Introduction
Having lived through recent decades of neoliberalization of Australian universities, we are writing this book to connect with others concerned about this globally destructive force. Our three main aims are to (1) examine the negative impacts of this process on the production of knowledge deemed marginal and by doing so; (2) contest the neoliberalization of the academy and the normalization of neoliberal values and processes; and (3) consider ideological, epistemological, and practical acts of resistance to the neoliberalization of academia, along with acknowledging attendant constraints. We are aware that one of the terribly clever aspects of neoliberalization is to silence dissent. We refuse this silence and, by writing this book, call on others to engageâwith us and with othersâto tell their stories and of their own methods of resistance, and thereby challenge the neoliberal colonization of knowledge and of the higher education sector. By chronicling the negative effects of the neoliberalization of the university, we examine the deleterious effects on the production and dissemination of knowledge, sometimes referred to as testimony, data, evidence, and interpretation. We do this drawing on our own experience as feminist scholars who research with, and for, marginalized groups including nonhuman animals. In so doing, the book works in and between the borders separating the political from personal, public from private, human from animal, rational from emotional, theoretical from practical, and abstract from embodied.
We start, in this introductory chapter, by outlining some of the effects of the neoliberalization of the academy, including the consequences of neoliberalism for academics, for higher education, and for the production of knowledge. We pay attention to the use of âmetricsâ as a way of determining what, and whose, knowledge should count and to narrowly determine academic value and argue that this is a central part of the marginalization of critical knowledge production.
The Rise of Neoliberalism and Academic Capitalism
In recent decades, higher education in the West has rapidly expanded in scale and orientation, and is being transformed by neoliberalism. Neoliberalism involves the revival and modified (or ânewâ) use of past liberal ideas about individual property rights in deregulated âfree market,â corporate capitalism (Harvey 2005). Advocates of neoliberalism promote the use of private business practices rather than government interventions, prioritizing economic goals over all others, evenâif not especiallyâfor public welfare and higher education (see Beddoe 2014; Ferguson and Lavalette 2006, 2013; Grimaldi 2012; Navarro 2007; Reid 2013). The academy (higher education institutions, particularly universities) is increasingly constituted not in educational but economic terms, with most emphasis given to it as a growing market and lucrative export (Giroux 2002; Heath and Burdon 2013; Metcalfe 2010; Ylijoki 2003). Faculties and departments are now conceptualized as small business units that use New Public Management techniques to prioritize expanding economies of scale, work intensification processes, improved international rankings, and positive identification and association with branding (see Baines et al. 2011; Lorenz 2012; Meyers 2013; Petersen et al. 2010; Smyth 2010). In this âacademic sausage factoryâ (Smith 2000), budget cuts and cost-cutting exercises of all kinds are common, as is the pursuit of a budget surplus also achieved through tuition fee deregulation and fee increases. In this context, we have seen a dramatic casualization of academic work since the 1990s, especially teaching, with low pay for casual academics who usually need to manage larger student to staff ratios (Percy and Beaumont 2008).
While debate still occurs over the extent to which the academy can constitute a market (Marginson 2004), questions are also raised about what neoliberalism really means. As Boas and Gans-Morse (2009, p. 138) note, neoliberalism is a contested concept, one âwhose strong normative character, multidimensional nature, and openness to modification over timeâ has caused much debate over both its meaning and application. While we accept there is slippage around the concept, and one that may need to be resolved if it is to be meaningfully operationalized in empirical work, here we take a broad approach to it, one which associates âneoliberalism with multiple underlying concepts, including a set of policies, a development model, an ideology, and an academic paradigmâ (Boas and Gans-Morse 2009, p. 140). In other words, we see it as both cultural and structural and as having impact at the macro, mezzo, and micro levels.
Following Gonzales and Nunez (2014), we see neoliberalism resting upon the idea that âall goods and services can and should be treated as if they have an exchange valueâ; tied to positivist, quantitative epistemologies; and marginalizing of other forms of knowledge relevant to and/or produced by subjects that are not human, white, middle class, heterosexual, able-bodied, and male. To paraphrase Hawkins et al. (2014, p. 331), the neoliberal university considers certain bodies âout of placeâ (italics in original) and prioritizes âproductive bodiesâ over ânurturingâ ones. Significantly, productivity is placed in opposition to nurturance, a category of emotional labor most expected from women, and often expected to be undertaken âfor love not money.â Originally from Bourdieu, the concept academic capitalism was deployed critically to understand how the acquisition and expression of knowledge and expertise is constituted as a form of cultural capital, in an unfair and stratified society. However, it is also a term that can be used uncritically to champion free-market capitalism and the commodification of knowledge, labor, and everyday life; where specific forms of knowledge and professional expertise become the âhard currencyâ of an entrepreneurial university (Slaughter and Leslie 1997).
