This was the last in the Spring/Summer 2009 Seminar Series at the University of Birmingham: Gender and Sexuality: The Discursive Limits of ‘Equality’ in Higher Education.
Joyce Canaan’s paper posed the question: “Are we in a post-neoliberal moment?” Given that it was a late arrival on the capitalist scene in the 1990s, the neoliberal dictum that There Is No Alternative seems exaggerated. And if that is so, then the current fashion by UK Vice Chancellors for “shock-doctrine” in universities offers a moment of vulnerability in which a resistance to its discursive regulation can be mounted.
The situation as perceived by government and Vice Chancellors is that HEIs must engage in market-led competition in order to ‘deliver’ maximally efficient courses for the knowledge economy. This efficiency has only been achieved by a 30 year decline in the public subsidy for universities to the point that the UK ranks lowest in this regard in the OECD.
Canaan’s next question was “why do we keep going along with it”. Answer: because of the carrot of self-actualization dangled before academics to ensure their compliance with the stick of regulation – QAA, RAE, benchmarking etc. These all render academics auditable, and allow the imposition of a neoliberal governmentality which works through a destabilization of established academic practices. And it never stands still, since we are impelled to go through permanent revolution, so that no practices ever fully establish themselves or achieve legitimacy. The ‘second order’ activities of audit take over and construct our very beings as academics. Our professional lives are dominated by the need to discursively provide evidence that we are compliant with the regime.
Canaan offered two thinkers who allow for possibilities outside of the crisis of economic rationalism and regulation: Raymond Williams and Judith Butler. Both question the fixity of the dominant and the supposed natural. Butler recognises that norms are only legitimated by constant citation, and we can choose to stop the repetition. Raymond Williams shows us that the hegemonic provides the basis for the counter-hegemonic, and that the residual can still be reactivated. There is also the emergent – that which a dominant social order represses or fails to recognize. This is the most crucial tool for dealing with the dominant and for allowing subversion, as the emergent seeks new forms or reworks old practices. Bourdieu argues for a scholarship with commitment, and in striving for that, we may create the social conditions for realizing utopias.
Wednesday 27 May 2009
Professor Richard Johnson - Gender Insurgency and Neo-Liberal Reform: The Academy Twice Transformed?
A report on a paper by Richard Johnson delivered at the University of Birmingham 6th March 2009 in the series: 'Gender and Sexuality: The Discursive Limits of "Equality" in Higher Education'
This talk marked a kind of ironic homecoming for Richard Johnson, as he taught at the University of Birmingham, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies from 1974 to 1993. CCCS was, unfathomably, closed in 1991 and a new Department of Cultural Studies and Sociology formed. It, too, was closed by the University in 2002, in the wake of rumours that this was revenge for the centre’s oppositional stance to the University’s administration. At this point Richard left Birmingham, and at Nottingham Trent many of us were privileged to enjoy his generosity of time and spirit, until his retirement.
Richard argued that neoliberalism didn’t just start in 1975, but we are now seeing an intensification of its embrace. While noting Karl Polyani’s view that economies are embedded in cultures, Richard made the point that these dominant models never wholly expunge other trajectories. The fact that neoliberalism is not all-encompassing is what makes it possible to critique the structures which attempt to govern and regulate us in the academy. Furthermore, as much as these other perspectives exist alongside the dominant ones, there remains the possibility of a looking back to a previous existence and perhaps a re-installation of that ethos.
Richard’s talk took a biographical turn as he reflected on the phases and transitions across his own academic career. This began in Cambridge in a collegial, but gender and class-segregated setting. At Birmingham there was less segregation of class, and slowly there appeared more women colleagues as feminists fought their way into academic space and legitimacy. Alliances with the 1968 student movement resulted in a greater democratization of the university and of power relations between staff and students.
The neoliberal phase began with Richard’s move to NTU, more or less in concert with the accession to power of New Labour. He reports finding many echoes at NTU of the Blairite interventionist impulse to over-regulate, inspect, audit and punish those who do not comply. However, despite this he was delighted to find that cultural studies at NTU was not a marginalised project. It was well embedded in the academy and successful in research. Ironically, he found, much of the exciting collaborative work fell away under RAE pressures to perform individually. In his view, the decision to buy in experienced researchers (such as himself) resulted in a reproduction of patriarchy, a teaching/ research divide and a gender hierarchy.
