Anthropologists in/of the neoliberal academy
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2437
Questo Forum raccoglie brevi interventi di antropologi che con ruoli diversi lavorano in differenti contesti universitari, allo scopo di riflettere su recenti esperienze di riforme neoliberiste del sistema pubblico dell'istruzione superiore. I contributi esplorano processi di neoliberalizzazione dell'università e cambiamenti istituzionali in corso in Australia e Nuova Zelanda, Romania, Danimarca, Grecia, Finlandia, Messico, Stati Uniti, Olanda, Spagna, Canada e Regno Unito. L'obiettivo è quello di costruire una piattaforma che possa ospitare riflessioni critiche sulle trasformazioni attuali dell'accademia e delle relative implicazioni per il futuro dell'antropologia. Auspichiamo che il Forum serva anche a indurre i colleghi alle prese con le conseguenze del vigente regime di austerità a formare una coalizione in favore di una idea di università diversa da quella oggi dominante. Contributi di Cris Shore &amp; Susan Wright, Vintilă Mihăilescu, Sarah F. Green, Gabriela Vargas-Cetina &amp; Steffan Igor Ayora-Diaz, Tracey Heatherington, Dimitris Dalakoglou, Noelle Molé Liston, Susana Narotzky, Jaro Stacul, Meredith Welch-Devine, Jon P. Mitchell.
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Anthropologists in/of the neoliberal academy
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Forum: Anthropologists in/of the Neoliberal Academy
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Filippo M. Zerilli (eds)
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Anthropologists in/of the neoliberal academy
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                                                       2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90




                                                                                                      FORUM




Student-led demonstration, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, February 4, 2015. Overpass Light Brigade, Joe Brusky
photographer. Source: overpasslightbrigade.org/love-light-for-uw-fight-the-cuts/.



Anthropologists in/of the neoliberal academy
Edited by
Tracey HEATHERINGTON & Filippo M. ZERILLI

Contributions of
Cris SHORE & Susan WRIGHT, Vintilă MIHĂILESCU, Sarah GREEN, Gabriela VARGAS-CETINA
& Steffan Igor AYORA-DIAZ, Tracey HEATHERINGTON, Dimitris DALAKOGLOU, Noelle MOLÉ
LISTON, Susana NAROTZKY, Jaro STACUL, Meredith WELCH-DEVINE, Jon P. MITCHELL.




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)
Anthropologists in/of the Neoliberal Academy
2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90.
ISSN: 2239-625X – DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2437
42                                                   ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN/OF THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY




Introduction
Tracey HEATHERINGTON
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
Filippo M. ZERILLI
Uiniversity of Cagliari




    The university, which has long remained one of the most conservative institutional
models, has undergone dramatic transformations in recent years. This is true worldwi-
de, notably due to reforms of the public sector that have intensified the commoditiza-
tion of academic life, activities, roles and “products”. The modality and outcome of
this process is not everywhere the same, as Sarah Green plainly puts it in her contribu-
tion to this Forum. In fact, this collection of short commentaries originated with the
simple idea that while the neoliberalization of the university is a global trend that stron-
gly impacts across different academic systems, it also has some specific, local features
that influence the daily work and lives of students, researchers, teachers and admini-
strators in particular ways. Even within a given national context shaped by the very
same reforms and policies, we might observe specific articulations resulting from the
various ways in which policy changes are introduced and managed, at times accommo-
dated but sometimes resisted, subverted, or challenged by different subjects according
to their visions of the university’s purpose and meaning in society as well as their own
aspired roles. From this perspective, this Forum intends to explore how significant
changes are actually occurring “on the ground”, as it were, by comparing the immedia-
te experiences of colleagues working in a variety of academic roles and settings. Al-
though some of the authors invited to participate in the Forum have produced signifi-
cant expert contributions to the field of audit culture and education 1, our intention is
not to collect new research per se but instead, to gather fresh thoughts and insights by
reflecting on current events and personal observations related to the changing institutio-
nal contexts in which different anthropologists are embedded.
    In this Forum we present contributions related to university settings in various coun-
tries, including Australia and New Zealand, Romania, Denmark, Greece, Finland, Me-
xico, US, Holland, Spain, Canada and the UK. While this selection of cases obviously
cannot offer a geographically comprehensive picture of what is happening at global le-

1. This is an expanding field of research in anthropology, shaped by the influential essay of Cris Shore
and Susan Wright (1999) and a seminal collection edited by Marilyn Strathern (2000).


2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90
TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                            43


vel, we seek to enlarge the sphere of critical and provocative conversations about emer-
ging models of higher education across national contexts. In their introduction to a re-
cent volume on neoliberalism in higher education, Boone Shear and Susan Brin Hyatt
establish «the university as an important location of hegemonic struggle» (2015: 3),
and explore how focused ethnographic research and analysis can help imagine more po-
sitive transformations going forward. We, too, aim to stimulate reflection on the chan-
ging role of the university today in concrete, empirical, ideally ethnographic terms. In
assembling this set of commentaries, however, we asked our contributors for relatively
informal, timely and accessible contributions that can make our perspectives and con-
cerns from inside the academy easier to share with the general public. The immediate,
thoughtful and even passionate responses we received within a very short timeframe
have highlighted just how imperative a topic this is.
    Our Forum opens up with a paper by Cris Shore and Sue Wright whose analysis fra-
mes and resonates with many other contributions here, and particularly with Jon Mit-
chell’s account of the making of academic subjectivities. Drawing on years of systema-
tic research within different university contexts, Shore and Wright make clear that the
neoliberal model is not only transforming the role of the university in society, but also
creating new kind of subjects whose practices and ethos are structured by an emerging
entrepreneurial culture taking root at the heart of the academy. Dimtris Dalakoglou
considers how neoliberal shifts promote entrepreneurial strategies and self-interested
behaviour in academics. Exploring the etymology of idiocy, he insists it is crucial to re-
cognize and challenge the actions of the many “idiots” now circulating in academia,
that is, those simply acting according to selfish interests. Unfortunately, selfish or “idio-
tic” behaviour is often disguised and not always easy to identify as such, especially con-
sidering that the university is traditionally populated by “semi-scholars”, as formulated
by Arnold van Gennep in his inimitable, sardonic description of academic life (van
Gennep 1911). Dalakoglou asks us to take sides, and reassert the moral ethos of com-
mon good.
    In different ways, both Vintilă Mihăilescu for Romania and Jon Mitchell for UK
suggest how difficult it is escaping from the audit regime and its trivial, apparently un-
questionable truths. How could one argue against “teaching excellence” and “best prac-
tices”, or to refuse to submit to “international standards”? However, as their contribu-
tions and others show, behind such apparently non-negotiable concepts and values, the-
re exists considerable discretion. Paradoxically, assuming what is taken for granted and
naturalized as signs of merit might ultimately produce nefarious social and political im-
pacts to research and teaching, two essential activities of university professionals that
are currently undergoing a process of unnecessary and unwanted separation. Yet Sarah
Green reminds us that despite many haunting parallels and convergences across cases,
we should remain attuned to the heterogeneity of neoliberal processes. Examining her
experiences in the UK and Finland comparatively, she reflects that despite many negati-
ve impacts associated with new audit cultures, budget cuts, and moves toward privatiza-

                                             2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90
44                                              ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN/OF THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY


tion in each case, there was no single, inevitable path toward a specific neoliberal mo-
del. Rather, there may be unexpected opportunities to shape the changing university in
positive directions, particularly in national contexts where the public recognizes the va-
lue of higher education as a benefit to society.
   The exploration of alternative moral frames for academic work running through the-
se commentaries indeed suggests broad-based challenges to the ethos of neoliberalism.
This gives some insight into emerging debates and conflicts around educational reform.
Green’s account of university downsizing in liberal Finland resonates with Tracey Hea-
therington’s discussion of Wisconsin, but the latter emphasizes a clash in cultural va-
lues around education, and an evolving social mobilization to protect the core values of
the university. Similarly, Gabriela Vargas-Cetina and Igor Ayora-Diaz consider the
transformation of their own distinguished institution from a research-driven university
into a “public service” university driven by market values. These deep changes to hi-
gher education are determined not only by the Mexican government, but also mandated
by international agencies. They are taking place against an increasingly politicized bac-
kdrop of Oaxacan resistance to general educational reform. Where student mobiliza-
tions against educational reforms have taken place across Europe in response to austeri-
ty measures, these two cases illustrate the growing stakes for teachers and faculty.
   The current transformation of the academic landscape, notably in UK and US, in-
cludes growing symbolic and financial privileges accorded to STEM fields (Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). As Shore and Wright, Heatherington, Na-
rotzky, and Welch-Devine each show, this has serious consequences for what are some-
times perceived as less “relevant” or marginal disciplines in the Arts, Humanities and
Social Sciences. In this regard, the recent diminishing number of faculty in social anth-
ropology in Italy is also telling (Palumbo 2013). Noelle Molé Liston, Meredith Welch-
Devine, and Tracey Heatherington all discuss the problem of growing precarity from
different subject positions in the US context. While Molé Liston and Welch-Devine oc-
cupy untenured positions outside of anthropology departments, Heatherington has wit-
nessed the loss of tenure guarantees as well as challenges to academic freedom within a
state university system. Both Welch-Devine and Heatherington also play complex dual
roles as research faculty and administrators advocating for graduate programs that must
survive in the context of the audit regime. In fact, the significance of neoliberal shifts
for students remains an important concern for many of us. Susana Narotzky, Meredith
Welch-Devine and Jaro Stacul offer three different national perspectives upon the re-
making of academic subjectivities among students, who often have no choice but to de-
dicate more attention to working off campus than to their studies. Here we see how the
increasing precarity of faculty and staff is matched by increasing precarity and debt for
students, affecting the quality of their training in our discipline and consequently, the
discipline itself.




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TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                                45


   It is our hope that this Forum will establish a platform to host and discuss future
contributions on this theme and above all, to move together toward a coalition in favour
of the university as we think it should be. In this, we draw inspiration from the collea-
gues who established the Overpass Light Brigade in Milwaukee, Wisconsin 2. Since
2011, this alliance for creative activism has continued to champion public education
and bring visibility to progressive causes, by lighting up signs above the highways and
public spaces. Over the past five years they have forged a network that spans well
beyond the state, and reminded us how powerful our words, ideas and collective actions
can be. While current policy discourses may tend to reinforce the hegemony of neoli-
beralism, both Tim Ingold (2016) and Tracey Heatherington (this Forum) recognize
expanding local movements to reclaim the model of the public university. If, as Tho-
mas Docherty recently argued (2015: 1), «there is a war on the future of the
university» worldwide, then it is essential that we become engaged, take sides, and de-
cide actively what kind of university we do stand for.
REFERENCES
Docherty, Thomas, 2015, Universities at War, London, Sage.
Ingold, Tim, 2016, Reclaiming the University of Aberdeen, Guest Post by Professor Timothy
       Ingold, University of Aberdeen, http://cdbu.org.uk/reclaiming-the-university-of-aber-
       deen/ (accessed on 19 June 2016).
Palumbo, Berardino, 2013, Messages in a bottle. Etnografia e autoetnografia del campo accade-
       mico antropologico in Italia, La Ricerca Folklorica, 67-68: 169-194.
Shear, Boone W., Susan Brin Hyatt, 2015, Introduction: Higher education, engaged anthropo-
       logy and hegemonic struggle, in Learning under neoliberalism: Ethnographies of gover-
       nance in higher education, Susan Brin Hyatt, Boone W. Shear, Susan Wright, eds, New
       York and Oxford, Berghahn: 1-29.
Shore, Cris, Susan Wright, 1999, Audit Culture and Anthropology: Neo-Liberalism in British
       Higher Education, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 5, 4: 557-575.
Strathern, Marilyn, ed, 2000, Audit cultures: Anthropological studies in accountability, ethics
       and the Academy, London and New York, Routledge.
Van Gennep, Arnold, 1911, Les Demi-Savants. Esthétique comparée. Linguistique. Pathologie
       végétale. Biologie. Ethnographie. Folklore. Epigraphie. Anthropométrie. Critique Littérai-
       re. La synthèse, Paris, Mercure de France.




2. See http://overpasslightbrigade.org.


                                               2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90
46                                                  ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN/OF THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY




Neoliberalisation and the “Death of the Public University”
Cris SHORE
University of Auckland
Susan WRIGHT
Aarhus University


ABSTRACT: The advance of neoliberalism is often linked to what many authors describe as the
“death of the public university”. Taking up this theme, we explore the idea of the “neoliberal uni-
versity” as a model and its implications for academia. We argue that this model is having a trans-
formative effect, not only the core values and distinctive purpose of the public university, but also
on academic subjectivities of the professional ethos that has traditionally shaped academia.


