Passion, care, and eros in the gendered neoliberal university

Abstract

In this article, we respond to Bell and Sinclair's (2014) call for reclaiming eros as noncommodified energy that drives academic work. Taking our point of entry from Institutional Ethnography (IE) and the standpoint of junior female academics, we highlight the ambiguity experienced in the neoliberal university in relation to its constructions of potential. We elucidate how potential becomes gendered in and through discourses of passion and care: how epistemic and material detachment from the local is framed as potential and how masculinized passion directs academics to do what counts, while feminized and locally bound care is institutionally appreciated only as far as it supports individualized passion. The way passion and care shape the practices of academic writing and organize the ruling relations of potentiality is challenged through eros, an uncontrollable and un-cooptable energy and longing that becomes a threat to the gendered neoliberal university and a source of resistance to it. By distinguishing between passion, care, and eros, our IE inquiry helps to make sense of the conformity and resistance that characterize the ambiguous experience of today's academics.

New masculinities in universities? Discourses, ambivalence and potential change

“…Loss of belonging, in contrast, exhibits competitiveness and individualism characteristic of hegemonic masculinity. The persistently gendered nature of academia is visible in how our findings differ from the way many women reflect on contemporary universities in Finland as offering them little opportunities (Lund, 2015;Lund & Tienari, 2019). The men that we interviewed are in a position to navigate the neoliberal society where all are held individually responsible for success and for their ability to handle pressures in their lives.…”

“…Investment in oneself, driven by neoliberal ideology, encompasses the whole of people's lives in academic work, which remains markedly gendered (Adkins & Dever, ; Adkins & Jokinen, ; Gill, ; Katila & Meriläinen, , ; Lund & Tienari, ; Mannevuo, ; Parsons & Priola, ; Van den Brink & Benschop, ). Gendered practices are reproduced (and disrupted) in the lives of academics, which are characterized by ambiguity and contradictions.…”

“…The business school has an explicit aim to encourage all scholars to work on publications for journals listed on the Financial Times 50 and especially those that are rated 4* in the ABS (Chartered Association of Business Schools) ranking of journals. Our interviewees are aware that the ‘ideal’ academic is expected to produce publications in specific journals — and promise to do even more in the future (Lund & Tienari, ) — in order to climb the career ladder. ‘ My first top publication showed others that they must take me seriously ’, Sam recalls.…”

“…Investment in oneself, driven by neoliberal ideology, encompasses the whole of people's lives in academic work, which remains markedly gendered (Adkins & Dever, 2016;Adkins & Jokinen, 2008;Gill, 2009;Katila & Meriläinen, 1999, 2002Lund & Tienari, 2019;Mannevuo, 2016;Parsons & Priola, 2013;Van den Brink & Benschop, 2013).…”

“…Gendered practices are reproduced (and disrupted) in the lives of academics, which are characterized by ambiguity and contradictions. This is especially so in the experience of those who are in precarious positions such as junior female scholars (Lund & Tienari, 2019). Extant research illuminates how discourses of merit and gender are mutually constitutive and how the evaluation of merit in universities is based on taken-for-granted assumptions about what constitutes the 'ideal' worker (Acker, 1990) or, indeed, the 'ideal' academic (Harding, Ford, & Gough, 2010;Lund, 2012Lund, , 2018.…”