The incompatibility of neoliberal university structures and interdisciplinary knowledge: A feminist slow scholarship critique

Abstract

This paper argues that two fundamentally incompatible shifts are taking place in higher education institutions in the UK, and beyond: Firstly, there is a move towards appreciation of, and focus on, interdisciplinary teaching, learning and research. Secondly, the university institution is undergoing neoliberal reforms, in the spirit of New Public Management. It is argued that the latter leads to an intensification of pressures to specialise into increasingly narrow disciplinary niches, which in terms is detrimental to the possibilities for interdisciplinary cooperation. (Re)introduction of a feminist ethics of care into the university, as suggested by the feminist slow scholarship movement, is proposed as a possible solution to what is perceived to be negative developments in the higher education sector.

Keywords:

• Liberal Arts
• higher education institutions
• institutional reforms
• neoliberalism
• slow scholarship
• feminist ethics of care