   In February 2016 the Delhi University sociologist Satish Deshpande published an
article in the Indian Express entitled “Death of the Public University”. Deshpande ar-
gues that India’s once robust public university system – one of the few vehicles for so-
cial mobility in the country – is fast being destroyed. He cites three main reasons for
this: first, the rise of an increasingly detached Indian elite «who can afford first world
fees, and who no longer care about Indian institutions»; second, the encroachment of
private players into the lucrative Indian higher education market; and third, the steady
erosion of governance structures that has fuelled ad hocism, incoherence and a chronic
lack of care in policy-making. Academic autonomy, he says, has now become a «shield
for the arbitrary authoritarianism of pliant academic administrators eager to implement
every whim of the regime in power». He concludes «The net effect of all this is that the
public university is shrinking in stature; instead of the confident, open and liberal insti-
tution that it once was, it is becoming insecure, narrow-minded and conservative»
(2016).
   Deshpande was writing about India, yet his criticisms could equally be applied to
England, Chile, Australia or New Zealand. These countries have also witnessed the
opening up of higher education to private providers, the complicity of politicians in dis-
mantling the structures of governance that previously guaranteed autonomy and aca-
demic freedom, and the domination of once self-governing institutions by a bloated ad-
ministrative caste of senior managers for whom higher education is to be treated as a
business, much like any other commercial enterprise. These developments are the cu-
mulative outcome of a steady series of reforms, initiated during the 1980s by success-
ive neoliberal-inspired governments, which have sought to make public universities
more economic by rendering them more “responsive” to markets, commercial interests
and private providers. Prompted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and

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TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                         47


Development (OECD) and other international agencies, many governments in the
1990s embraced the idea that the future of their countries lay in a “global knowledge
economy”. To these ends they set about transforming higher education into the engine
for producing the knowledge, skills and graduates to generate the intellectual property
and innovative products that would make their countries more globally competitive.
These reforms were premised on the idea of turning universities into autonomous and
entrepreneurial “knowledge organizations” by promoting competition, opening them up
to private investors, making educational services contribute to economic competitive-
ness, and enabling individuals to maximize their skills in global labour markets.
    As Deshpande shows for India, however, these reforms are contradictory and often
produce chaos and corruption rather than efficiency and effectiveness. They are also re-
defining boundaries of the university as its core values and distinctive purpose rub up
against those predatory market forces, or what Slaughter and Leslie (1997) termed
“academic capitalism”. Recasting public universities as transnational business corpora-
tions introduces new risks and market disciplines. Universities now face growing pres-
sure to produce “excellence”, deliver quality research and innovative teaching, improve
their world rankings, forge business links, and attract elite, fee-paying students. Many
are buckling under the strain and increasingly struggle to maintain their traditional
mandate to be “inclusive”, foster social cohesion, improve social mobility, and chal-
lenges received wisdom – let alone improve their records on gender, diversity and
equality.
    To what extent can we explain these trends in terms of “neoliberalism” or the rise of
the “neoliberal university model”? Neoliberalism is a problematic concept. Excessive
use of the term as a portmanteau for explaining everything that is wrong with contem-
porary capitalist societies has rendered it an empty signifier devoid of analytical value.
As a noun, it suggests something universal and ascribes uniformity and coherence to an
assemblage of processes and practices that are far from uniform, consistent or coher-
ent. Like Peck and Tickell (2002: 463), therefore, we prefer to use the term “neoliber-
alisation” as it highlights the multi-faceted and continually changing set of process as-
sociated with neoliberal reform agendas, which assume different forms in different
countries. That said, these reforms usually bear close “family resemblances”, to para-
phrase Wittgenstein. These include an emphasis on creating an institutional framework
that promotes competition, entrepreneurship, commercialisation, profit making and
“private good” research and the prevalence of a metanarrative about the importance of
markets for promoting the virtues of freedom, choice and prosperity. In Australia, New
Zealand and elsewhere this narrative has typically been framed as taking an “invest-
ment approach” to higher education, one that recasts public spending on education in
the short term and instrumental language of “return on investment”. This philosophy is
also epitomised in the withdrawal of government funding for the arts and humanities
and corresponding emphasis now placed on promoting the supposedly more “econom-
ically relevant” fields of Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Medicine (the STEM

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48                                              ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN/OF THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY


subjects). The name of the game is now about generating new income streams –
through “export education”, forging partnerships with business, commercialising uni-
versity IP, leasing or selling university infrastructure, and developing spin-out compan-
ies. These have now become normalised and naturalised features of academia. In the
new university, what “counts” are those things that can be “counted”, quantified and
translated as financial returns to the institution. As one Danish minister summed it up,
the aim is speed up the translation of research from “idea to invoice”.
    Few countries better illustrate this than Britain, whose Conservative government has
gone further than most in its attempt to open universities up to the disciplines of the
market and the predatory interests of private capital. Not only are students in universit-
ies in England and Wales now charged some of the highest tuition fees in the world (for
which most are forced to take on massive levels of personal debt), but the universities
themselves are increasingly run as if they are for-profit businesses, chasing market
share and preoccupied with advancing up the league tables of world rankings – which
have become not only proxies for quality and social capital but also the basis of their
credit rating (Wright, Shore 2017). Academics joke (somewhat nervously) that Bri-
tain’s leading universities are at risk of becoming financial conglomerates with a side-
line in providing educational services.
    It would be hard to exaggerate the effect of all these processes on the culture of aca-
demia. Just as the mission of the public university is being transformed, so too are aca -
demic subjectivities and the nature of academic work. Academics are increasingly re-
quired to become more “entrepreneurial”. Indeed, their “performance” is now typically
measured in terms of quantifiable output targets to which financial numbers as well as
publications in star-rated journals are attached. One in six British universities have im-
posed targets quantifying the amount of external grant income each individual academ-
ic is expected to raise for their institution (Jump 2015). The casualization of the work-
force is another visible manifestations of this transformation. In Britain, 54% of aca-
demics and 49% of all academic teaching staff are now on casualised and insecure con-
tracts (UCU 2016). This is still far below the US, where even by 2005 over two thirds
of all academic labour force were precarious (Kalleberg 2009: 9). This is a rising trend,
and not just in Britain.
    The British government’s White Paper (BIS 2016), Success as a Knowledge Eco-
nomy, takes these trends even further promising a fundamental redrawing of the rela-
tionship between universities, the state, students and research. Its main proposal is to
open up British higher education to greater competition from private, for-profit pro-
viders by making it easier for new entrants into the “higher education market” to ac-
quire degree awarding powers (“DAPs”). The Minister of State for universities and sci-
ence justifies this on the grounds that it will provide more choice, competition and flex-
ibility for students as consumers.




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TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                              49


    There are several business models for extracting profit from publicly funded uni-
versities (Wright 2016). These proposals enable private providers to access taxpayer-
funded student fees in a business model that has already proved enormously profitable.
One private provider grew from 496 students in 2010 to 3,366 students in 2012 with a
fee income from public-backed loans totaling £11 million in 2012–2013 – more than
any other private provider and more than the London School of Economics (Morgan
2014). Others seek to keep the public university as a carapace that protects its favor-
able tax and charitable status, and within it develop a “special services vehicle” to run
all its functions. Whereas a public university cannot distribute profits, private interests
can invest in a “special services vehicle” and extract an unlimited fee.
    Another model is to “unbundle” the university’s functions, competences and assets
so that these can be re-bundled by external private providers. In other industries, this is
usually termed “asset stripping”. As with the utilities, trains and roads, the vultures of
private capital are hovering. If the bill is passed, we can expect to see a feeding frenzy
as some universities go bankrupt, others are taken over by financial conglomerates, and
a plethora of small fly-by-night providers seek to capture the rents provided by the gov-
ernment’s student loan guarantee scheme.
    One of the main casualties of this process is the ethos that previously sustained the
traditional public university. Collegiality and professional trust are fast being replaced
by competition, surveillance and managerialism. These are defining features of what we
have elsewhere termed the rise of “audit culture” in higher education. More import-
antly, neoliberalisation has produced an erosion of academic freedom and the substitu-
tion of the idea of higher education as a public good with the notion that a university
degree is a private investment in one’s personal career. Unfortunately for those facing a
future of debt with a shrinking job market, that “investment” looks increasingly un-
likely to deliver the promised returns.
REFERENCES
BIS (Department of Business, Innovation and Skills), 2016, Success as a Knowledge Economy:
      Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility & Student Choice, Higher Education White Paper,
      May, London, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office.
Dreshpande, Satish, 2016, Death of the public university, The Indian Express, 1 February 1, in-
      dianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/death-of-hyderabad-central-university/ (acces-
      sed on 21 June 2016).
Jump, Paul, 2015, Grant income targets set at one in six universities, THE poll suggests, Times
      Higher Education, 11 June, www.timeshighereducation.com/news/grant-income-targets-
      set-one-six-universities-poll-suggests (accessed on 3 July 2016).
Kalleberg, Arne, 2009, Precarious work, insecure workers: employment relations in transition,
      American Sociological Review, 74, 1: 1-22.
Morgan, John, 2014, Campus close-up: GSM London, Times Higher Education, 22 May, www.
      timeshighereducation.com/news/campus-close-up-gsm-london/2013445.article, (access-
      ed on 3 July 2016).


                                              2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90
50                                               ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN/OF THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY

Peck, Jamie, Adam Tickell, 2002, The urbanization of neoliberalism: theoretical debates neo-
      liberalizing space, Antipode, 34, 3: 380-404.
Shore, Cris, Susan Wright, 2015, Audit Culture Revisited: Rankings, Ratings and the Reas-
      sembling of Society, Current Anthropology, 56, 3: 421-439.
Slaughter, Sheila, Leslie Larry, 1997, Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entre-
      preneurial University, Baltimore, MD, The Johns Hopkins University Press.
UCU (University and College Union), 2016, Precarious work in higher education: A snapshot
      of insecure contracts and institutional attitudes, April, London: UCU, www.ucu.org.uk/-
      media/7995/Precarious-work-in-higher-education-a-snapshot-of-insecure-contracts-and-
      institutional-attitudes-Apr16/pdf/ucu_recariouscontract_hereport_apr-16.pdf, (accessed
      on 3 July 2016).
Wright, Susan, 2016, The Imaginators of English University Reform, in Stratification, Privatiz-
      ation, and Employability of Higher Education in the US and EU., Sheila Slaughter, Bar-
      rett Taylor, eds, Dordrecht, Springer: 127-149.
Wright, Susan, Cris Shore, eds, 2017, Death of the Public University? Uncertain Futures for
      Universities in the Knowledge Economy, Oxford, Berghahn (in press).




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TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                                 51




The double bind of audit culture in Romania
Vintilă MIHĂILESCU
National School of Political Studies and Administration, Bucharest


ABSTRACT: The paper focuses on the implementation of audit culture in the post-communist Ro-
manian academic field, using a neo-institutionalist approach. The case of academic competition
between anthropology and ethnology is scrutinized in order to illustrate the double standards, na-
tionally and globally oriented, of the quantitative metrics promoted by state institutions.



The brave new post-communist world
    “Transition” in post-communist countries was essentially a transfer of property and
a reframing of the main institutions of the state according to good (western capitalist)
practices. In the academic field, this institutional re-building was a kind of wishful
shortcut of the “new management” trend which in Occident produced the «audit socie-
ty» (e.g. Power 1997) – or what anthropologists prefer to call «audit culture» (e.g. Stra-
thern 2000). A neo-institutional approach to this process can also be used in as far as it
started to speak about «formal structure as myth and ceremony» forty years ago
(Meyer, Rowan 1977), it devoted a lot of research on the educational field (e.g. Meyer
et al. 1981), and also coined some concepts that fit into the description of early stages
of neo-liberal restructuring of the academic field across the world (Schriewer 2009) we
may find in post-communist Romania too. In this respect, one may identify a «coercive
isomorphism» (i.e. a mechanism of isomorphism rooted in «political influence and the
problem of legitimacy» – DiMaggio, Powell 1983) imposed by EU standards and regu-
lations, later on internalized by the state and promoted at national level as a reformist
ideology. «Rationalized myths» about what constitutes a proper organization (a central
idea of neo-institutionalism, what Power described as «rituals of verification» and Ma-
rilyn Strathern referred to as such in her Introduction to the edited volume on «Audit
culture») became an “ethical” must in the struggle to overcome “communist mentality”.
In Stratherns’ terms of a policy-audit-ethics triad, ethics came first – but it was mainly
ideology.

Audit culture is coming to Romania
   In practical terms, this meant that some mimetic standards of “quality” had to be ta-
ken over from Western countries and imposed to academia, not as much for their own
sake but rather in order to de-legitimize and thus get rid of the “old guys”, presumed


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not to qualify according to these “real” meritocratic standards. A selection of audit cul-
ture means and rules of the game was thus instrumented as “audit cleansing” in an
ought-to-be reformatted academic field. Joining the exquisite club of the Bologna pro-
cess offered a prestigious frame of references and gave an impetus to this trend. In or-
der to make it easier and more “objective”, quality control was in fact only quantitative,
i.e. pure metrics, the same for all and everywhere. Even if asking for high impact of re-
search, funding is still based only on the author(s)’ impact indexes (e.g. Hirsch) prior to
the research project. As noted by Meyer forty years ago, this kind of practice «provides
legitimacy rather than improves performance» (Meyer, Rowan 1977). And legitimacy is
further used for accessing resources (positions, grants etc.)
    «The impact agenda appears to assume that impact is by definition a good thing»
(Mitchell 2014). Relying on this assumption, governmental institutions are authorized
to decide who is to be included and who should be excluded from the redistribution of
resources. Thus, «formalized accountability» (Power 1997) just «served to transform a
political discourse into an essentially technical issue» (D’Ascanio 2014: 155). Behind
it, power games go on. Thus, in the case of the Romanian academic field, “universal”
rational criteria of value and legitimacy changed with the change of governments, mini-
sters and groups of interest. On one side, Romania joined the European club of iso-
morphism1 and shared audit ritualization, but on the other side, inner «decoupling»
(DiMaggio, Powell 1983) and cluster isomorphism are huge: networks of power and in-
terest compete for the most profitable taken-for-granted form of audit.
    The post-communist reframing of the academic fields of ethnology and anthropolo-
gy may illustrate this dynamic.

