Metric Power and the Academic Self: Neoliberalism, Knowledge and Resistance in the British University

Abstract

This article discusses the experience of being an academic in the UK in the contemporary climate of neoliberal capitalism and 'metric power' (Beer 2016). Drawing on existing literature and our own practice, the first portion of the paper explores the relationship between neoliberalism, metrics and knowledge. We then examine how neoliberal mantras and instruments impact the university's structures and processes, and reflect on consequences for the academic self. We take as a starting point the context of increasing workloads and the pressure on academics to excel in multiple roles, from 'world-leading' researchers to 'excellent' teachers and 'service providers' to professional administrators performing recruitment and (self)marketing tasks. Neoliberal academia, we suggest, promotes a meritocratic ideology of individual achievement that frames success and failure as purely personal 'achievements', which encourages a competitive ethos and chronic self-criticism. This article insists that these problems need to be understood in the context of neoliberal policy-making and the corporatisation of knowledge, including funding cuts and grant imperatives, the low status of teaching, the cynical instrumentation of university league tables, and increased institutional reliance on precarious academic labour. The article goes on to focus on responses that resist, challenge or, in some cases, compound, the problems identified in part one. Responses by dissatisfied academics range in style and approach -some decide against an academic career; others adopt a strategy of individual withdrawal within the system by trying to create and protect spaces of independence -for example, by refusing to engage beyond officially required minimums. This article argues that opportunities for positive systemic change can be found in collective efforts to oppose the status quo and to create alternatives for how academic labour is organised. Therein, solidarity can act as an instrument of opposition to the individualisation of the neoliberal academic self.

The neoliberal turn in Higher Education

“…An important subliterature in this critique details and/or advocates the academic resistance to the forces of neoliberalism invading Higher Education (e.g., Cone, 2018;Giroux, 2002;Ingleby, 2015;Mott, Zupan, & Debbane, 2015;Quinn & Bates, 2017;Saunders & Blanco Ramirez, 2017;Shahjahan, 2014). Some of these writings display considerable rhetorical flourishes: for example, Feldman and Sandoval (2018) decry 'the hegemony of metric power', while Giroux (2010) writes of 'bare pedagogy'. Such linguistic devices may go so far as to almost obscure the meaning of the critique for the general reader:…”

Sujeto Académico Neoliberal: Cuantificado, Digitalizado y Bibliometrificado

“…Recientemente, comienza a aparecer un amplio conjunto de investigaciones muy llamativas que evidencian nuevas subjetividades en la academia neoliberal por el uso cotidiano de los índices de impactos bibliométricos y las plataformas digitales que miden la calidad de los individuos mediante cuantificaciones digitalizadas (Feldman y Sandoval, 2018;Lupton, 2016;Lupton, Mewburn y Thomson, 2018). Son investigaciones que nacen para prestar atención a la "creciente gama de tecnologías, particularmente aquellas relacionadas con la contabilidad y la gestión de los datos, que se utilizan actualmente en la gobernanza de la educación superior" (Lim, 2019, p. 2).…”

“…Mediante las nociones de self-tracking y quantified self, Deborah Lupton (2016) ha explorado con intensidad los modos bajo los que los individuos auto-cuantifican sus conductas mediante procesos de datificación y digitalización en el mundo digital, que conforman al sujeto académico digitalizado (Lupton, Mewburn y Thomson, 2018). En las esferas del deporte, la salud, la alimentación y lo social, por poner algunos ejemplos, es algo muy común que el sujeto auto-cuantifique y haga visibles los datos de las actividades cotidianas mediante plataformas digitales y el poder de las métricas (Beer, 2016;Feldman y Sandoval, 2018).…”

Resilient Scholarship in the Digital Age

“…Recasting universities as corporations has led to the creation of digitally managed audits and surveillance metrics purporting to measure the quality of teaching and research which feed into league tables and income streams (e.g. Feldman & Sandoval 2018;Morrish 2019a). These place demands on scholars to focus on areas which enhance such metrics and generate income (e.g.…”

“…At the same time, it is important to avoid a framing within the neoliberal discourse on individualisation and knowledge production (e.g. Feldman & Sandoval 2018). Resilience thinking has been criticised for its incorporation of dominant social values (e.g.…”