Abstract:

This paper draws on 21 semi-structured interviews with academic staff at various seniority levels aged 50+, undertaken before, during and after COVID-19. The paper explores the changing relationship of late career academics (LCAs) to the neoliberal commercialised Academy over eight years. It notes how these academics often feel that they are held to some degree responsible for enacting managerial policies that are felt to have negative implications on Early Career Academics (ECAs) and seeks to contextualise and humanise their role. It makes three key contributions: 1) it highlights how the operation of the neoliberal Academy contributes to many academics seeking to ‘bail out’ and a reduction in voice activities associated with structural problems alongside a corresponding willingness to speak up - though rarely in relation to what may be perceived as entrenched structural problems with the academic system, 2) it highlights differences in perception between those who had been in academia for the majority of their careers and second career academics, with second career academics feeling much more favourably about the Academy, and 3) it demonstrates a building concern for ECAs under increasing pressure. Responding to Spee’s emphasis on the value of considering academic career phases (Spee, 2019), the paper draws upon Donald Winnicott’s work on the anti-social tendency and hope, to build a theoretical lens that explores and provides an explanation for how LCAs relate to the Academy.

Please choose your submission type: Full Paper

Primary Track: Critical Management Studies

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Dr. Huw Fearnall-Williams