The ethnology/anthropology divide…
   Following Stocking’s distinction (Stocking 1984), we may say that «diffuse ethnolo-
gy» in Romania (Mihăilescu 2007), institutionally divided in ethnography and folklore,
was entirely a «nation-building ethnology», deeply involved in the historical process of
nation building; in recent parlance, we may say that it had a huge “impact factor”. On
the other side, socio-cultural anthropology in the Western «empire-building ethnology»
tradition was (almost) lacking in Romania till the fall of communism.
   Being compromised to some extent by their implication in national communism,
folk studies stepped back from the main academic scene just after the fall of communi-
sm, but recovered a decade later under the new brand of ethnology, and its association
(The Romanian Association of Ethnological Sciences – ASER) was (re)launched in
2005. During all this time, even if losing power, the field kept its institutions and peo-
ple. Most of the scholars regrouped, however, around the Romanian Academy, which

1. As noted by Meyer in 1981, «peripheral nations are far more isomorphic – in administrative form and
economic pattern – than any theory of the world system of economy division of labor would lead one to
expect» (in DiMaggio, Powell 1983: 152).


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sustains both their knowledge production and legitimacy as promoters of the “real tra-
ditions” of the nation – an increasing state and public demand due to growing nationali-
st movements.
    On the other side, lacking an autochthonous model and having to build itself from
scratch, post-communist socio-cultural anthropology had to take over the western sta-
tus and brand, and professionalize according to them. Even if a national association
(The Society of Social and Cultural Anthropology – SASC) started in 1990, anthropo-
logy was lacking both people and institutions. Emerging anthropologists managed to
take some strongholds mainly in universities, but have to look for their legitimacy
abroad via international publications and conferences; there is not yet a real demand for
anthropology in Romania.
    The two academic fields do not communicate and «dissident» ethnologists, eventual-
ly embracing “anthropological approaches”, are not welcomed in the anthropological
club. The profile of the two professional fields is striking different, as illustrated in the
Table below:

       Members Mean age         Affiliation                        Publications
                                                   In Rom.    Foreign lang./Ro.    Abroad
                               Universities
SASC      96        36                               36%            23%             41%
                             Doc and post-doc
                             Folklore centers,
ASER      107       56                               84%            10%             6%
                            Museums, Colleges


    In their competition for resources, (younger) anthropologists need at any price inter-
national audit culture standards in order to get their legitimacy on a broader academic
market (e.g. two thirds of them are publishing abroad or in English edited Romanian
journals). On the contrary, (elder) ethnologists are seeking for more nationally-rooted
“quality control” and “impact” and fight for adapting international standards to local
“real” needs (e.g. only 6% of them are publishing abroad, mainly in neighboring coun-
tries).

The double bind of audit culture
   Audit culture myths and practices are an ideological must in Romania – but also in
other “emerging economies” and/or “weak states” seeking for political reasons to line
the neo-liberal global frame. But in doing so, the “audit culture kit” may changes ac-
cording to national, local and/or institutional interests, sometimes favoring some cate-
gories of people, sometimes other. The new management of the university X, for in-
stance, introduced some years ago a radical kit, taking over British standards. It was in-
tended to move out “the old guys” and make room for younger, western trained scho-
lars. The first goal was achieved, but the quality standards were too high for the young

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scholars, unable yet to have a high “impact index”. The only ones to benefit were thus
the leaders of this “reform”. With the next management, the quality kit became less
exigent. But thus everybody could rank very high, so that the western publications of
the higher-performing scholars lost their competitive advantage.
    The dilemma around audit culture in such a context may be roughly phrased as fol-
lows: commitment to audit culture makes you its prisoner, but rejecting it makes you a
loser. Adopting international academic audit standards helped the new generation of
anthropologists to take advantage over some representatives of the older generation of
less competent professionals, but put a strong pressure on their intellectual achievemen-
ts. Rejecting such «rituals of verification» and fighting to adapt them to their own com-
petences and interests, ethnologists gained a relative professional autonomy, but at the
price of parochialism. In both cases, the production of knowledge is failing…

REFERENCES

D’Ascanio, Valentina, 2014, Performativity and Visibility: Shapes, Paths and Meanings in the
       European Higher Education Systems, in Empires, Post-Coloniality and Interculturality.
       New Challenges for Comparative Education, Leoncio Vega, ed, Rotterdam/Boston/Tai-
       pei, Sense Publishers: 151-167.
Di Maggio, Paul, Walter Powell, 1983, The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and
       Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields, American Sociological Review, 48, 2:
       147-160.
Meyer, John W., Brian Rowan, 1977, Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as
       Myth and Ceremony, American Journal of Sociology, 83, 2: 340-363.
Meyer, John W., Richard W. Scott, Terence C. Deal, 1981, Institutional and technical sources
       of organizational structure explaining the structure of educational organizations, in Or-
       ganizations and the Human Services: Cross-Disciplinary Reflections, Herman Stein, ed,
       Philadelphia, Temple University Press: 151-179.
Mihăilescu Vintilă, 2007, Autochtonism and National Ethnology in Romania, Sofia, CAS Wor-
       king Papers Series, 1.
Mitchell, Jon P., 2014, Anthropologists behaving badly? Impact and the politics of evaluation
       in an era of accountability, Etnográfica, 18, 2: 275-297.
Power, Michael, 1997, The audit society. Rituals of verification, Oxford, Oxford University
       Press.
Schriewer, Jürgen, 2009, Rationalized Myths in European Higher Education The Construction
       and Diffusion of the Bologna Model, European Education, 41, 2: 31-51.
Stocking, George W., 1982, Afterword: A View from the Center, Ethnos, 47, 1-2: 172-186.
Strathern, Marilyn, ed, 2000, Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics
       and the Academy, London and New York, Routledge.




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The universities of Manchester and Helsinki: Different paths
Sarah GREEN
University of Helsinki


ABSTRACT: Comparing the experience of neoliberal reform at the Universities of Manchester and
Helsinki shows that not all forms of neoliberalization are the same, despite the similarities in struc-
tural changes. In this case, the key difference has to do with the the social value attached to the con-
tent of scholarship, and to what universities do. In Manchester, the reforms were in the name of try-
ing to achieve excellence, full stop; in Helsinki, the reforms were in the name of trying to achieve
excellence for a reason: to better serve scholarship and the social good. This difference suggests that
there is nothing inevitable about neoliberal reform: the outcome is contingent, and that generates
hope.



    Not all neoliberal reforms are the same: that is the key lesson I have learned by
working both in the Universities of Manchester and Helsinki in recently years.
    In 2015, I was asked by the Head of Social Research at the University of Helsinki to
give a talk for a Finnish audience about the UK’s concept of “Impact” in the Research
Excellence Framework 2014 (REF). I had moved to Helsinki in 2012. Keijo Rahkon-
en, the head of Social Research, said that he thought an audit of “research impact”
might be introduced in Finland, and it would be good to compare the British experi-
ence.
    At the time, there was a sense within the University of Helsinki that the university
structure had been becoming neoliberal since 2010. That was the year the Finnish Gov-
ernment passed the new University Law which, people told me, “privatised” the uni-
versities. Coming from the UK, it seemed to me like a very mild form of privatization:
all students still attended university for free (even overseas students); Finnish students
still received grants from the government on which to live; and the government still
paid almost all the costs of running universities. What had changed was that universit-
ies now managed their own budgets, were responsible for their own buildings, staff
were no longer civil servants, academic tenure no longer existed, and a part of people’s
salaries would be assessed by performance.
    I had arrived at Helsinki after 17 years of being employed by the University of
Manchester, which had been pursuing a strong and explicitly neoliberal path since
2004, when Alan Gilbert became its Vice Chancellor and (at his request) the uni-
versity’s President as well. Gilbert had come from Australia, and had attempted, but
failed, to create a fully privatised section of the University of Melbourne while he was
there1.

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Gilbert_(Australian_academic)

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   The University of Helsinki felt nothing like the kind of neoliberalism I had experi-
enced under Gilbert’s leadership at Manchester. The staff had been subjected to every
kind of audit – teaching audits, research audits, even admin audits; every part of our
work had been business-process re-engineered, so that everything we did was assessed
for levels of successful, efficient, and timely performance. Students had to provide so
much feedback about their lecturers’ performance, and so frequently, that they were
becoming tired of it. The amount of money spent on rebranding the university ap-
peared to be the equivalent of the costs of running a small department. Many of us
were put in newly built buildings that had open plan designs and little bookshelf space,
apparently intended to increase interaction and transparency. Many of the staff and stu-
dents believed it was actually to save money, and to increase surveillance.
   The University of Manchester – or at least the School of Social Sciences in which I
worked (nobody really knew what happened in other schools) - also introduced a vari-
ety of monetary targets, calculating annual “contributions” per discipline. “Contribu-
tion” was the word used to mean clear profit, after all the costs of employment, build-
ings, secretarial support, equipment, and so on, had been deducted. Even when discip-
lines were making a profit, if the average profit made by each member of staff was not
meeting the target, that counted as failure. For the first time in my academic career, I
began to become aware of the costs of teaching students, as the relationship between
the time spent with students against the money they earned for the university was made
explicit. Apparently, we should not give students more time than they are worth; but at
the same time, we were exhorted to always answer students’ emails and mark their
work thoroughly and on time, because the students need to say they are satisfied with
our service to them. There was also constant, endless, reorganization of administration
structures and systems, and constant renaming of disciplinary units and attempts to
merge them with others.
   Things moved so far away from what we had understood higher education to be that
many of us wondered how things had ever got to that stage with so few expressions of
alarm about the systematic breaking down of what many of us saw as the essential
basis for scholarship: the classic Humboldt model of the nurturing of a community of
peers whose commitment was based on the idea of scholarship as a vocation rather
than a job; whose work would be shared freely with other scholars so that it could be
tested, critiqued and built upon by others; and in which teaching was a means to en-
courage young people to learn how to think, not what to think. All of that began to feel
and sound faintly naïve, but the precise moment when it became so was unclear.
   Despite all this, Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester remained one
of the best anthropology units in the UK, and I thoroughly enjoyed working within that
research environment and I still miss my colleagues. Yet that was despite the uni-
versity’s reforms, not because of them. Of course, there were some positive changes:
nobody gave the same lectures for thirty years anymore; marking of exams became
much more rigorous, so there was a reduction of gender and ethnicity bias; and PhD


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students were managing to finish their doctorates on time more often than not. Of
course the arrangements in the pre-reform era needed improvement, and many of those
improvements have now been made; but I am not convinced that turning the University
of Manchester into a neoliberal industrial site was the best way to make those improve-
ments. I am certain it was not the only way to make them.
    So when I arrived in Helsinki in 2012, the Finnish neoliberal experiment there felt
to me like it had either hardly begun or was something completely different from what
I had experienced in the UK. By 2015, when I was asked to present a paper on “the im-
pact of Impact” on university research environments, I had concluded it was indeed
something different. On the surface, the University of Helsinki might appear to be go-
ing down the same path: social sciences was moved to another building, much of which
is open plan; the new rector changed the university’s statutes so as to centralise power
to himself and would take increasing control over the appointment of deans and heads
of department; the need to meet targets has been increasingly emphasised; and the
complete reorganization of the administration and degree structures have been imple-
mented at such speed over the last year that people have hardly had time to catch their
breath.
    That last set of changes coincided with a newly elected national government that
radically cut the budgets of Finnish universities, and the University of Helsinki’s budget
in particular. The drop in income was so big, the university’s rector said, that he had no
choice but to downsize the university. This was despite the fact that the university made
a hefty profit in 2015. By the time the paper I presented in 2015 was published, less
than a year after I presented it (Green 2016), more than 500 staff had been laid off, in -
cluding the administrator of Social and Cultural Anthropology, who had worked for the
discipline for over twenty years. Most of these staff were administrative employees, but
there were also a few academic staff, including full professors, who lost their jobs.
Nothing that dramatic had ever occurred in one fell swoop at the University of
Manchester. The entire staff at the University of Helsinki was in a state of shock about
it by the time the summer recess arrived in 2016.
    Yet it would be a serious error to assume that there is anything either inevitable, or
inevitably the same, in the way such reforms have been implemented in Manchester
and Helsinki. Despite the structural similarities of the reforms, there is something dis-
tinctly different about the value and significance of universities being expressed at Hel-
sinki, from all sides of the debate, both those in favour of the reforms and those
against. Of course the official rhetoric speaks of excellence, of trying to climb up inter-
national league tables, of the need to win ever more research money. Yet there is still
an unwavering commitment to scholarship as an end in itself at Helsinki; more import-
antly, there appears to be a wider popular commitment to the idea that higher educa-
tion is the means by which more equal opportunities are achieved in Finland. And uni-
versities are still also widely seen as a major source of attempting to do good for soci-
ety (indeed, that is still written into the mission statement of the University of
Helsinki).

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   What has happened at Helsinki over the last year, both in terms of layoffs and in
terms of structural change, has shaken everyone to the core, and nobody knows, as yet,
what the outcome will be. And that uncertainty provides a space for intervention. What
appears fairly certain is that it will not be the same path as Manchester has taken. The
Finnish university system has the opportunity, and the values, to take its own route to
reform, and I am hoping to be there to help that happen.

REFERENCES

Green, Sarah, 2016, A New Twist in the Development of the Knowledge Economy: The Im-
      pact of ‘Impact’ in the UK’s Research Excellence Framework 2014, in What are univer-
      sities for? On the current state and the future of universities, Keijo Rahkonen, Hannu Nie-
      minen, eds, University of Helsinki: 33-50.




