The deregulation of working time has been occurring over recent decades. Academia is one of the many industries that can be characterised by a long hours work culture and intensification of work. This is significant given the negative effects of such a work culture on the physical and mental health and well-being of workers. Using evidence from two UK-based qualitative studies, this paper begins to explore the causes and effects of academic long hours work culture further. It has a particular focus on the extent to which the long hours culture is a result of cultural and structural changes in higher education, which have led to an increased focus on performance and outcome measures. It queries whether this is also shaped by more personal factors, such as the desire to excel and blurred boundaries between work and leisure, whereby the pursuit of knowledge may be a source of leisure for academics. It finds that while individual factors contribute to the long hours culture, these factors are shaped by cultural norms and pressures to cultivate a perception of the 'ideal academic' within an increasingly target-driven and neoliberal environment.
This article explores the linkages between community events and a rise in community social capital by analyzing a case study of the Up Helly Aa fire festival in Lerwick, Shetland. Through ritually repeated action that now translates as tradition, Up Helly Aa interprets and reinterprets
what it means to be a Shetlander. It relies on personal donations and local businesses for funding, and this financial self-reliance can be seen to permit exclusionary actions towards visitors and reaffirm notions of traditionally constructed gender roles. This article examines the complex
negotiations that take place during the festival surrounding gender, identity, heritage, tourism, and belonging to a place. It concludes that given the physical and social landscape in which the festival occurs, the reutilization of community celebration and fostering of community identity
cannot be discounted despite Up Helly Aa's less than politically correct approaches to inclusionary participation and tourism development.
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