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When All Hope Is Gone: Truth, Lies and Make Believe

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Resisting Neoliberalism in Higher Education Volume I

Part of the book series: Palgrave Critical University Studies ((PCU))

Abstract

The chapter presents a reflexive and biographically positioned ‘truth’ that speaks about, to and from the changing nature of academic labour in higher education institutions. The chapter articulates a particular set of positioned beliefs and feelings about how neoliberal discourse in higher education makes strange the familiar and the familiar strange. These are represented in a reconstructed narrative account that references the ways in which academic work(ers) become subject to a performative functionality. The chapter draws on the function of parrhesia: a form of speech that emerges out of pre-established experience, theoretical and practical understanding to contextualise a ‘speaking back’ to the wider social and political contexts reshaping academic work in universities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Michael Bailey and Des Freedman, eds. The Assault on Universities: A Manifesto for Resistance, (London, Pluto Press, 2011).

  2. 2.

    Angelo Nicolaides, “The Humboldtian Conception of Research and Learning- Towards Competitiveness in South African Higher Education,” Educational Research 3 (2012) 912; 914.

  3. 3.

    Emil Marmol, “The Corporate University: An E-interview with Dave Hill, Alpesh Maisura, Anthony Nocella and Michael Parenti,” Critical Education 6 (2015) 1.

  4. 4.

    Andrew Sparkes, “Embodiment, Academics and the Audit Culture- A Story Seeking Consideration,” Qualitative Research 7 (2007) 521.

  5. 5.

    Higher Education Funding Council of England, “The TEF,” http://www.hefce.ac.uk/, Accessed November 8, 2017.

  6. 6.

    Lorraine Ling, “Australian teacher education: inside-out, outside-in, backwards and forwards,” European Journal of Teacher Education, 40 (2017) 561; 562.

  7. 7.

    Elizabeth Adams St. Pierre and Wanda Pillow, eds, Working the Ruins: Feminist Poststructural Theory and Method in Education (New York: Routledge, 2000), 1.

  8. 8.

    Maggie MacLure, “Qualitative Inquiry: Where are the Ruins?” Keynote presentation to the New Zealand Association for Research in Education Conference, University of Auckland, December, 2010; 1.

  9. 9.

    Maggie MacLure, Discourse in Educational and Social Research (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2003), 1.

  10. 10.

    Dorothy Holland, William S. Lachicotte, Debra Skinner and Carole Cain, Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2003).

  11. 11.

    Marita Sturken, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, The AIDS Epidemic and the Politics of Remembering (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), 9.

  12. 12.

    Torill Moen, “Reflections on the narrative research approach” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 5 (2006): 56–64.

  13. 13.

    Lorraine Ling, “Australian Teacher Education: Inside-out, Outside-in, Backwards and Forwards,” European Journal of Teacher Education 40 (2017) 561.

  14. 14.

    SIGJ2 Writing Collective, “What Can We do? The Challenge of Being New Academics in Neoliberal Universities,” Antipode 44 (2012) 1055.

  15. 15.

    Simon Springer, “Fuck Neoliberalism,” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, Vol 15 (2016) 285; 286.

  16. 16.

    Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text (New York: Hill and Wang, 1975); 47.

  17. 17.

    Teresa Bejan, “The Two Clashing Meanings of Free Speech,” Accessed December 2, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/two-concepts-of-freedom-of-speech/546791/

  18. 18.

    Jennifer Nias, “Thinking about Feeling,” Cambridge Journal of Education 26 (2006) 293; 305.

  19. 19.

    Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014).

  20. 20.

    Todd May, Between Genealogy and Epistemology: Psychology, Politics and Knowledge in the Thought of Michel Foucault (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), 156.

  21. 21.

    Audre Lorde. “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action.” (2017), 43.

  22. 22.

    Lorde, 44.

Bibliography

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    Google Scholar 

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  • MacLure, Maggie. “Qualitative Inquiry: Where are the Ruins?” Keynote presentation to the New Zealand Association for Research in Education Conference, University of Auckland, 6–9 December, 2010, 1–17. Accessed November 12, 2017 from www.esri-mmu.ac.uk/respapers/NZareRuins.pdf

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  • Marmol, Emil et al. “The Corporate University: An E-interview with Dave Hill, Alpesh Maisuria, Anthony Nocella and Michael Parenti.” Critical Education 6 (2015): 1–23. Accessed November 17, 2017. http://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/article/view/185102

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  • Moen, Torill. “Reflections on the Narrative Research Approach.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 54 (2006): 56–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nias, Jennifer. “Thinking About Feeling.” Cambridge Journal of Education 26 (2006): 293–306.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nicolaides, Angelo. “The Humboldtian Conception of Research and Learning- Towards Competitiveness in South African Higher Education.” Educational Research 3 (2012): 912–920.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adams, St. Elizabeth and Wanda Pillow, eds, Working the Ruins: Feminist Poststructural Theory and Method in Education. New York: Routledge, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • SIGJ2 Writing Collective: “What Can We do? The Challenge of Being New Academics in Neoliberal Universities.” Antipode 44 (2012): 1055–1058.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sparkes, Andrew. “Embodiment, Academics and the Audit Culture- A Story Seeking Consideration.” Qualitative Research 7 (2007): 521–549.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Springer, Simon. “Fuck Neoliberalism.” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 15 (2016): 285–292.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sturken, Marita. Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, The AIDS Epidemic and the Politics of Remembering. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Mark Vicars

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  1. Mark Vicars
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Correspondence to Mark Vicars .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Dorothy Bottrell

  2. School of Education, University of the Sunshine Coast, Maroochydore, QLD, Australia

    Catherine Manathunga

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Vicars, M. (2019). When All Hope Is Gone: Truth, Lies and Make Believe. In: Bottrell, D., Manathunga, C. (eds) Resisting Neoliberalism in Higher Education Volume I. Palgrave Critical University Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95942-9_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95942-9_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-95941-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-95942-9

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