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Education and neoliberalism in Yucatan, Mexico
Gabriela VARGAS-CETINA
Autonomous University of Yucatan, Mexico
Steffan Igor AYORA-DIAZ
Autonomous University of Yucatan, Mexico


ABSTRACT: Under neoliberalism, at least in Mexico, education has been recast as a service that is to
be sold for money, and not as a right of all Mexicans. The economy itself is now seen as a services
economy, where everything is expected to make money. Here we reflect on some of the implica-
tions of current education reforms on our work at the Autonomous University of Yucatan.



   On June 19 of 2016 in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, armed soldiers fired their wea-
pons against a group of teachers who were protesting against the “education reform”
ordered by Mexico’s national government. According to CNN and other international
agencies, eight persons died, while 53 civilians and 55 policemen were injured 1. In the
aftermath, officials from Mexico’s National Security Commission said that the police
had not fired because they were not carrying guns, and all the videos and photos publi-
shed by the international press were doctored. Only after the national and international
press distributed widely their videos of the shootings did the authorities finally accep-
ted that the Mexican police had fired and caused fatalities2.
   The teachers were striking against the so-called “education reform”, which is in fact
an administrative reform of the National System of Education. Until 2011, elementary
school teachers attended Escuelas Normales (School for Teachers) for four years after
High School in order to become eligible to compete for jobs in the National System of
Education schools. These are public elementary schools, and teachers are usually free
to develop their own take on the national curriculum, as long as they also teach the ba-
sic contents required by the Secretary of Education. Escuelas Normales are known for
being politically combative, since the teachers at elementary schools generally work
closely with parents and families, and are aware of local problems and needs. Also, in
Indigenous areas, the teachers use the local language to teach children until grade four,
switching their students’ language requirement to Spanish in grades five and six.
   Upon becoming President of Mexico, in December of 2012, Enrique Peña Nieto
announced an Education Reform that, according to his government, would make Mexi-
can education internationally competitive, by increasing the international standing of

1. edition.cnn.com/2016/06/20/americas/oaxaca-mexico-clashes/index.html (accessed on 15 July 2016).
2. www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36572423 (accessed on 15 July 2016).

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Mexico on international indexes such as the Programme for International Student As-
sessment (PISA). This was to be done through a major overhaul of the national educa-
tion system. In practice, judging from what the teachers have publically declared during
the protests, and from what we know from teachers in Yucatan, this meant that all tea-
chers would take an exam, and if they failed it, they would lose their jobs. The require -
ment of graduating from an Escuela Normal (Teaching School) was removed; accor-
ding to the new regulations anyone can take the exam and, if they pass it, become a
teacher at an elementary school of the National System of Education. The main target
seems to be the teachers’ national trade union, one of the strongest in the country be-
cause it has members in all Mexican states. Judging from the news, and also from the
comments of teachers on posts to news about the protests, many teachers in Mexico
seem to have signed these documents and then taken the exam, even if they saw this as
signing away their job security and their workers’ rights and giving up on their union. In
states like Oaxaca, Chiapas and Guerrero, three of the poorest states of Mexico, tea-
chers have been publicly protesting against this reform, not only because it takes away
their job security but also because the authorities may use the exam to censure politi-
cally-engaged teachers by firing them immediately. In the aftermath of the killings of
teachers and bystanders in Oaxaca, protests are now taking place in all of Mexico.
    Yucatan is relatively far away from Oaxaca (1160 Km) and it takes 18 hours and 39
minutes to travel between Merida and the City of Oaxaca by bus. At the Autonomous
University of Yucatan (UADY) each year we get only a few students who graduated
from Oaxacan high schools, but we do share many of the problems now affecting Oaxa-
can elementary school teachers and Oaxacan universities, because of the larger context
of neoliberal economics, Mexican-style. UADY is known for its high quality programs.
Between 2000 and 2011 it used to be among the five top public universities of the Me-
xican Republic. At this point, however, our University is in the process of becoming an
institution less attuned to international research and more attuned to the requirements
of a general workforce in a service economy. The neoliberal doctrine of education as a
service to potential industry and service workers has affected UADY in at least the fol-
lowing ways:
    1. The drive toward professors’ demonstrable productivity. Since the 1990s, profes-
sors in all public and many private universities across Mexico have been asked to docu-
ment every single activity they perform. Paper certificates are issued for each single ac-
tivity. Organizing a seminar, putting together a syllabus, giving a paper, and even ha-
ving been an employee of the University all need to be certified by an actual document,
which at UADY used to be submitted to a committee at the end of each year as a pile
of papers, and since 2014 have to be scanned an uploaded to a platform into the appro-
priate slots, according to UADY’s program of Professor productivity. While in the past
professors’ productivity used to be tied mainly to money incentives, now we are increa-
singly moving toward a punitive regime, where everyone has to report to an ever-
increasing number of accounting agencies and their respective platforms, lest we lose


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employment-related rights. We have been advised that in a not-so-far-away future tenu-
re will disappear, because it is too costly, and most teaching will be compensated ac-
cording to professors’ productivity indexes.
    2. The exponential growth of administrative positions, relative to professors. In 2015
our incoming Rector (the highest authority in Mexican universities) calculated that we
were reaching a proportion of 3 administration positions per each tenured academic.
He saw this as a positive development.
    3. The transformation of our programs from research-driven speciality programs
(anthropology, archaeology, history, Latin American literature, social communications
and tourism, which are all part of the Anthropological Sciences Faculty) into general
education programs that will help our graduates find a job not necessarily related to a
university education. Until 2010, our graduates were expected to have mastered at least
some research methods and techniques that would help them to get a job as research
assistants, or in places where first-hand knowledge of local problems was needed, or
would make it possible for them to pursue postgraduate degrees. For several years now,
however, students who passed the university’s entry exam but did not make it into the
sciences, engineering, medical or accounting careers, which are the ones most in de-
mand, are transferred to those programs that did not fill up their maximum quota of
entry students. At this point, in the social sciences and humanities we have to teach
many students who are not interested in what we are teaching nor do they want to finish
an anthropology degree; the only reason they come to our classes is to have the right to
take the entry exam again each year and try to enter the other Faculties. We are baby-
sitting an increasing number of disgruntled and disinterested students. In the meantime,
the social sciences and the humanities are regularly derided as bad career options and
economic cul-de-sacs by the parents of our students and by the general public.
    4. We are now considered a public service university and not a research university.
International agencies, including the World Bank, advised the Mexican government
that public universities, especially outside central Mexico, should not dedicate their re-
sources to research but rather to general education. While in the recent past in Yucatan
the public university was only the top among a possible number of institutions students
could attend, according to their scores on the national post-high school exam, our uni-
versity is in the process of becoming a general studies institution. As we are asked to
increase the number of our students and decrease the complexity of our courses, at
UADY’s Faculty of Anthropological Sciences we are finding it harder to compete with
other study options for the incoming student generations. In the meantime, UADY does
not have the installations nor the personnel to admit more hundreds of students. It is a
no-win situation for the professors: We have to make our courses easier to follow and
become a general studies option, we still do not fill the student entry quotas expected
by authorities, and we are still expected to carry out a regular research and teaching
load because of the increased requirements in “professor productivity”.



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   5. It is increasingly difficult to teach the incoming students because they are so poor-
ly prepared. This relates to the teachers’ protests in Oaxaca and elsewhere, as education
has been the political target of successive Mexican governments: world history, Greek
and Latin etymology, general philosophy and other subjects important for an education
in the social sciences have been either reduced or completely removed from the pre-
university curriculum. At the beginning of the twenty-first century we could expect stu-
dents to have some notions of the social sciences and to be able to understand some
concepts from grammar or linguistics, so that they could be taught how to write essays
in our disciplines. Today, their reading and writing skills are very poor. We are in the
process of revising the requirements of our courses, because they seem unable to cope
with the previous amount of written papers.
   We feel that the quality of the education we can offer is suffering, and have no way
of making things improve. Neoliberalism, unfortunately, has resulted in similar devel-
opments in many countries where education is suffering under the new creed of whole-
sale commodification. It does not need to be so: Estonia is one example of a nation
committed to making education its main asset in the world’s capitalist economy. There
could be other ways and other models for economic advancement in the current world
market. Mexico, however, has chosen the path of turning education into a market-driv-
en commodity.




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Reclaiming the public university in Wisconsin
Tracey HEATHERINGTON
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee


ABSTRACT: This commentary discusses the shift to austerity in the University of Wisconsin System,
in the context of Wisconsin’s urban, public doctoral research university in the city of Milwaukee.
Critical discourses based on “the Wisconsin Idea” insist upon the necessity for both academic free-
dom and public support to higher education.




    In May 2016, a month or so after we issued invitations to participate in this collec-
tion of commentaries on anthropology in/of the neoliberal academy, faculty members
across the University of Wisconsin System stepped forward to contest recent state re-
forms of public higher education. Four years after the controversial 2011 Wisconsin
Act 10 removed the right of unionized collective bargaining and significantly reduced
job benefits for most public employees including faculty, the state passed draconian
budget cuts to higher education for the 2015-2017 biennium, while simultaneously re-
moving principles of academic freedom that had been enshrined in state law for a cen-
tury. Once it became clear that political appointees on the University of Wisconsin Sys-
tem Board of Regents had failed to protect the primacy of tenure and shared gov-
ernance as mechanisms ensuring that program decisions would be made on the grounds
of academic concerns, rather than economic interests, symbolic statements of “no con-
fidence” passed Faculty Senates first at the flagship campus in Madison, and then at
several other campuses. At the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, the state’s only
urban, public, doctoral research institution, a full faculty meeting was called to discuss
the resolution. It was the first full faculty quorum in two decades.
    The May 10th meeting at UW-Milwaukee was organized by the elected University
Committee, in collaboration with local leadership of the American Association of Uni-
versity Professionals and the American Federation of Teachers. While neither of the
latter associations have authority to represent faculty in collective bargaining, the col-
leagues and graduate students working with them have volunteered their energy to help
guide and coordinate faculty responses to changes in state higher education policy. So
many faculty answered the call to lift their voices that the 124 members required for
quorum was quickly established, and the 175-seat auditorium was filled far beyond ca-
pacity, with standing room only. News media reported there were nearly 300 faculty,


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close to 40% of all Assistant, Associate and Full Professors on campus. The Secretary
of the University was hunting for a room with more capacity when participants insisted
on calling the meeting to order immediately. The Chancellor gave the floor to Rachel
Ida Buff, President of the UWM AAUP chapter established in fall 2015. She made
these remarks:
      Colleagues,
      We gather here today as bearers of a sacred trust. As stewards of the University of Wis-
      consin, we are the keepers of the Wisconsin idea: that crucial, democratic notion that the
      “beneficent influence of the University (should) reach every home in the state”… The
      Wisconsin Idea promotes educational democracy: the university is funded by and serves
      the public… But in the past eighteen months, our ability to carry out our stewardship of
      the Wisconsin Idea has been impaired by a legislative assault on shared governance and
      academic freedom. This political assault has been accompanied by unprecedented fiscal
      cuts, impairing our ability to educate and serve our students… By voting no confidence
      we protest the intentional destruction of our internationally recognized university
      system… (AAUP//UWM 2016).

    Faculty members took turns reading paragraphs of the resolution from the floor.
When fire marshals advised the Chancellor to move the crowd to another venue, the
question was called without discussion and the resolution of “no confidence” passed un-
animously. The resounding consensus filled the room in a voice vote. Following a year
of many contentious governance meetings, budget forums, media chatter and constant
worry, this moment of absolute, unified clarity brought tears to my eyes. One week
later, the UW-Milwaukee Academic Staff Senate also gathered to enact its own “no
confidence” resolution. It was the first and only staff body in the system to do so.
    What inspired these historic precedents? Why does the “Wisconsin Idea”, a vision
defined by progressives of the early twentieth century, continue to have so much reson-
ance? When early drafts of the 2015 state budget tried to alter UWS Ch. 36, the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin System mission statement, removing «to serve and stimulate soci-
ety», «to educate people and improve the human condition», and «the search for
truth», while substituting the mission «to meet the state workforce needs» (Kertscher
2015), there was vehement public criticism. The “Wisconsin Idea” embodied in the
UWS mission statement affirms higher education as a cornerstone of distributed
prosperity (cf. McCarthy 1912). As wealth and income disparities in America reach
shocking proportions today, this is an idea worth standing for.
    Both the downtrend in overall public funding to higher education, and the rising in-
equalities between flagships and secondary campuses reflect a broader pattern emerging
in the United States. Since the recession of 2008, state funding to public university sys-
tems fell by an average of 20%, while tuition and fees increased by an average of 29%,
far outpacing the growth of median household income (Mitchell, Leachman 2015).
Commentators note that flagship campuses cater increasingly to the economic elite,
while student debt associated with the cost of education has become debilitating for
those from modest backgrounds (see Goldrick-Rab 2014; Goldberg 2015; Hiltzik

