[ecrea] ephemera CFP: The labour of academia

www.ephemerajournal.org

Call for papers for an ephemera special issue on:

The labour of academia

Issue Editors: Nick Butler, Helen Delaney and Martyna Sliwa

It is well known that the purpose of the contemporary university is 
being radically transformed by the encroachment of corporate imperatives 
into higher education (Beverungen, et al., 2008; Svensson, et al., 
2010). This has inevitable consequences for managerial interventions, 
research audits and funding structures. But it also impacts on the 
working conditions of academic staff in university institutions in terms 
of teaching, research, administration and public engagement. Focusing on 
this level of analysis, the special issue seeks to explore questions 
about how the work of scholars is being shaped, managed and controlled 
under the burgeoning regime of ‘academic capitalism’ (Rhoades and 
Slaughter, 2004) and in turn to ask what might be done about it.

There is a case to be made that the modern university is founded on 
principles of rationalization and bureaucratization; there has always 
been a close link between money, markets and higher education (Collini, 
2013). But the massification of higher education in recent years, 
combined with efforts to reduce the reliance on state funding, has led 
to the university being managed in much the same way as any other large 
industrial organization (Morley, 2003; Deem, et al., 2007). This is 
particularly pronounced in an economy that privileges knowledge-based 
labour over other forms of productive activity, which underlines Bill 
Readings’ (1996: 22) point that the university is not just being run 
like a corporation – it is a corporation. We witness this trend in the 
increasing prominence of mission statements, university branding and 
cost-benefit analysis (Bok, 2009). We also see it in the introduction of 
tuition fees, which turns students into consumers, universities into 
service-providers, and degree programmes into investment projects 
(Lawrence and Sharma, 2002). Universities are now in the business of 
selling intangible goods, not least of all the ineffable product of 
‘employability’ (Chertkovskaya, et al., 2013).

In parallel, there has been a marked intensification of academic labour 
in recent years, manifested in higher work-loads, longer hours, 
precarious contracts and more invasive management control via 
performance indicators such as TQM and the balanced scorecard (Morley 
and Walsh, 1996; Bryson, 2004; Archer, 2008; Bousquet, 2008; Clarke, et 
al., 2012). The personal and professional lives of academic staff are 
deeply affected by such changes in the structures of higher education, 
leading to increased stress, alienation, feelings of guilt and other 
negative emotions (Ogbonna and Harris, 2004).

While many scholars suffer under these conditions, others find 
themselves adapting to the tenets of academic enterprise culture in 
order to seek out opportunities for career development and professional 
advancement. The consequences for the quality of scholarship, however, 
may be far from positive. Indeed, recent studies suggest that academics 
may be more willing to ‘play the publication game’ at the expense of 
genuine critical inquiry (Butler and Spoelstra, 2014). There is a 
palpable sense that ‘journal list fetishism’ (Willmott, 2011) is coming 
to shape not only patterns of knowledge production in higher education 
but also how academics are coming to relate to themselves and their own 
research. These trends suggest that the Humboldtian idea of the 
university – which measures the value of scientific-philosophical 
knowledge (Wissenschaft) according to the degree of cultivation 
(Bildung) it produces – has been superseded by a regime based on journal 
rankings, citation rates, impact factors and other quantitative metrics 
used to assess and reward research ‘output’ (Lucas, 2006).

Some scholars have pointed to the possibilities for resistance to the 
regime of academic capitalism. Rolfe (2013) suggests that what is 
required is the development of a rhizomatic paraversity that operates 
below the surface of the neoliberal university. This would serve to 
reintroduce the ‘non-productive labour of thought’ (2013: 53) into 
university life, thereby emphasizing quality over quantity and critique 
over careerism. Efforts such as Edu-factory may also point towards 
fruitful directions for the future of higher education beyond neoliberal 
imperatives (Edu-factory Collective, 2009). In this special issue, we 
seek to diagnose the state of the contemporary university as well as 
uncover potentialities for dwelling subversively within and outside the 
‘ruins of the university’ (Readings, 1996; Raunig, 2013). Towards this 
aim, we invite submissions that consider the following questions:

