems of urban growth,

Similar to wealth inequality where the ‘solution’ of more

but to increase our heuristic range that we bring when

economic growth can only, by definition, make things more

assessing and discussing cities. The book reminds us that

unequal as people begin from different (unequal) starting

issues of the urban question around spatial inequality in

points. So not growth but redistribution is required, a

terms of housing, transport, jobs or other metrics, are issues

policy advocated by Engels 120 years ago in response to his

that have historical precedents, are trans-national and

assessment of the housing question which saw problems

trans-cultural, and regardless of the dominant economic

with the quantity, quality, accessibility, distribution and

hegemony of the day, must be continuously challenged.

affordability of houses for the working class. However, in

So when politicians, think-tanks, industry peak bodies, or

mistrusting the government and market, and advocating

universities offer simple solutions that promote the status

the potential of small, community based solutions like self-

quo, books like this one help us to articulate our rebuttals.

building and cooperatives, this largely misses the fact that in Australia a large part of the housing problem is that out tax

Dr Andrew Martel is an Early Career Academic in the Faculty

laws overly favour small, unsophisticated housing investors

of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of

who like small tax breaks, will accept a very low return on

Melbourne, Australia.

investment, and are comfortable with ‘bricks and mortar’,

Contact: aamartel@unimelb.edu.au

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Reclaiming the urban economy from urban economics Reviewed by Andrew Martel

’

Welcome to Zombie U The Toxic University: Zombie leadership, academic rock stars, and neoliberal ideology by John Smyth ISBN 978-1-137-54976-1, London, UK, Palgrave MacMillan, 235 pp., 2017 Reviewed by Barry Down

Sometimes a book comes along that demands to be read.

universities. As a consequence, universities are being

John Smyth’s defiantly entitled book The Toxic University:

construed like any other private company as they are

Zombie leadership, academic rock stars, and neoliberal

absorbed into neoliberalism’s orbit of commodification,

ideology is one of them. John Smyth who has spent the

competition, commercialisation and vocationalisation.

best part of forty years working inside universities is a

What concerns Smyth most is the manner in which

critical sociologist of education, prolific author and

this failed neoliberal experiment is viewed as the primary

academic dissident. Ironically, it has been in academic

arbiter of decisions about the ways in which social life

‘retirement’ that Smyth has found the time to write this

should be organised and, by extension how universities

carefully crafted critique of what’s happening to modern

should be run. In short, neoliberalism has successfully sold

universities and those who inhabit them.

the view that there is no alternative and resistance is futile.

Smyth sets himself the ambitious task of addressing

Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF), one of the

three essential questions: Why have academics been

chief cheerleaders of neoliberalism, has recently admitted

so compliant in acquiescing to the construction of

that this forty-year experiment has been oversold even on

universities as marketplaces? When universities are

its own economic terms of promoting growth.

conceived in econometric terms, what is the effect, and

The paradox, according to Smyth, is that cuts to

what kind of consequences flow? And have universities

university funding advocated by neoliberalism and its

become toxic places in which to work? (p. 2).

functionaries in universities, create the crisis to begin

This is certainly a book for its time as Australian

with and then presents itself as the only possible solution.

universities face an increasingly precarious future both

This means more cuts couched in the contemporary

financially and intellectually. The recent Senate Education

jargon of greater efficiencies, accountability, transparency,

and Employment Legislation Committee’s Report into

productivity and flexibility. In the real world, however,

the Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment

this usually means restructuring and redundancies;

(A More Sustainable, Responsible, Responsive and

campus closures; bullying and other forms of intimidation;

Transparent Higher Education System) Bill 2017 provides

deteriorating staff morale and wellbeing; intensification of

a pertinent backdrop to Smyth’s book.

workloads; metrification of academic labour; a growing

The Senate report recommends further funding cuts and fee increases for students in order to create a more

divide between management and academics; rising levels of casualisation; and excessive administrative burdens.

sustainable and transparent university sector. In response,

In addition, we also have some universities pursuing

the NTEU released a statement arguing that the report

unprecedented union busting (anti-collective) tactics with

should be given ‘a big fail’ because it not only lacks

a view to terminating Enterprise Bargaining Agreements

any critical analysis of the crucial issues confronting

(e.g., conditions, rights, protections, and academic

universities but disregards evidence from staff, students

freedom), litigating against union officials, banning on

and universities about the impact on student services,

campus protests, inhibiting collective meetings and

staffing levels, job security and class sizes.

creating a culture of fear.