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2015; Konzcal 2015). In this context, talking about the vital legacy of the “Wisconsin
Idea” unmasks economic austerity as an ideology that naturalizes racism and social in-
equality in higher education.
    Structural disparities between campuses within public university systems impact the
quality of access to education for minority and first-generation students, just as dispar-
ities in funding across fields may impact what they are able to study. Federal initiatives
favouring STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) have
already transformed the academic landscape. The liberal arts are particularly at risk, as
austerity discourses in several states have targeted subjects including Gender Studies,
Philosophy, French literature and Anthropology as areas of learning and research that
should not be “subsidized” in public institutions. In Wisconsin, Assembly Speaker
Robin Vos openly touted the agenda behind the Walker administration policy reforms
when he said, «Of course I want research, but I want to have research done in a way
that focuses on growing our economy, not on ancient mating habits of whatever» (in
Johnson 2014). Recent state legislation makes it possible for university administrators
to cut faculty and programs based on financial assessments and priorities.
    Historically, the University of Wisconsin System has been celebrated for a much
broader vision of research and academic freedom (Hansen 1998). This tradition is
lately a target for the scorn of conservatives, who typically contend that universities are
bastions of liberalism. Yet both major political parties in the U.S. contribute to the tide
of rhetoric and reform that is changing America’s public universities from the inside
out. Wisconsin’s “liberal” state representative, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, helped
lead the “Manufacturing Universities” bill passed in June 2016. This bill «authorizes
the Department of Defense to support industry-relevant, manufacturing-focused, engin-
eering training at U.S. universities» (Baldwin 2016). A press release explains, «Institu-
tions would be selected through a competitive grant-based process and would be re-
quired to better align their educational offerings with the needs of modern U.S. manu-
facturers» (ivi).
    Urban research universities like UW-Milwaukee represent a fount of creativity and
innovation, but also a necessary space for building social tolerance, critical thinking
and democratic participation. These shared benefits are threatened when academics are
belittled, subject offerings narrowed, and the students reduced to a mere “workforce”,
effectively enslaved to the business sector. When faculty and staff challenge this by de-
fending the Wisconsin Idea, they seek to reclaim the university as a public resource:
not only a viable means of social mobility, but also a way to expand knowledge, speak
truth to power, and strive for common good. This is ultimately about why our academic
fields matter in the world, what we do for others, and what kind of work we will be
able to do in the future.
    Anthropologists have long recognized that our fieldwork is inherently tangled up
with social, economic and political relations of power; we cannot ignore that our aca-
demic lives are unmistakably caught up in these relations too. We are well prepared to


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grasp how neoliberal logics and audit cultures grow variously entangled with specific
contexts and institutional practices. As we bring ethnographic methods and critical ana-
lysis to bear on our own experiences as university professionals, anthropologists can
help understand the transformations taking place in higher education, and learn to
shape them.

REFERENCES

AAUP//UWM, 2016, No Confidence, American Association of University Professionals UW-
       Milwaukee Chapter Blog, uwmaaup.org, May 10, 2016.
Baldwin, Tammy, 2016, Bipartisan ‘Manufacturing Universities’ Legislation Passes Senate,
       Press Release, June 17, 2016. www.baldwin.senate.gov
Goldberg, Chad Allen, 2016, Why I wrote the no-confidence resolution at UW-Madison, Cap-
       ital Times, May 11, 2016.
Goldrick-Rab, Sara, 2014, Promoting Economic Diversity for College Affordability, in R.
       Kahlenberg, ed, The Future of Affirmative Action, Washington, DC, Association for Pub-
       lic Policy Analysis and Management.
Hansen, W. Lee, 1998, Academic Freedom on Trial: 100 Years of Sifting and Winnowing at the
       University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, University of Wisconsin.
Hiltzik, Michael, 2015, From Wisconsin to California, The decline of Public Higher Ed Con-
       tinues, Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2015.
Johnson, Shaun, 2014, Assembly Speaker Vos Discusses Republican Agenda For Next Session,
       Wisconsin Public Radio, Wednesday, November 5, 2014. www.wpr.org/assembly-spea-
       ker-vos-discusses-republican-agenda-next-session
Kertscher, Tom, 2015, Despite deliberate actions, Scott Walker calls change to university mis-
       sion a “drafting error”, Politifact Wisconsin, February 6, 2015. www.politifact.com/wis-
       consin/statements/2015/feb/06/scott-walker/despite-deliberate-actions-scott-walker-cal-
       ls-chan/#
Konzcal, Mike, 2015, What’s Left After Higher Education is Dismantled, Rolling Stone, May
       28, 2015.
McCarthy, Charles, 1912, The Wisconsin Idea, New York, NY, MacMillan. Archived at
       archive.org/stream/cu31924032449252/cu31924032449252_djvu.txt.
Mitchell, Michael, Michael Leachman, 2015, Years of Cuts Threaten to Put College Out of
       Reach for More Students, Report, May 13, 2015, Washington, DC, Center on Budget
       and Policy Priorities, www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/years-of-cuts-threat-
       en-to-put-college-out-of-reach-for-more-students#_ftn4.




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Do not become an idiot: A comment on neoliberalism and labour
relationships within higher education
Dimitris DALAKOGLOU
Vrije University Amsterdam


ABSTRACT: As neoliberalism takes over academia, there is struggle going on. This is a struggle to
keep the academic institutions as free as possible from “idiotic” (i.e. self-interested) forms of beha-
viour and especially from reproducing socially and politically such practices.



    When Bologna Process was initiated by the European governments promoting the
neoliberal adjustment of academic sector in the continent, the focus of the protests that
took place back then was the creation of the so-called university/super-market 1. The
critique was that under the new paradigm the students will become consumers of the
educational product and the corporations or the State will be the consumers of the re-
search product. Moreover, these protests were also focusing on the wider social shift
that neoliberal higher education implies. Namely higher education was not considered
anymore a right of the society or a public good, but a luxury commodity requesting in -
dividual investment. People will buy education if they can afford it and this will be
translated into higher income or personal development, and listed learning outcomes,
which will be translated into analogous listed skills etc. However, an area which was
not stressed enough by the protests was the shift that neoliberalism will bring to the la-
bour relationships within academia.
    This happened for a number of reasons. One of these reasons has, arguably, to do
with the depoliticisation of academia. The majority of the workers in European aca-
demia did not participate that actively in those protests, on contrary to their students
who revolted properly in some cases against the proposed shifts over the last two dec-
ades. Certainly, one can argue that since the 1990s there was a more general depoliti-
cisation tendency in Europe. In our case, part of the problem was that academics at that
time considered themselves a different class than other workers, and unfortunately
some still do so. Many academics seem to think that they are immune to the material
conditions of everyday life. Of course the fact that a proportion of the academics had
decent salaries and decent working conditions in most of Europe contributed to that re-
lative lack of protest. This is not the case anymore as academia becomes an increas-
1. A version of this text was presented in the invited plenary session of IUAES in May 2016 on the Fu -
ture of Anthropology. I should thank Noel Salazar, Heather O’Leary and Rajko Mursic for putting to-
gether this session and the participants for their questions and comments. I also have to thank KULA the
Slovenian Anthropological Association for hosting me.

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ingly repressive work environment, both in terms of salaries and also in terms of social
and political deregulation (see Bal, Grassiani, Kirk 2014; Mitchell, Dyck 2014; Afonso
2013; Dalakoglou 2012).
    Today any newcomer in academia knows very well how neoliberalism is implemen-
ted in terms of labour relationships. Constant restructuring has deregulated the sector
and put it in a permanent crisis, and thus a “state of exception”, which becomes the
new technology of academic governance. However, one should separate two major di-
mensions: an institutional structure (e.g. proliferation of temporary contracts, redund-
ancies, restructuring etc.) and the social one, consisting of people who are eager to im-
plement or simply remain silent about such shifts. These human resources seem to be a
key dimension of neoliberalism within academia and it is an issue that it is rarely ad-
dressed. It is a no-go zone since everyone working within the sector knows someone
who has been involved in such activities. For instance one hears stories all the time
about certain line managers who become the heavies of the neoliberal central manage-
ment, or management teams who interchange between good cop-bad cop roles, we also
hear cases about managers who blackmail psychologically or directly people who are
below them in the academic food chain or about libel campaigns that are damaging not
only within the particular institution but in smaller disciplines, they may make someone
unemployed for ever. Quite often such practices are applied by certain bosses in order
to make an example and intimidate the rest of the workers.
    Part of the problem is that a lot of academic environments that adopt the neoliberal
adjustments seem to borrow the worst elements from both worlds. So often, university
environments keep the archaic and useless hierarchical structures of academia that go
back to the Christian monastic punitive tradition, combined with informality and inter-
personal face to face relationships and the dog-eat-dog of the neoliberal legacy. Over-
all, the problem with neoliberal governance of labour, within academia, is that it allows
for abuse of power and bullying.
    Nevertheless, the important issue is always the individuals who are eager to apply
such practices in the everyday life of academic biotopes. The stories are repeated.
Everyone knows of colleagues who exchange a promotion for a managerial role, for ex-
ample, but they also happen to jump the fence overnight, finding themselves siting
comfortably on the side of neoliberal micro-management. Suddenly every senseless
moronity that an external consultant of the central management wrote in a report (and
the management now has to implement, since they paid the consultant 22 lecturers’
salaries for a month’s worth of work) is somehow justified by some of these former
colleagues. The big university bosses who implement the worst neoliberal agendas, are
portrayed by these former colleagues/now micro-line-managers as sympathetic parents
who really have good intentions, but their hands are tied. If someone dares to say any-
thing about e.g. the half million salaries of these big bosses and the junior faculty’s
salaries that are not enough even to pay their rent, they are automatically black-listed as
a troublemaker who must be isolated and ousted by all means available by the certain


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micro-bosses. After all, we are in a crisis and every exception can be justified in order
to “save the discipline” or “the department” or even “social sciences” per se2.
    So the point is that such regimes of everyday bullying within the academic work en-
vironments must be actually applied by some people, and not resisted by others, in or-
der for the neoliberal form of governance of labour to be materialised. These two kinds
of people are the necessary idiots. And idiot-ness is what distinct someone who will get
a position of power and will become a bully and someone who will not. As it is well
known, the word idiot is etymologically linked with the word for private. Idiot there-
fore refers, more or less, to persons who care about their private interests rather than
the wider good. It got its negative connotations thousands of years ago in Athens, when
not caring about what was defined as the collective interests of the time and the public
sphere was considered as one of the worst practices. Indeed, a problem with idiots who
are involved in education is that they have a role in the production of knowledge and
thus social reproduction. Unfortunately, gradually one can observe an increase in simil-
ar neoliberal idiotic ethics being reproduced in very junior levels. So for instance, we
see PhD students who receive their PhDs and jump the fence. Now they must take care
of their career and not protest too much, whilst stepping on the neck of someone else
for professional progress is justified for X or Y reasons. One also witnesses PhD stu-
dents who align themselves with certain powerful individuals who love power and are
higher on the academic food-chain like that aforementioned type of idiots etc.
    Thus we are running always the danger to reproduce entire cohorts of idiots, as stu-
dents learn not only from what their teachers say but also from the ways they behave.
This is a key dimension within the neoliberal academic world, as the system is being
adjusted structurally in order to produce idiots. So it is almost entirely up to the groups
of teachers how to navigate within the new paradigm so they do not become idiots
themselves and their students learn how not to be idiots.
    So it is of crucial importance to reproduce – from the most junior to the most senior
levels – as few idiots as possible. Otherwise, they will take over one of the very last
spheres of public life where there is some chance to reproduce socially and politically
critical forms of behaviour and thought.
    One can claim that self-interested practices were always present within academia
before the shift to neoliberalism. Hierarchy, authoritarianism and bravado up have
been, to a certain extent, historically embedded within academic world. However there
is a qualitative difference in the age of neoliberalism. The system never before favoured
so much the idiots (always per the original etymology referring to private self-interest
oriented behaviour). And idiot-ness becomes a distinctive factor between the people
who will be able to resist the repressive neoliberal adjustments in their daily practice
within the university – irrelevant of their position within the hierarchy – and the ones
who will turn into bullies as soon as they catch a position of power.

2. All cases used in this paper are random examples; any potential resemblance with real persons and
real situations is accidental.

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REFERENCES

Afonso, Alexandre, 2013, How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang, blogs.lse.ac.- uk/impactof-
      socialsciences/2013/12/11/how-academia-resembles-a-drug-gang/ (accessed on 15 July
      2016).
Bal, Ellen, Erella Grassiani, Kate Kirk, 2014, Neoliberal individualism in Dutch universities:
      Teaching and learning anthropology in an insecure environment, Learning and Teaching,
      7, 3: 46-72.
Dalakoglou, Dimitris, 2012, Universities in a state of exception, Anthropology responds to the
      UK Crisis in Higher Education, Association of Anthropology of Great Britain and the
      Commonwealth, Republished in Allegra Laboratory, allegralaboratory.net/-dimitris-
      dalakoglou-universities-in-a-state-of-exception (accessed on 15 July 2016).
Mitchell, Jon P., Noel Dyck, 2014, Introduction: anthropology and the neoliberal agenda, Et-
      nográfica, 18, 2: 233-236.




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An anthropologist in parallel structure
Noelle MOLÉ LISTON
New York University


ABSTRACT: The essay examines the parallels between Molé Liston’s studies on labor and precarity in
Italy and the United States’ anthropology job market. Probing the way economic shift reshaped the
field of anthropology of Europe in the late 2000s, the piece explores how the neoliberalization of
the American academy increased the value in studying the hardships and daily lives of non-western
populations in Europe.



