university
Deserting academia: Quitting as infrapolitics
Introduction
The summer before embarking on my PhD study, I read Francesca Coin’s research note ‘On quitting’ (2017) with morbid fascination. Work and activism meant that I was aware of some of the issues academics faced before I returned to formal study. I knew that staff had struck that year over changes to their pension scheme, a dispute unofficially fuelled by:
Against innovation: Compromised institutional agency and acts of custodianship
Custodians.online, the first letter
Academe under siege and the atrophy of today’s universities
[T]he marketization of knowledge is one of the world’s greatest threats to democracy. [33].
The labour of academia
The purpose of the contemporary university is being radically transformed by the encroachment of corporate imperatives into higher education. This has inevitable consequences for managerial interventions, funding structures, and teaching and research audits. It also impacts on the working conditions of academic staff in university institutions in terms of teaching, research, administration and public engagement.
Innovation and financialisation: Unpicking a close association
Introduction
Inventions, ideas, new products, and new services are worthless, without a downstream process that turns them into something that convinces people and firms to become customers. (Corrado, 2007: 3)