Richard left us with a call to subvert the neoliberal governmentality he saw at NTU and more generally in the ‘new’ and ‘old’ universities. He offered two strategies: a return to collective work, activism and the formation of ‘little networks’ (let’s hope this blog is a start!); also a revitalised demand for democracy in universities, with real representation on key decision-making bodies.
This talk marked a kind of ironic homecoming for Richard Johnson, as he taught at the University of Birmingham, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies from 1974 to 1993. CCCS was, unfathomably, closed in 1991 and a new Department of Cultural Studies and Sociology formed. It, too, was closed by the University in 2002, in the wake of rumours that this was revenge for the centre’s oppositional stance to the University’s administration. At this point Richard left Birmingham, and at Nottingham Trent many of us were privileged to enjoy his generosity of time and spirit, until his retirement.
Richard argued that neoliberalism didn’t just start in 1975, but we are now seeing an intensification of its embrace. While noting Karl Polyani’s view that economies are embedded in cultures, Richard made the point that these dominant models never wholly expunge other trajectories. The fact that neoliberalism is not all-encompassing is what makes it possible to critique the structures which attempt to govern and regulate us in the academy. Furthermore, as much as these other perspectives exist alongside the dominant ones, there remains the possibility of a looking back to a previous existence and perhaps a re-installation of that ethos.
Richard’s talk took a biographical turn as he reflected on the phases and transitions across his own academic career. This began in Cambridge in a collegial, but gender and class-segregated setting. At Birmingham there was less segregation of class, and slowly there appeared more women colleagues as feminists fought their way into academic space and legitimacy. Alliances with the 1968 student movement resulted in a greater democratization of the university and of power relations between staff and students.
The neoliberal phase began with Richard’s move to NTU, more or less in concert with the accession to power of New Labour. He reports finding many echoes at NTU of the Blairite interventionist impulse to over-regulate, inspect, audit and punish those who do not comply. However, despite this he was delighted to find that cultural studies at NTU was not a marginalised project. It was well embedded in the academy and successful in research. Ironically, he found, much of the exciting collaborative work fell away under RAE pressures to perform individually. In his view, the decision to buy in experienced researchers (such as himself) resulted in a reproduction of patriarchy, a teaching/ research divide and a gender hierarchy.
Richard left us with a call to subvert the neoliberal governmentality he saw at NTU and more generally in the ‘new’ and ‘old’ universities. He offered two strategies: a return to collective work, activism and the formation of ‘little networks’ (let’s hope this blog is a start!); also a revitalised demand for democracy in universities, with real representation on key decision-making bodies.
Professor Mary Evans - For Us or Against Us: Coercion and Consensus in Higher Education
Abstract:
In debates about the admissions of state school pupils to Oxbridge those defending Oxbridge have challenged the idea that universities should be 'engines of social change'. At the same time Oxbridge, and other universities have accepted the responsibility of 'enabling' entrepreneurship and other market led initiatives. I want to explore some of the implications of this position in terms of the 'making' of the person in higher education and in particular the ways in which conservative refusals of radical gender and class change re-inforce structural inequalities.
Report:
Mary Evans produced a well-researched and structured argument in support of her thesis that neoliberal discourse and institutions (especially elite institutions) have produced a new kind of compliant and conformist female academic who completely accepts the new values of the university. Universities have embraced the values of the marketplace and models of social action based on enterprise. While embracing these new ideas, elite institutions have resisted moves towards greater diversity in student admissions.
The demands that the academic engages with the economic forces visited upon the university have in turn produced a new labouring self, perhaps a formulaic over-socialised persona, who is unrelentingly positive and engaged in academic entrepreneurship. This demands a negotiation with the institution which is gendered. Women analyse difficulties as failings of the self, rather than deficiencies in the institution. These latter become inadmissible, just as anger with institutional values becomes pathologized. Advancement through the hierarchy of the university is available only to compliant ‘good girls’. In this way, gender discrimination is no longer overt and categorical, but covert and is seen in pressure to conform to the ideal. For men, greater toleration of individuality is permitted, but women have to do more work to conform, squeezing out any possibility for ‘the person’ to emerge.
