Revealing the manifestations of neoliberalism in academia: Academic collective action in Turkey

Abstract

Academic Collective Action (ACA) stands as a small-scale collective action for social change toward liberation, independence and equity in academia. Academic collectives in Turkey, as an example of ACA, prefigure building academia outside the university by emphasizing the extent to which neoliberal academia has already prepared the groundwork for more recent waves of oppression. In this research, we aim to reveal the manifestations of neoliberalism in ACA as captured with prominent social/political psychological concepts of collective action. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 dismissed academics to understand the social and political psychological processes in academic collectives. The narrations of ACA were accompanied by manifestations of neoliberalism as experienced by dismissed academics. We found that, as follows from the existing conceptual tools of collective action, neoliberalism serves as an embedded contextual factor in the process of ACA. This becomes mostly visible for grievances but also for collective identifications, politicization, motivations, finding/allocating resources and sustaining academic collectives. We provide a preliminary basis to understand the role of neoliberalism in organization, mobilization and empowerment dynamics of collective action.

“If I die, my children will pursue this case”: Counternarratives of power in Kurds.

“…Author 2 was a “petitioner” and Author 1 was a “nonpetitioner” but our common desire had been beyond an academic call for “peace.” Specifically, we were both committed to raising international voices to show that Kurds who resist against the state oppression and colonial exploitation by fighting for liberation and those who support Kurds are being violently punished in Turkey. First, we worked as a larger collective group to support each other for research and to make our voice heard hoping that the world would see the extent of state oppression (Coşkan et al, 2021; Reicher, 2017). Second and more importantly, since then, we (Authors 2 and 1) have talked more about our Kurdishness, reflexively questioning our previous studies, and our interconnectedness with the Kurdish struggle.…”

The cost of ‘care’ in neoliberal academia during the COVID-19 pandemic: Women academics, teaching and emotional labour

“…In current neoliberal academia, however, expectations regarding the role of teachers have changed profoundly. The British audit culture that has arisen from the obsession with ‘productivity’ has been reproduced in numerous academic contexts, such as the Portuguese, Turkish and Latin American (Coşkan et al, 2021; Ferreira, 2022; Torres and Schugurensky, 2002). It has led to the implementation of a complex monitoring apparatus aimed at quantifying academic labour, which also encompasses teaching activities (Barcan, 2013; Pereira, 2017).…”

Collective Action in Turkey: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go Next?

“…In a similar vein, Acar and Coşkan (2020) found that participation in-but not vicarious experience of-collective action resulted in empowerment, including feeling both individually and collectively efficacious and feeling a sense of support. In a similar vein, Coşkan et al (2021) noted that contextual factors such as political climate and neoliberalism could take away from feelings of empowerment-especially relevant for research on collective action in repressive climates (see Ayanian et al, 2021).…”