   Anthropologists often wonder how the kind of research they pursue reflects their
own deeper and, predictably, their culturally and historically particular anxieties and
aspirations. When, back in 2003, I began studying psychological workplace harassment
in Italy, known as mobbing (il mobbing), I often attributed my fascination with corpo-
rate culture to my deep desire to remain external to it. I would joke that the cubicles,
computers, glass tables, and half-hearted picture-frame-and-mug adorned workstations
were just as exotic as the highly exoticized subjects of classic anthropology: fishing
boats and huts, shell currencies, coming-of-age rituals, and tribal leaders. I would also
grinningly add that I wished to remain just as much as an outsider to modern office life
as earlier anthropologists were to small-scale tribal societies. But, of course, the joke
was a simplification, perhaps even a fantasy. Just as early 20 th century anthropologists
were embedded in the same imperial capitalist economics that made non-western
others appear foreign, so too was I, an aspiring American academic, embedded in the
same neoliberal economic transformation and precarity that I had argued underpinned
the rise of mobbing in Italy. In fact, as graduate student examining the growing number
of semi-permanent contracts, I was myself indexed as a member of Italy’s precariously
employed and regularly offered what one offered to sympathetic collaborators in Italy at
the time: promises of semi-permanent contracts.
   As part of an academic writing workshop at Rutgers University, a fellowship I held
as I completed my dissertation, a colleague recommended I apply for a position at the
Princeton Writing Program. She, much like my kind collaborators in Italy, engaged in
this increasingly commonplace trade in semi-permanent contracts. And the information
alone was an extremely valuable part of this new currency, especially as multi-year
post-doctoral positions for anthropology were rare and far more desirable than one-year
or adjunct positions. The five-year position at Princeton University appeared ideal: full-
time Lecturers teach two 12-student courses per semester. The writing seminar would


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be designed by the instructor, shaped by one’s academic interests, infused with a rigo-
rous writing curriculum, and handsomely scaffolded through faculty development. I
taught seminars such as Health and Illness in Cultural Context and Culture and the Body
so my courses provided an intellectually and professionally satisfying way to introduce
undergraduates to anthropology.
    I began at Princeton in 2007 and, soon, the Great Recession of 2008 would domina-
te discourse surrounding open academic positions in anthropology. At the time, I was
polishing my argument that mobbing became a way social actors navigated a massive
economic and occupational structural shift in Italy: the new mobbing industry of cli-
nics, diagnoses, and programs harnessed public attention to something more tangible
and localized than Italy’s vast and diffuse neoliberal transformation (Molé 2012). Du-
ring the global recession, I noticed that my colleagues and mentors rarely spoke of the
American academy’s structural transformation. Instead many, especially admired elders
in the field, imagined the anthropology tenure-track job market as only temporarily sty-
mied and still overwhelmingly merit-based. Over the years I accumulated my own job
market scars, I found this narrative increasingly problematic and erroneous. The myth
of temporary scarcity has been a resistant neoliberal trope, especially when tenure lines
have been replaced with non-tenure and semi-permanent or part-time positions,
amounting to upwards of a 40 percent loss in full-time and tenure track positions (Ken-
dzior 2014). While I wrote my manuscript on mobbing, I argued that mobbing emer-
ged, in part, because of a two-tier workplace, split between lifelong workers, who held
airtight protected contracts, and precarious workers, who held an array of newly legali-
zed semi-permanent contracts. In the field of anthropology in the late 2000s, a similar
split became increasingly pronounced between tenured and tenure-aspiring academics.
With it we saw a steep ratcheting up of academic credentials one needed to jump tiers
and theories verging on the conspiratorial on how to do so. By 2009, I found myself ha-
phazardly valued by top-ranked anthropology departments, simultaneously planning
campus visits and going entirely unnoticed, and that was with a book contract and seve-
ral journal publications.
    I also witnessed a very particular kind of anthropological baggage re-emerge: as
neoliberalism reshaped the qualities of tenure-track anthropologists, we saw a renewed
valuation of research on non-western people and places. Anthropology of Europe had
blossomed slowly in the 1980s, became a serious subfield in the 1990s, but by the
2000s, I would argue, anthropology has experienced a reinvigoration of orientalism.
    . The valued work became less about Europeans than about those who could be in-
dexed as “others” in Europe, and Europe was almost never the desired geographic re-
gion for new positions. In the United States, one could argue that anthropologists spe-
cializing in Europe never enjoyed top visibility and desirability in the discipline. But
this trend was more nuanced. We might see it as the continuation of early exotification
in the anthropology of Europe in which scholars replicated studies of non-western


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areas of interest: ritual and magic, patriarchal lineage, kinship, pastoral practice and
land cultivation. We might also wonder whether this shift was in tandem with what Joel
Robbins (2013) has famously called the “suffering slot” problem, that is, replacing our
discipline’s fixation with the non-western “exotic” other with the suffering other and the
humanitarian gaze. It follows that it became more academically desirable to study
trafficking and immigration of non-European subjects to and within Europe, than it was
to study, say, the plight of underemployed Italians. I can attest, at least anecdotally, that
many tenure-line success stories and prominent book contracts followed this trend. I
have also had mentors, themselves experts in the field of anthropology of Europe, sug-
gest that my only job survival strategy would be to shift my research focus from Italians
to foreign nationals living – or, preferably, struggling – in Italy. But why would the cor -
poratization of the university reshape the anthropology of Europe in this way?
    As a discipline, we take seriously that the hegemonic notion of “the market” shapes
the production of knowledge. What we might call the imagined currency of research
topics – especially since aspiring young academics regularly speculated on the wants of
the anthropology market – is its understudied feature.
     As new PhDs became embedded within precarious and ever-tightening labor struc-
tures, many of them refashioned their own research “brands” accordingly. The discipli-
ne also seems to stubbornly validate and laud fieldwork that is difficult, physically or
psychologically. While Robbins’ suffering slot theory implies emotionally taxing labor
by the ethnographer, we are also seeing the imperial relics in the self-aggrandizing he-
roism of challenging non-western and non-urban fieldwork, which also tends to be hi-
storically masculinized. Indeed the common jokes when I discussed my research in Ita-
ly were either mock curiosity, “Italians actually work?” or the highly sarcastic: “Field-
work in Italy must have been really tough”. Both reveal this persistent privileging of
bodily or mentally taxing fieldwork, which would not only imply non-European fieldsi-
tes or harsh-living sites within Europe, but also count them as more rigorous, more va-
lid, and somehow more authentically ethnographic. We might also link this shift to-
wards the new realities of austerity in academe as departments seek to populate intro-
ductory courses with traditional anthropological topics and geographic areas.
    Along these lines, the act of staying in writing programs, and as a full-time non-
tenure track faculty member, has allowed me an unforeseen advantage in intellectual
self-determination. I began as a Senior Lecturer at the New York University’s Exposi-
tory Writing Program in 2012 after my five-year position at Princeton ended and I was
tiring of near-misses pursuing tenure stream positions. Structurally speaking, conti-
nuing contract full-time faculty members, as we are called, are judged less on research
than on teaching for promotion and reappointment. With the relief of having a conti-
nuing full-time academic position, I was able to make decisions about my research wi-
thout trying to position my scholarship to fit some kind of imagined market desirability
for anthropology. In the past four years I have developed a project on scientific skepti-
cism in the context of theatrical and mediatized politics in Italy. I am interested in how

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the Berlusconian age of partial and fabricated truths shape how Italians trust and distru-
st scientific knowledge. To what extent do social actors embrace science when, cultural-
ly speaking, truths seem more fabricated than factual? The project covers Italian scien-
tific activists who protest magic and superstition and the famous “trial against science”
(processo alla scienza) in L’Aquila, which held Risk Commission members accountable
for earthquake victims’ deaths after they issued public safety reassurances. In the futu-
re, we might begin to more deliberately track how anthropological research diverges
along the two tiers within the anthropology of Europe. We certainly won’t see all unde-
remployed anthropologists conduct off-hot-topic work because the allure of the suppo-
sedly meritocratic tenure line remains strong, and, of course, some projects already fit
the trends without recourse to disciplinary “market” demands.
    My research continues to investigate the question of how large-scale structural chan-
ge and knowledge shapes embodied experience and belief. In another sense, I am still
investigating precarity; only in this case it is a kind of massive epistemological precari-
ty, which shapes who we trust and how we gauge our everyday and future decisions. If
the neoliberal academy’s ethos is precarity, and uncertainty its trade, then my research
and occupational life continue on parallel tracks.

REFERENCES

Kendzior, Sarah, 2014, The Job Market Recovery That Never Came, The Chronicle of Higher
      Education: Vitae, September 26.
Molé, Noelle, 2012, Labor Disorders in Neoliberal Italy: Mobbing, Well-being and the Workpla-
      ce, Indianapolis, Indiana University Press.
Robbins, Joel, 2013, Beyond the suffering subject: toward an anthropology of the good, Journ-
      al of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 19, 3: 447-462.




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TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                                         75




Teaching in crisis: Anthropology under structural adjustment
Susana NAROTZKY
Universitat de Barcelona


ABSTRACT: In this paper I want to address the pressure of structural adjustment policies on teaching
and learning anthropology. I will base my thoughts on the Spanish case but the reflexion is applic-
able to many other countries in Europe. The decline in public funding and the increase in fees have
transformed the meaning of higher education. Increasingly, productivity criteria and ranking meas-
ures become the guides to university investments and social valorisation of competing disciplines in
the public eye.



A Short story
   For several of the Southern European countries that are now subject to structural ad-
justment policies (Portugal, Greece, Spain) the 1980s and 1990s appeared as the pro-
mise of democracy and increased entitlement and access to basic rights such as educa-
tion and health after long spells of autocratic and dictatorial regimes 1. In Spain, while
compulsory education was extended to 14 and then 16 years old (allegedly also to keep
young people away from the labour market and unemployment rates under control), ac-
cess to higher education became the real symbolic marker of change. The number of
students enrolled in higher education increased by 240% from 1979 to 1999. Access to
education in general and to higher education in particular (that had been the preserve
of political and economic elites) symbolized social mobility. It was also a sign of demo-
cratization expressing the political enfranchisement of the masses. Education paved the
way to freedom and prevented political manipulation: it was the mark of the fully able
and responsible citizen, the political citizen. Therefore public education, as necessary to
democracy, was a political project and the responsibility of a democratic state.
   In Spain, the rise of anthropology as a discipline investigating social relations and
cultural practices in the contemporary world (as different from folklore studies, philo-
sophical anthropology and theology, and the colonial history of America) was strongly
tied to this political moment of the fight for and the transition to democracy.


1. A first version of this paper was presented as a keynote lecture at the “Teaching Amidst Change”
Conference, 5-6 September 2013, Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK. I want to thank
the organizers Jakob Krause-Jensen, David Mills and Didi Spencer for their invitation, and all the parti -
cipants for their comments and presentations.

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Teaching in crisis
    The neo-liberal restructuring of higher education, under way since the 1980s in the
UK, has resulted in a series of measures that have changed the meaning of the universi-
ty. Rather than a place of learning it is now an enterprise producing a commodity, na -
mely a degree with value in the labour market. The idea that the university is an envi-
ronment where knowledge is collectively being created for the common good is sideli-
ned. In its place, the accumulation of objectified knowledge assets prevails.
    Technocratic arguments have supported the restructuring of the university system
underscoring financial sustainability to the detriment of any other argument. Neoliberal
objectives lurk under a seemingly neutral, non-ideological and a-political technocratic
rationale. Indeed, restructuring in higher education (as in other structural adjustment
projects) was couched in the “crisis argument”: in financial terms the public higher edu-
cation enterprise was in permanent deficit. Costs were high and benefits low. Benefits,
however, were difficult to measure because they included not only strictly financial re-
turns to the enterprise itself, but also returns accrued to the bearers of the resulting hu-
man capital, measured in terms of employability and wage differential. In a new era of
universities’ financial autonomy and rolling back of public subsidies to higher educa-
tion, an increase in productivity meant lower costs and higher profits: staff reorganiza-
tion and high student fees. But in university, as in other paid care services such as
health care, it is almost impossible to increase staff productivity without negatively af-
fecting quality: productivity gains through staff cuts and precarization result in lower-
quality input in a creative process that requires intensive interaction between teachers
and students and the building of a caring relationship.
    The transformation of university from a public good into a market oriented service
producing tradable commodities has had another important effect. University degrees
are valued as credential assets, in terms of employment security and the future income
expectations they provide for their holders. This perspective on higher education is not
new. It is linked to the concept of “human capital” and the self-entrepreneurial indivi-
dual, rendered directly responsible for his or her own success in life. The “human capi-
tal” idea transforms knowledge into an individual asset instead of a collaborative pro-
cess, and transforms education into an investment. As an investment, then, it should se-
cure and maintain its value into the future and it should also increase it. But investmen-
ts are risky and the future is unknown in a truly secular culture. Therefore students spe-
culate over the future marketability of the degrees often choosing a discipline not be-
cause they are interested in it but because they think it will be in demand in the future
labor market. Hence an increasingly instrumental understanding of knowledge and lear-
ning albeit in a extremely volatile environment that renders investments highly risky.
    Higher education used to be a collective process of knowledge production and tran-
smission, where research and teaching nurtured each other. Now the university has
been transformed into a provider of commodified degrees, hence at a price and under


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market conditions of supply and demand. Significantly, the attitude towards university
education is being transformed. Instead of an entitlement and part of a persons’ tran-
sformation into a responsible citizen, it becomes a consumption item, an investment, an
asset of human capital. From being a political good, it becomes an economic asset. Fi-
nal objectives, then, are entirely different and operate in a different cultural environ-
ment.
   This transformation has had two consequences. On the one hand, fees have in-
creased out of pace with ordinary incomes in most places, arguably in relation to de-
mand (better universities or degrees can charge more because they deliver better
prospects of employability and future income). In countries such as Spain, the sudden
raise in university fees in the last couple of years has resulted in a high number of
dropouts related to economic reasons 2. Moreover, the Bologna restructuring of the uni-
versity has reorganized curricula in such a way that it is very difficult to be a part-time
student and work on the side. At the same time fellowships are being cut. Conse-
quently, university will again become a privilege instead of an entitlement.
   On the other hand, certain degrees have been defined as overvalued or non-marketa-
ble because they do not increase employment and income prospects. Courses, degrees,
disciplines, with low demand are disappearing in a market driven environment. In
Spain, university bylaws are being modified so that degrees with an enrollment under
40 new students a year are considered unviable and forced to disappear. An alternative
proposition is that they become extremely expensive. As a councilor of the Catalan go-
vernment said recently: “Those who want to study Latin… let them pay for it”.