In terms of admission to elite institutions, the ideal remains the confident student with recognisable aspirations. Difference, if identifiable, must be articulated and accounted for. The person of promise and enthusiasm is the neoliberal ideal and privilege bestowed on that person will be seen as earned and legitimate. Perhaps this is the ultimate ‘confidence trick’ ?
In debates about the admissions of state school pupils to Oxbridge those defending Oxbridge have challenged the idea that universities should be 'engines of social change'. At the same time Oxbridge, and other universities have accepted the responsibility of 'enabling' entrepreneurship and other market led initiatives. I want to explore some of the implications of this position in terms of the 'making' of the person in higher education and in particular the ways in which conservative refusals of radical gender and class change re-inforce structural inequalities.
Report:
Mary Evans produced a well-researched and structured argument in support of her thesis that neoliberal discourse and institutions (especially elite institutions) have produced a new kind of compliant and conformist female academic who completely accepts the new values of the university. Universities have embraced the values of the marketplace and models of social action based on enterprise. While embracing these new ideas, elite institutions have resisted moves towards greater diversity in student admissions.
The demands that the academic engages with the economic forces visited upon the university have in turn produced a new labouring self, perhaps a formulaic over-socialised persona, who is unrelentingly positive and engaged in academic entrepreneurship. This demands a negotiation with the institution which is gendered. Women analyse difficulties as failings of the self, rather than deficiencies in the institution. These latter become inadmissible, just as anger with institutional values becomes pathologized. Advancement through the hierarchy of the university is available only to compliant ‘good girls’. In this way, gender discrimination is no longer overt and categorical, but covert and is seen in pressure to conform to the ideal. For men, greater toleration of individuality is permitted, but women have to do more work to conform, squeezing out any possibility for ‘the person’ to emerge.
In terms of admission to elite institutions, the ideal remains the confident student with recognisable aspirations. Difference, if identifiable, must be articulated and accounted for. The person of promise and enthusiasm is the neoliberal ideal and privilege bestowed on that person will be seen as earned and legitimate. Perhaps this is the ultimate ‘confidence trick’ ?
'Gender and Sexuality: The Discursive Limits of 'Equality in Higher Education'
The 'Gender and Sexuality: The Discursive Limits of 'Equality in Higher Education' seminar series (University of Birmingham, Spring-Summer 2009) investigated a number of areas of concern, regarding gender and sexuality, which are identifiable in the current British higher education environment. The series explored how current dominant ‘neoliberal’ discourses, which emphasise the commodification of higher education in the UK, function to set limits upon ‘equality’. Ironically, while these discourses often suggest a widening of opportunities within higher education with an emphasis upon unlimited individual freedom and choice, the lived experience can be rather different for women and sexual minorities. The seminar series explored the impact such discourses are having upon gender and sexuality identities and practices in the academy. The aims of the seminar series were:
To identify the characteristics of neoliberal discourse and its influence in the UK academy
To identify effects which impact on women, sexual minorities and gender/sexuality scholarship
To examine effects of on constituencies of scholars who are marginalised by neoliberal discourse
To examine patterns of fiscal loss or reward as a result of neoliberal strategies of HEI management and planning
There was an Introductory session followed by three seminars in the series - invited keynote speakers were Mary Evans (University of Kent), Richard Johnson and Joyce Canaan (University of Birmingham). Each seminar consisted of a presentation by the keynote speaker followed by a group discussion.
To identify the characteristics of neoliberal discourse and its influence in the UK academy
To identify effects which impact on women, sexual minorities and gender/sexuality scholarship
To examine effects of on constituencies of scholars who are marginalised by neoliberal discourse
To examine patterns of fiscal loss or reward as a result of neoliberal strategies of HEI management and planning
There was an Introductory session followed by three seminars in the series - invited keynote speakers were Mary Evans (University of Kent), Richard Johnson and Joyce Canaan (University of Birmingham). Each seminar consisted of a presentation by the keynote speaker followed by a group discussion.
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