Beyond the neoliberalized academy: caring and careful practices of women full professors

ABSTRACT

This article reveals how some women full professors have developed caring and careful practices with their students despite the neoliberalization of public higher education, thus, avoiding individualization and establishing trust and solidarity. It presents interviews with 24 women full professors from a Colombian public university, an ethnographic study with three of them and nineteen interviews with their students and colleagues. The content analysis of the fieldwork shows that the professors have caring practices, which include rebuscarse to ensure the well-being of the students and providing financial support, as well as careful practices such as intervening to prevent harm and being open to listening. Caring and careful practices of the professors serve to improve the lives of the people that are close to them and to build a much friendlier and more supportive university. However, care activities are complex, undervalued and represent a double burden, which is why modifying university policies is an urgent task.

KEYWORDS:

• Care
• neoliberalism
• public higher education
• rebuscarse
• women in academia
• Latin America

Acknowledgement

I want to thank the women full professors and their students that generously shared their experiences with me. I am very grateful for all the suggestions and encouraging comments by Gender and Education's anonymous reviewers; they were really supportive and allowed me to improve my research: thank you so much. I also want to thank Adam Frick for proofreading the manuscript, and to Tania Pérez-Bustos for her guidence during my PhD. Finally, I specially thank Serhat Tutkal for all his support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 As part of the State resources that can be accessed to fund research projects, there is the General Regalías System, which handles the distribution of income from the exploitation of non-renewable resources. The system's resources can be used to finance projects that are in line with the National Development Plan and the development plans of the territorial entities. The Science, Technology and Innovation Fund is part of this system (Decree 4923 of 2011).

2 On 24 October 1995, then US President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12978, seeking to block assets and prohibit transactions with those listed as being linked to drug trafficking (https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Documents/12978.pdf).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Isaura Castelao-Huerta

Isaura Castelao-Huerta has a PhD in Human and Social Sciences at the National University of Colombia. She holds a Master's Degree in Gender Studies from The College of Mexico (Colmex), and a Bachelor's Degree in Communication Science from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Her research is concerned with the effects of neoliberal policies in higher education and the ways in which they intertwine with gender. She currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Gender Research and Studies (CIEG), UNAM.