In this context, Smyth’s book provides a well-timed

Smyth contends that these neoliberal remedies come

intervention by undertaking the kind of critical analysis

from the playbook of the Chicago Boys, a group of

that appears to be beyond the political elite, university

University of Chicago-trained economists opposed to

managers and many academics. The central contention

socialist ideas and governments. They were instrumental

of this well-argued provocation is that neoliberalism

in laying the groundwork for the overthrow of the Allende

has come to shape all aspects of social life including

government in Chile which was replaced by the Pinochet

Welcome to Zombie U Reviewed by Barry Down

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

’

regime and its prescription of punitive austerity programs

Whilst there is a growing awareness among many

that quickly resonated with governments around the

academics that something is seriously awry with our

western world.

universities, there is far less understanding of the causes

Smyth argues that these toxic policies provided

and consequences. Smyth’s analysis adds a significant

the foundation for governments to withdraw funding

new dimension to these debates by bringing a critical

from public institutions like universities. This means

sensibility to the problem. Especially compelling is

less money for teaching and research, more efficiency

his description of the effects on academic labour as

dividends, increased costs for students and less time

evidenced through a detailed account of the tragic death

for scholarly pursuits. He argues that these cost-cutting

of Professor Stefan Grimm, a professor of toxicology in

policies have profoundly damaged the social fabric of

the Department of Medicine, Imperial College London,

universities because they erode traditional forms of

who took his own life on 25 September 2014 after being

collegiality, critical inquiry, academic freedom, dissent,

threatened with performance management procedures

social criticism and democratic governance and instead,

because he was deemed not to have brought in sufficient

are usurped by pathological and unethical forms of

‘prestigious’ grant money to the university. Based on

corporate managerialism and Zombie leadership.

this sad event, Smyth identifies a set of key lessons by

He adopts the discomforting metaphor of Zombies –

invoking Paul Taylor’s critique of ‘rampant managerialism’

people who appear to be alive but are actually dead –

to confront the proliferation of ‘petty bureaucracy and

to describe the ways in which university leaders deploy

anti-professional controls that are rife within higher

managerial practices borrowed from the corporate world

education’ (p. 166).

to manage scholarly endeavour. The danger, according

Finally, Smyth provides a comprehensive review of

to Smyth, is that university leaders have acquiesced to a

a mounting body of literature (over 100 books) which

set of management practices which have no credibility

critiques the contemporary university. Under the umbrella

or legitimacy because they ‘derive from mystical econo-

of the ‘toxic university’, he organises this annotated

babble (Denniss, 2016) that have no foundation to them

analysis around four emergent themes: (i) ‘damage, despair,

in any efficacious reality’ (p. 86). Nonetheless, there is a

violence and sense of loss’; (ii) the rise of the marketised,

certain rational irrationality about the ways in which

corporate, managed, administrative, neoliberal university’;

university leaders (and staff) buy into these practices

(iii) ‘rampant confusion and loss of way’; and lastly (iv)

which simply serve to reinforce command and control

‘attempts at reclamation, re-invention, re-imagination and

approaches derived from the scientific management

recovery from this ill-conceived experiment’.

principles of Taylorism. This has been ably abetted by a

Smyth’s major contribution lies in his powerful critique

flourishing human resource industry and growing cadre

of current policy trajectories and based on this set of

of managers who increasingly depend on strategic and

understandings how we might begin the thoughtful

costly advice from legal and accounting conglomerates.

work of reclaiming an alternative social imagery of the

In this context, Smyth argues that academic identities are being refashioned by a set of alien buzz words (e.g.,

university based on the principles of democracy, social justice, respect, and critical engagement.

best practices, efficiency, quality, benchmarking, outputs, markets, customers, operational plans, accountability,

Barry Down is Professor of Education at Murdoch University,

flexibility and so on) which mean everything and yet

Perth, Western Australia.

nothing but provide university leaders with ‘a ring of

b.down@murdoch.edu.au

credibility and a reality and legitimacy that they would not otherwise have’ (p. 86). It is in this context, that Smyth provides a potent critique of a host of managerial practices related to target setting, rankings, outputs, excellence, quality and impact all of which are justified on the basis

Reference Denniss, R. (2016). Econobabble: How to decode political spin and economic nonsense. Collingwood. VIV: Black Inc.

of enhancing the university’s brand and reputation in the market place.

vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Welcome to Zombie U Reviewed by Barry Down

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vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

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