The neoliberal university – what is to be done?

However, changing the psyche is a complex task and some academics may be experiencing extreme degrees of abjection, the symptoms of which might be characterised as a desire to please, workaholism, over-competitiveness and an inability to recognise one’s own agency. For such abjects we set the following tasks:

• Challenge ourselves about why/how we have enfolded ourselves in this particular system.

• Explore what we are afraid of and try to avoid by being compliant, workaholic and over-competitive.

• Visualise the hopeful university as a prelude to making it.

• Resist being governed, become unmanageable whilst committing to responsible self-governance and mutual accountability.

• The re-professionalisation of academic work, discussing and agreeing collective values and responsibilities and thus moving from the capitalist to the collective.

Boden, R. and Epstein, D. (2011) “A flat earth society? Imagining academic freedom”.The Sociological Review, 59:3