The impact of the marketization of universities is being examined across continents, from Australia (Marginson and Considine 2000; Percy and Beaumont 2008) and New Zealand (Shore 2010), the USA (Zermsky and Massey 2005) and Canada (Metcalfe 2010) to Finland (Ylijoki 2003). While initially seen as victims of such a process, universities are adopting, if not embracing, neoliberal values, goals, and processes. To cite Gonzales et al. (2014, p. 1098), universities are engaging âin market-like behaviors at unprecedented levels and from an offensive rather than defensive position.â In turn, âthe universityâs compliance with the imperative to cut budgets and remain flexible has produced a growing class of casual teachersâ (Percy and Beaumont 2008, p. 3). Backed by big business, government, and corporate sectors, as well as a growing number of social welfare leaders, this paradigm shift started in the early 1990s (Percy and Beaumont 2008) but has accelerated in recent years, changing dominant assumptions about what is good, possible, and sustainable.
In the last five years, neoliberalism has been rendered so normative that those who challenge it are likely to be cast as dissenters and troublemakers who unnecessarily, if not naively, interfere with the otherwise smooth (or uncontested) day-to-day operations of âcore business.â Many critics of the neoliberalizing processes in the academy have noted how pervasive and normalized they have become, to the point that they become internalized by many (Davies and Bansel 2010; Slaughter and Rhoades 2004; Slaughter et al. 2004), including through the use of academic internships, which begin in graduate school (Hawkins et al. 2014). Because we are interested to explore and critique the consequences of neoliberalization on the production and dissemination of knowledge, we focus most on the effects for academics in research, teaching, and community engagement roles. We are not suggesting that the impact neoliberalism has on knowledge production is the only, or the most, important consequence of the neoliberal colonization of academia. Rather, it is but one of many consequences, all of which operate in a tangled web that helps to maintain and spread the gospel of neoliberalism.
As Harvey (2005, p. 40) argues, neoliberalism is a covert (and largely successful) attempt to restore class power into the hands of âa small elite who would probably not gain much popular support through other means. But a programmatic attempt to advance the cause of individual freedoms could appeal to a mass base and so disguise the drive to restore class power. Furthermore, once the state apparatus made the neoliberal turn it could use its powers of persuasion, co-optation, bribery, and threat to maintain the climate of consent necessary to perpetuate its power.â Given the inequalities embedded in our schooling systems, particularly those in tertiary education that are currently exacerbated by fee deregulation, it is easy to see how academia becomes embroiled as a âbureaucratic agency of the corporate stateâ (Illich [1971], 2013) in the modern neoliberal push. The aim, it seems, is to produce docile students without critical thinking abilities, who are fully enrolled in ideological notions of individuality and personal success, irrespective of and largely blind to any social costs this entails (see Ahmed 2014; also Chap. 6).
Linked to this is the production (research) and reproduction (teaching) of sanitized knowledge. At the heart of this book is a deep critique of this sanitization through asking questions about how neoliberalism is affecting academicsâ choice of and support for research interests (see, for instance, Rose and Dustin 2009), exercise of autonomy, community involvement, and use of critical pedagogy in and beyond the classroom. Important to neoliberal agendas is the production of âsafeâ knowledge that reiterates the central messages of neoliberalismâthe idea that âsociety should construct and produce self-enterprising individuals solely interested in enhancing their human capitalâ (Shahjahan 2014, p. 221). As many have pointed out, one of the deeply troubling aspects of the neoliberal colonization of academia is âthe ways in which neoliberal reforms diminished the relationships, ideas and subjectivities that maintain critical spaces external to pervasive and increasingly hegemonic rationalitiesâ (Shahjahan 2014, p. 222; see also Giroux 2002).
Neoliberal forces have often been convincing and persuasive in terms of encouraging self-disciplining and censorship to work within the new frames of the entrepreneurial university (see Marginson and Considine 2000; Shore 2010). Like any form of hegemony, what often makes these processes and changes difficult to contest is the seemingly small and benign ways neoliberalism manifests itself in academiaâand here we mean in the administrative, teaching, and research components of our lives as academics. Often, we are complicit in such manifestations partly because individual instances remain unseen and we are discouraged from considering them as a whole where the ideology that underpins them becomes apparent. Values such as individualism an...