Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, University of Warwick
Talk by Dr Mona Mannevuo and Dr Elina Valovirta (University of Turku), entitled "Shifting our gaze from individuals to structures – to where? The strange feeling structures of university work". It will take place on May 24th 2023, on Zoom at 10.00
Abstract: "This presentation deals with academic time management discourses or "tendencies" (Sedgwick 1995) as an affective phenomenon in the neoliberal university. The genre based on efficiency thinking, neuromanagement and brain plasticity appears as an antidote to chronic time poverty plaguing academics worldwide. However, time management often aims to serve individual, not collective, goals. The question remains whether these time management tendencies are effective to solve problems experienced in the university community on a structural level.
Numerous studies have stated that time-related affects such as guilt and anxiety plague the subjects of academic work, and burnout is not an exception but almost a rule concerning university workers. However, the ideas of a slow university or skillful time management brought to control the chaos and counterbalance the eternal rush do not seem to completely remedy the situation. Academic, precarious work culture is a structure, but people through their own actions create the emotional structure or atmosphere that emerges from it. Our attempt is to envision, what sustainable time activism could look like. Thinking about time differently could help balance the accelerating pace of work and bring back the joy of collectivity crucial to feminist practices and politics."