* What are the new and emerging discourses of academic work?
* What is being commodified under conditions of academic capitalism and 
what are the consequences?
* How are current trends shaping the way academics relate to themselves, 
their research, peers, students, the public and other stakeholders?
* How does alienation and exploitation occur in the academic labour process?
* In what ways do gender, race, sexuality, age and class matter to the 
study of academic labour?
* What is happening to academic identity, ethos and ideals in the 
contemporary university?
* How do academics cope with the demands and tensions of their work?
* How can we theorise the historical shifts surrounding academic labour?
* How is the academic labour market being polarized?
* What are the varieties of academic capitalism in different terrains?
* How do we account for the historical shift in academic labour?
* What are the rewards and riches of contemporary academic labour?
* How can we imagine alternative choices, collectives, discourses and 
identities in the university?
* Is it worth defending the current conditions of academic work?

Deadline for submissions: 28th February 2015

All contributions should be submitted to one of the issue editors: Nick 
Butler ((nick.butler /at/ fek.lu.se)), Helen Delaney ((h.delaney /at/ auckland.ac.nz)) 
or Martyna Sliwa ((masliwa /at/ essex.ac.uk)). Please note that three 
categories of contributions are invited for the special issue: articles, 
notes, and reviews. All submissions should follow ephemera’s submissions 
guidelines (www.ephemerajournal.org/how-submit). Articles will undergo a 
double blind review process. For further information, please contact one 
of the special issue editors.

References

Archer, L. (2008) ‘The new neoliberal subjects? Young/er academics’ 
constructions of professional identity’, Journal of Education Policy, 
23(3): 265-285.

Beverungen, A., S. Dunne and B.M. Sørensen (2008) ‘University, failed’, 
ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 8(3): 232-237.

Bok, D. (2009) Universities in the marketplace: The commercialization of 
higher education. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Bousquet, M. (2008) How the university works: Higher education and the 
low-wage nation. New York: NYU Press.

Bryson, C. (2004) ‘What about the workers? The expansion of higher 
education and the transformation of academic work’, Industrial Relations 
Journal, 35(1): 38-57.

Butler, N. and S. Spoelstra (2014) ‘The regime of excellence and the 
erosion of ethos in critical management studies’, British Journal of 
Management, DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12053.

Chertkovskaya, E., P. Watt, S. Tramer and S. Spoelstra (2013) ‘Giving 
notice to employability’, ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 
13(4): 701-716.

Clarke, C., D. Knights, and C. Jarvis (2012) ‘A labour of love? 
Academics in business schools’, Scandinavian Journal of Management, 
28(1): 5-15.

Collini, S. (2013) ‘Sold out’, London Review of Books, 35(20): 3-12.

Deem, R., S. Hillyard and M. Reed (2007) Knowledge, higher education, 
and the new managerialism: The changing management of UK universities. 
Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Edu-factory Collective (2009) Towards a global autonomous university. 
New York: Autonomedia.

Lawrence, S. and U. Sharma (2002) ‘Commodification of education and 
academic labour: Using the balanced scorecard in a university setting’, 
Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 13(5): 661-677.

Lucas, L. (2006) The research game in academic life. Maidenhead: 
McGraw-Hill International.

Morley, L. (2003) Quality and power in higher education. Maidenhead: 
McGraw-Hill International.

Morley, L. and V. Walsh (eds.) (1996) Breaking boundaries: Women in 
higher education. London: Taylor & Francis.

Ogbonna, E. and L.C. Harris (2004) ‘Work intensification and emotional 
labour among UK university lecturers: An exploratory study’, 
Organization Studies, 25(7): 1185-1203.

Readings, B. (1996) The university in ruins. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard 
University Press.

Rolfe, G. (2013) The university in dissent: Scholarship in the corporate 
university. London: Routledge.

Rhoades, G. and S. Slaughter (2004)Academic capitalism and the new 
economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: JHU Press.

Raunig, G. (2013) Factories of knowledge, industries of creativity. 
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Svensson, P., S. Spoelstra, M. Pedersen and S. Schreven (2010) ‘The 
excellent institution’, ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 
10(1): 1-6.

Willmott, H. (2011) ‘Journal list fetishism and the perversion of 
scholarship: reactivity and the ABS list’, Organization, 18(4): 429-442.





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