Higher Education Cutbacks and the Reshaping of Epistemic Hierarchies: An Ethnography of the Case of Feminist Scholarship

Abstract

Analyses of contemporary transformations in higher education and research funding indicate that such transformations impact not just on labour conditions and processes of knowledge production, but also on demarcations of what counts as 'proper' knowledge. As universities in many countries see their core funding reduced, profitability gains importance as a criterion of knowledge evaluation, sometimes producing sudden changes in long-standing discourses about the relative value of disciplines. This article examines how funding changes (re)shape epistemic hierarchies, drawing on an ethnography of academia in Portugal and using women's, gender and feminist studies (WGFS) as a case study. I show that amidst significant cutbacks, the recognition that feminist scholarship has financial value discourages questioning of its epistemic value, a questioning common until recently. Yet, this change is described publicly as motivated only by epistemic factors. Thus, I analyse interviews and speeches to examine how links between pecuniary profitability and epistemic status are downplayed to maintain a discursive framing of universities as institutions concerned with knowledge, rather than profit.

Struggling within and beyond the Performative University: Articulating activism and work in an “academia without walls”

“…Through this study, I found that a range of national and transnational processes -particularly transformation in the models of governance and funding of universities (Pereira, 2015) and the globalisation of academic knowledge production (Pereira, 2014) -have been causing significant transformations in the discourses that circulate in Portuguese academia about the epistemic status of WGFS. For many years, it was common to hear academics say explicitly and publicly that WGFS had no scholarly value or relevance, and thus was not worthy of space in academic institutions; this created significant obstacles to the emergence and development of feminist education and research in Portugal.…”

“…It is a tempting strategy, because it can make one feel reassuringly in control and often produces its own "perverse pleasures" (Hey, 2004; see also Leathwood & Read, 2013). It is also a necessary survival strategy at times, especially for academics in marginal fields such as WGFS, as I have demonstrated through my study in Portugal (see above and Pereira, 2015). But this strategy simply does not work.…”

“…For many years, it was common to hear academics say explicitly and publicly that WGFS had no scholarly value or relevance, and thus was not worthy of space in academic institutions; this created significant obstacles to the emergence and development of feminist education and research in Portugal. 5 However, from the mid-2000s, as institutions sought to adapt to changes in scientific policy and manage severe higher education cutbacks (Pereira, 2015), the epistemic climate changed. The recognition that WGFS could have financial and institutional value (by generating income through student tuition-fees, research funding, or publication ratings) dissuaded many scholars from publicly questioning its epistemic value.…”

“…Although feminist work is now very commonly framed publicly as capable of generating credible and valuable knowledge, most non-feminist scholars continue to describe it as useful only in some instances and in limited ways, and to represent it as epistemically inferior to other approaches or areas of inquiry (Pereira, 2012a). Moreover, the general public climate of greater acceptance of WGFS coexists with a regular unofficial dismissal of feminist scholarship and scholars: claims that WGFS cannot count as "proper" knowledge are frequently made informally and in humorous tone in corridor talk 6 and closed meetings (Pereira, 2015).…”

“…These two trends -the extensification and elasticisation of academic labour, and its reorganisation on the basis of logics of performativity -have unfolded against a backdrop of precarisation of work (Fantone, 2007;Gill, 2014;Lopes & Dewan, 2015) and cuts to funding in higher education and scientific research (Pereira, 2015;Santiago, Tremblay, Basri, & Arnal, 2008). This produces an explosive combination with profound and profoundly toxic (Gill, 2010) impacts on the professional, personal and emotional lives of those who work in academia, particularly in temporary positions (Beetham, 2012;Lopes & Dewan, 2015;Reevy & Deason, 2014).…”