Teaching anthropology
    Within this general “crisis” argument that serves to justify deep transformations in
higher education all over Europe: What is happening in Anthropology? I will speak of
social anthropology and of the situation in Spain. As a Social Science and Humanities
discipline social anthropology is at risk and is pushed to demonstrate its relevance for
“society” (often used as a substitute for “the market”). Mostly it is required to define its
professional niche: what is it that anthropologists really do? What are their abilities and
capacities? How do they contribute to economic growth? While it seems to most of us
pretty obvious that research based in the ethnographic and comparative methods can
offer important knowledge for policy, it is also clear that its critical edge is potentially
disturbing. Knowledge about how society works or doesn’t work, about power fields
and social relations, about the multiple strategies and practices that defy or uphold in-
stitutions, about expectation and frustration, about forms of violence and forms of care,
and about producing meaningful difference... is a potentially dangerous knowledge for
the establishment. Anthropology teaches and learns from crises.

2. In the 2012-2013 academic period some 30,000 students have been unable to pay their full fees and
have been threatened with expulsion (El País, 27-08-2013).

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   Because ideas and practices on how to produce and enhance wellbeing are not ho-
mogeneously shared across society, knowledge about society can support many kinds
of action and forms of engagement, but also, this knowledge is produced from a situa-
ted position that informs observation and theory. It is never neutral and is at pains to
present a “technocratic” appearance. It is always engaged, always a continuation of our
political positioning by other means. Thus, against the neo-liberal trend in higher edu-
cation that stresses neutral forms of vocational training responding to labor market de-
mand, anthropology is always political (although not always in the same way). Anthro-
pology is at risk of disappearing as a proper discipline because the knowledge it provi-
des can only become co-opted into mainstream economic objectives by being fragmen-
ted, disembedded and often distorted. Different sub-fields within anthropology used to
be thought of as a mere analytical tool within a holistic arena that explored real life
complexity. Now, instead, these analytical fields (increasingly fragmented) are compe-
ting against each other as commodities in a market trying to seduce individual custo-
mers. And this is a real danger to what makes anthropology’s specificity.
   The crisis, or the argument of the crisis as an instrument for the privatization of hi-
gher education, has made an important impact in anthropology. The changes it has
brought about are an obstacle to the collective enterprise of learning through teaching
and research that are vital for anthropology. Anthropological knowledge is unique be-
cause it is produced through the ongoing debate of hypotheses during the fieldwork ex-
perience, the tension of diverse forms of knowledge, of different manners of distancing
and categorizing in order to “make sense” of experienced reality. Anthropology is
about learning from others and learning with others through engaged reflexivity. This is
the only way Anthropology can exist as a science and be taught.
   So the question is can we keep building this collective knowledge in the new envi-
ronment of induced crisis in higher education?




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TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                                  79




Anthropology for whom? Engaging students in the neoliberal academy
Jaro STACUL
Memorial University of Newfoundland


ABSTRACT: The article analyzes students’ engagement in the neoliberal academy. It points to a para-
dox: while academic institutions set out to produce engaged and motivated students and instil in
them a quest for knowledge, their increasingly high tuition fees are creating instead a disengaged
student population whose main goal is to pay off accumulated debts.


    Most anthropologists probably share Shore and Wright’s view (2000: 57) that the
rise of technologies of audit and accountability engender «new norms of conduct and
professional behaviour» and create «new kinds of subjectivities». A lot has been writ-
ten, in Anthropology and cognate disciplines, on the rise of audit culture after the neo-
liberal turn, and I do not think my thoughts will add anything new to what is already
well known. However, I would like to contribute to the debate by asking a question: if
audit technologies set out to create self-managing individuals who render themselves
auditable, as Shore and Wright suggest, what kind of students does the auditable acade-
my produce?
    A few years ago, Gusterson (2011) shared his views on the consumer mentality and
commodity logic that have become dominant among students in Anglophone universi-
ties on both sides of the Atlantic and reminded us that our task, as academics, is not
simply the production of knowledge (in the form of publications, for example): we also
have to communicate it to an audience which includes, inter alia, undergraduate studen-
ts. At a time when a lot of pressure is put on academics to publish books and articles in
refereed journals, teaching seems the least important task. Yet not all academic institu-
tions are research-intensive, and the survival of many departments is conditional on
sufficient student enrollments. An anthropologist who has published articles in presti-
gious journals or has put forward a fascinating theory, for example, cannot expect high
enrollments if students find his/her language difficult, or if his/her expectations are hi-
gher than other colleagues. I am not denying that there are committed and hard-wor-
king students who have a different attitude towards university studies. However, it
seems clear that ensuring sufficient enrollments poses a few problems, and I will di-
scuss some of them.
    During my career as an academic I have become familiar with different academic
systems. I completed my first university degree in Italy, and subsequently moved to Bri-
tain to pursue my doctoral studies in Social Anthropology. After completion of my


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PhD, I was elected into temporary teaching and research positions in England and Wa-
les. I subsequently crossed the Atlantic and worked in universities in the Canadian pro-
vinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. I recently moved to Memorial University of New-
foundland, to which I am currently affiliated. Obviously different universities have dif-
ferent systems, yet while most value research, they also place increasing emphasis on
“learning” and “student success”. These are highlighted by their mission statements
(which I quote anonymously): «to provide the environment and support to ensure (the
students’) success»; «to instil in (students) a lifelong quest for knowledge and under-
standing»; «to provide students with a transformative, academically rigorous personal
learning experience»; and so forth. One way in which knowledge is instilled and a lear-
ning experience is provided is through “engagement”. Engagement may take different
forms, yet at the level of practice engaging students usually entails stimulating their in-
terest in the subjects taught and establishing a relationship between such subjects and
the “real world”. Thus, more and more universities run seminars and symposia on how
to make students more engaged. Engagement, in turn, has drawn the attention of the
private sector too: I am often contacted by publishing companies encouraging me to
adopt their newly-published textbook that has the potential to enhance students’ enga-
gement; likewise, computer companies occasionally ask me to recommend their pro-
ducts to the university’s purchase department on the grounds that their adoption will fo-
ster students’ engagement. Emphasis on engagement is hardly surprising: after all, if au-
dit technologies (like course evaluations, for example) set out to improve the quality of
teaching, improved teaching techniques will likely produce engaged and motivated stu-
dents. But how “engaged” are students in the neoliberal academy?
    One thing I have always found difficult to assess is students’ engagement itself. Until
quite recently I assumed that students’ questions on the subjects examined in class and
their participation in discussions were evidence of engagement. Moreover, because of
its focus on the “real world”, Anthropology can play a significant role in stimulating
students’ interest. In theory this is true. Yet in practice engagement becomes a problem
if students need to work as a result of the high tuition fees that many universities char-
ge. While a few years ago most students used to study and work, nowadays they work
and study. Thus, a full-time job means a very limited amount of time to be devoted to
study. This situation brings to mind what Gusterson (2011) wrote not long ago: because
losing a job is not an option, students skip the readings for a class in order to be able to
show up for work. There is little doubt that some students know how to balance work
and study, and this skill is reflected in their final grades. However, these are a minority:
most of those who have recently attended my classes, for instance, told me very hone-
stly that succeeding in exams is a matter of luck. They always hope to be tested on their
lecture notes only, and know that questions on the assigned readings are likely to result
in mediocre or low marks. Yet getting not-so-good marks is preferable to being fired.



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   The stress and anxiety stemming from the attempt to balance work and study are re-
vealed particularly by the e-mails some students send me the night before a test. Most
of these ask on what materials they should focus, whether it is necessary to remember
dates or definitions, and the like. Others ask whether the ethnographic video shown in
class or the article on reserve in the library may be found online. There is nothing
wrong with these questions. Yet they show that preparation for a test is usually left for
the last minute, and that very little, if anything, of what has been learned is likely to be
retained. In a recent class, I encouraged a student to contribute to discussions and sum-
marize the points she had made in her presentation a few days before, and she replied
that she could not even remember what the presentation was about. This is an extreme
case, but it is an indicator of the “disengaging” effect of high tuition fees, and reveals
that for an increasing number of students the main goal of studying is to pass a test.
   Engagement becomes even more problematic at a time when an increasing number
of students make use of mobile electronic devices with access to the Internet. Nobody
can deny that these are very useful tools: after all, a visit to the university library invol-
ves time and money to be spent on photocopies, and a little device can save both. Ho-
wever, easy access to sources can have perverse effects like, for example, excessive de-
pendency on electronic devices. Convincing students to visit the university library to
find sources for a research paper has become a challenging task, given that retrieving
academic articles from databases is deemed much easier and faster. This is not laziness,
but pure economic calculation: the time spent in a library is time taken off work, and
the more time, the longer it will take to pay off one’s debts. Gone are the days when
students used to come to my office to ask for advice as to what books they should read
during the summer. Nowadays I am more likely to hear about the summer jobs for
which they plan to apply. The “job”, in turn, is no longer the means to pay off debts: it
has become an end in itself.
   As a result of these changes, campus is becoming less important as a context of so-
cialization and exchange of ideas among students, and the increasing popularity of onli-
ne courses may have “desocializing” effects. Shortly before the winter semester came to
an end, I was asked by some students who took one of my courses for the notes of the
lectures they had not been able to attend. I drew their attention to the course descrip-
tion, and reminded them that it is their responsibility to get such notes from other stu-
dents. They, in turn, gave the same reply: that they do not know the other students.
This reply reminded me of an important thing, namely, that one of our tasks, as anthro-
pologists, is to make students familiar with cultures and societies (broadly defined). But
how can students become “engaged” and learn about something called “society” if they
cannot (or do not want to) relate to others attending the same small class? Welcome to
the neoliberal university.




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REFERENCES
Gusterson, Hugh, 2011, Lowering British higher education, Anthropology Today, 27, 1: 1-2.
Shore, Cris, Susan Wright, 2000, Coercive accountability: The rise of audit culture in higher
      education, in Audit cultures: Anthropological studies in accountability, ethics and the
      academy, Marilyn Strathern, ed, London, Routledge: 57-89.




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TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                                     83




Graduate education and training in the neoliberal university
Meredith WELCH-DEVINE
University of Georgia


ABSTRACT: This essay explores the impacts of neoliberal policies on graduate education, focusing at-
tention on issues of curriculum, decision-making, and the role of graduate students at the university.



    Before beginning this essay, it is perhaps important to know who I am, or at least
what role I fulfill at the university. I work in the Graduate School as a faculty member
charged with enhancing our efforts at interdisciplinary and innovative education. In
many ways, I am a perfect example of what neoliberalism has wrought. I am a mid-
level administrator in a position that many might lump into the category of “admini-
strative bloat”. I spend much of my time assisting faculty as they write proposals for
new programs. This involves encouraging them to think about whom their new pro-
gram will attract, how their new graduates will serve the workforce of the state and the
nation, and what their economic impact will be. At the same time, I encourage them to
become entrepreneurial; new programs are all but obliged to apply for training grants,
to apply to foundations, or to otherwise secure the means to fund their graduate studen-
ts.
    I do not do those things because I think it will help these faculty better meet their
pedagogical goals, but rather because it will help them get their programs approved and
their graduate students fed. Demand, placement, and economic service to the state are
what drives program approval decisions, so much more so than ideals of advancing
science, lifting culture, pushing boundaries, and training insightful and critical thinkers;
and, state funds for higher education, particularly graduate education, are never suffi-
cient.
    At the same time, I also have elements in common with the academic precariat. I
am in a non-tenure-track faculty position, and my contract is reviewed and renewed on
a year-to-year basis. In addition to not feeling I have the security to openly critique
structures or policies I believe are problematic, the need to continually rejustify my exi-
stence forces me to carefully document the ways in which I contribute to the university,
particularly in how I help increase our offerings, our training grants, and the quantity
and quality of graduate students. This necessarily takes time and energy away from my
ability to serve those students and to think creatively about training programs that ad-
vance knowledge and create passionate and curious people.


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    Much has been written on the impact on higher education of the policies and practi-
ces inspired by neoliberal ideologies and discourses. And much is quite damning (see
for example, Giroux 2010). Cuts in state funding to public institutions, the extension of
economic rationalities to universities, and the redefinition of individuals from citizens
to economic actors has pushed universities to focus on revenue generation, economic
efficiency, branding, and extrinsic outcomes (Saunders 2010). These conditions in turn
have led to the undermining of tenure, the increased use of contingent faculty, and in-
creasingly hierarchical modes of university governance (Saunders 2010).
    What is missing from those accounts, though, is an on-the-ground view of their ef-
fects on faculty, students, and the institution. What I try to do here is to provide that
and to focus attention a bit more on those issues that are specific to, or at least particu-
larly relevant for, graduate education and training. This focus on graduate students is
necessary because they face a different set of conditions, opportunities, and constraints
than do undergraduates, and yet at many institutions, mine included, they lack visibili-
ty. This may manifest in subtle ways, such as graduate students being absent from the
University President’s annual letter bragging on the qualifications of new students, or
they may be more insidious, particularly when important decisions are made without
adequate representation from graduate student interests. Recent examples at my univer-
sity include the selection and initial configuration of student information and other IT
systems. When the needs of graduate students and their mentors are considered after
key decision points, the workarounds put in place to meet their needs can be quite
cumbersome. One might argue that the focus on undergraduates is natural, given that
the university is made up mostly of undergraduates, but when approximately 8,500 of
our 36,000 students are graduate and professional students, they are hardly insignifi-
cant. It seems more likely that they are often overlooked because roughly half of the
approximately 7,000 graduate students are on assistantship, being paid to attend the
university, rather than paying tuition. They are, therefore, not the same kind of consu-
mer as the undergraduate who will pour tens of thousands of dollars into the university.
Graduate students become the cogs in the machine, teaching courses and laboring in
labs, with their work conditioned primarily as service to undergraduates and to PIs ra-
ther than as opportunities and contexts for their own growth and development as scho-
lars.
    Economic rationalities also drive a focus on creating graduate programs that are
economically efficient, that generate revenue, and that provide for the needs of capital
in the state. We see this in progressive rewrites of the program proposal template (pro-
vided by the Board of Regents of the University System) to increasingly focus on job
prospects for graduates, revenue impacts to the university, and potential for economic
impacts in the state. Faculty are now in the business of writing business plans, estima-
ting market shares, and forecasting demand for their product every bit as much as they
are tasked with designing programs to train future scholars and citizens. At the same

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time, the University has been charged with eliminating programs that are “low produ-
cing” and that are feared to use too many resources in the production of each unit. This
includes eliminating the terminal master’s degrees that in many fields have provided an
honorable and useful escape hatch for those who learn that doctoral education is not a
good fit. These are programs that cost very little, that we prefer not be high producing,
that serve students well, and that were targeted for termination nonetheless. Luckily,
the Board of Regents did accept the University’s argument that these programs should
remain. Other programs will not be so lucky. As has been pointed out by others (e.g.
Slaughter 1993), humanities programs have long been under fire because they do not
generate revenue in the same way that genetics programs do, but now they are also un-
der attack for being smaller programs, even when that is what might make both pro-
grammatic and financial sense.
    Even such mundane building blocks of graduate education as courses are under
pressure from the budget models born of neoliberalism. At my institution, budgets are
loosely based on credit hours, and credit hours follow the instructor of the course, flo-
wing to the unit that pays the instructor. This actively works against the development of
interdisciplinary programs, as some unit heads discourage students from taking courses
outside of their departments. This focus on credit hours also makes it difficult for facul-
ty members to co-teach courses. Even when they give full effort, they can only receive
a portion of the credit. Such a funding model encourages unnecessary duplication of
effort. Why would we develop a robust general training course that would serve multi-
ple programs when each program could offer a variant of it and capture the credit
hours produced by their students?
    For those who write using the term neoliberalism, the results attributed to it are al-
most always cast as universally bad. I would like to, gently, challenge that notion. Many
authors decry the “vocationalization” of training (e.g. Giroux 2010), and while I do be-
lieve that our graduate programs should focus more on creativity and inquiry, I also
think it is perfectly reasonable and responsible to train students with other skills as
well. Turning out graduates who can communicate and work in teams certainly serves
the interests of capital, but that does not mean it does not also serve the interests of the
students and society more broadly. As pertains to the research enterprise, perhaps the
constant push for more grant dollars has forced creativity leading to breakthroughs in
science. And perhaps the arranged marriage of arts and humanities programs with the
sciences will not simply produce bland humanities in the service of STEM but rather
confer benefits in expanding the horizons of both partners.
    I feel acutely the tension between my roles as handmaiden of neoliberalism and cri-
tical scholar committed to the democratization of knowledge production, management,
and transfer. I have not yet found a satisfactory way to resolve that tension and am not
entirely content with the “change from within” model. However, a glimmer of hope
came from a very unlikely place earlier this year, as International Monetary Fund

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(IMF) researchers identified disturbing concerns with neoliberalism more generally
(Ostry, Loungani, Furceri 2016). If even the IMF can step away from neoliberal poli-
cies, perhaps our institutions of higher education can as well.

REFERENCES

Giroux, Henry, 2010, Bare pedagogy and the scourge of neoliberalism: Rethinking higher edu-
       cation as a democratic public sphere, The Educational Forum, 74, 3: 184-196.
Ostry, Jonathan, Prakash Loungani, Davide Furceri, 2016, Neoliberalism: Oversold?, Finance
       and Development, June 2016: 38-41.
Saunders, Daniel, 2010, Neoliberal ideology and public higher education in the United States,
       Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 8, 1: 41-77.
Slaughter, Sheila. 1993, Retrenchment in the 1980s: The politics of prestige and gender. The
       Journal of Higher Education, 64: 250-281.




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TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                                   87




Let our Profs be Profs
Jon P. MITCHELL
University of Sussex


ABSTRACT: This contribution traces the impact of research and teaching audit on university life in
UK. It focuses on how the audit regimes generate an entrepreneurial subjectivity among academics,
thereby transforming what it means to be a “Prof”. It argues that anthropology has a role to play in
drawing attention to the significance of these transformations of subjectivity.



    On May 3rd 2016, an organisation called Let Our Kids Be Kids called a national
strike of primary age (5-11 years) school children in England, in protest at the in-
creased pressures of schooling in contemporary England. The main target of the day-
long strike was assessment, and particularly the so-called “SATs” tests which children
take at ages 6/7 and 10/11. Ostensibly designed as audit – to test schools, rather than
pupils – Let Our Kids Be Kids nevertheless argued – with the support of considerable
anecdotal evidence – that children found SATs increasingly stressful, and that they
were stifling creativity in the classroom, as teachers increasingly “teach to test”. More
significantly, though, Let Our Kids Be Kids points towards a more general problem, of
a primary education system in the grips of a stifling audit regime that threatens to gen-
erate a particular type of perverse subjectivity, at the cost of a more healthy one – of
“being Kids”.
    A similar audit regime prevails in the UK’s universities, where the requirements of
accountability and “quality assurance” generate an equally unhealthy subjectivity
among academics. The technologies of audit generate technologies of management and
self-management that refashion subjectivities in alignment with the values of individu-
alism, entrepreneurialism and market competition. Such is the nature of neoliberalism
(Ganti 2014: 94). Many of us recognise in this neither the people we wanted or expec-
ted to become when we started our academic career, nor ourselves, in our activities.
The challenge of the neoliberal university is that of “being a Prof”.
    Since the 1980s, successive UK governments have pushed for increased accountabil-
ity and marketization in higher education. Under the banner of “quality assurance”, a
series of frameworks or “exercises” have been established to audit both teaching and
research.
    In research, this began in 1986 with the “research selectivity exercise”, which be-
came the “research assessment exercise” (RAE) and latterly the “research excellence
framework” (REF). They were initially designed to guide the allocation of general re-

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search funding – the so-called QR or “quality related” funding that is not linked to par-
ticular projects. However, as QR funding decreases in real terms (Ruckenstein, Smith
and Owen 2016), they are increasingly significant only to establish league tables of de-
partments and universities, or as what some people refer to as a “beauty contest”. Re-
search quality is measured in terms of three factors: the quality of publications, as
judged by peers – but increasingly through citation and impact indices; the research en-
vironment, in which the main factor is research income from non-QR sources (founda-
tions, research councils etc.); societal impact – this is the measurable effect that a piece
of research has had upon wider society or culture.
   In each case, what started out as a retrospective “stock-taking” of achievement and
quality is now a driver of entrepreneurial research activity. Publications, or “outputs”,
are targeted towards higher status, higher profile journals; the acquisition of research
funding has become an end in itself, rather than a means to an end of generating re-
search; and the pursuit of societal impact has become a central driver of research
design, as grant applicants are now required to “plan for impact”. Not only have these
drivers become commonplace, their hegemonic purchase has made them “common
sense”, in Gramsci’s terms. They are seen as unquestionable: who could possibly argue
against wanting to publish your work in the “best” journals, wanting to get more re-
search funding, or wanting to maximise the societal impact of your research?
   Yet we know from Kuhn (1962) that science tends to be highly normative. The
highest profile is not necessarily the most innovative, with genuinely new ideas more
likely to appear on the fringes. We also know that the best ideas are not necessarily
those that are likely to attract funding – again because they go against norms of accep-
ted practice or established paradigms. As Ozga (1988) has argued, entrepreneurialism
in research grant acquisition has driven scholars away from «Purposeful, but wide-ran-
ging intellectual enquiry» (147), and towards management – of research funds, of
funding applications, and of donor expectations. Moreover, as I have argued (Mitchell
2014), the impact agenda favours impacts of a particular type, driving us towards re-
search that bolsters established policy – or worse, serves as propaganda for policy
(Marginson 1993). The consequence is a standardisation and homogenisation of re-
search on the one hand, and on the other, an increasingly frantic and anxious entrepren-
eurialism, as scholars compete over limited resources.
   In teaching, audit began in the early 1990s with “teaching quality assessment”
(TQA) and “subject review”, managed by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). These
were initially institution-level, and subsequently subject-level reviews, involving self-
evaluation, review of student evaluation, observation of teaching, and scrutiny of audit
process. They were replaced in 2001 by a “lighter touch” Institutional Audit process in
which universities manage their own teaching quality assurance, but have periodic visits
from the QAA to audit their procedures. There are plans to replace this in 2017 with a
“teaching excellence framework” (TEF).


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TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)                                          89


    Over the period of university teaching audit, measures of student satisfaction with
teaching have become increasingly important, particularly so since the introduction of
student tuition fees in 1998. Initially set at a maximum of £1,000, this was raised to
£3,000 in 2004, and £9,000 in 2012, when central government removed its direct per
capita funding of student tuition. This created an open market in student recruitment.
To help prospective students make decisions about where to study, and to assure quality
the National Student Survey was introduced in 2005. This annual survey of all final
year students rates student “satisfaction” about their courses, on a range of issues in-
cluding learning resources, careers guidance, feedback on work, and the quality of
teaching. When the TEF is introduced, this will feed in to an overall ranking that will
enable the higher-ranked institutions to charge yet higher tuition fees. For the moment,
it is an important part of the published league tables that appear in the press and online,
which form an important part of student recruitment.
    With every undergraduate student now guaranteeing an income to the university of
£27,000 over 3 years, there is considerable financial pressure to compete for every po-
tential student both internally within universities and externally between them. With
league tables and student satisfaction a significant factor in student choice, and with
rising fees generating an increasingly consumer-like attitude among students who, now
paying, expect “good service” and “value for money”, there is increased pressure to
teach courses and modules that are not merely “interesting” or “important”, but “satis-
fying” and even “entertaining”. Again, the logic is in some ways unquestionable – why
wouldn’t we want to provide the best possible teaching, and why wouldn’t we ask the
students to make judgements about teaching quality? Yet as with research, the teaching
audit regime generates a series of perverse outcomes, or drivers. In this case potentially
“dumbing down” course content and presenting classes as “infotainment”. Not so much
“teaching to test” as teaching to student evaluation, in order to maximise league-table
scores and so better compete for students.
    Evidence is starting to emerge about the levels of stress and anxiety being generated
by this entrepreneurialisation of university life (Berg, Seeber 2016: 2ff). We might
identify three inter-related sources of stress. First, the need to perform, to maximize, to
generate outputs, income, impact and high levels of satisfaction. Second, the stress in-
herent in compromising principles that this generates. We are drawn towards tailoring
our research interests towards those of the funders or of policy; and tailoring our teach-
ing towards that which is satisfying. Maintaining principles in such a context can lead
to contradiction and compromise. Third, there is the stress inherent in competition. Al-
though academics have always competed – intellectually, and over jobs and resources –
it is its collegiality and sense of collective endeavour that has attracted and sustained
many careers – including my own – through difficult and stressful times. The neoliberal
regime of audit, accountability, entrepreneurialism and competition cuts across this
collegiality, producing an entrepreneurial subjectivity that is by definition competitive,
rather than collegial. As a result, the very thing that holds us together is eroded.


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   Let Our Kids Be Kids attracted widespread media attention, and support from di-
verse public commentators. As I write, the University and Colleges Union (UCU),
which represents academics and others in higher education, has its own campaign, in-
volving a series of one-day strikes and a “work to contract” designed to disrupt uni-
versity business. The primary grievances are an inadequate pay deal, the casualization
of university contracts, and the gender pay-gap. These are all important – indeed vital –
targets for action. Yet for many the focus on the specific fails to capture the more gen-
eralised grievance that not just our work and our conditions, but our very subjectivities,
have been transformed.
   I am not sure that a Let Our Profs Be Profs campaign would have any purchase in
the public imagination. Fighting against, or to preserve, something as apparently nebu-
lous as “subjectivity” is going to be a difficult task. Yet as anthropologists, we need to
find ways to communicate this most central of messages in the anthropology of neolib-
eralism – that the transformation of subjectivity is not a “soft” project, but the hard
edge of neoliberalism. We need to do this not just for our Kids, but also for our Profs.

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Kuhn, Thomas, 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, Chicago University
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Marginson, Simon, 1993, Education Research and Education Policy, Review of Australian Re-
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Mitchell, Jon P., 2014, Anthropologists behaving badly? Impact and the politics of evaluation
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This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)
Anthropologists in/of the Neoliberal Academy
2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 41-90.
ISSN: 2239-625X – DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2437
