Assembling disruptive practice in the neoliberal university: an ethics of care

ABSTRACT

We document and interrogate our collective experimentation with disruptive academic practices as early- and mid-career women researchers in Aotearoa New Zealand. We grapple with our disruptions and attempted interventions to do academic work differently. We find that, in our efforts to resist, and attempts to promote different norms within a neoliberal university setting, we exercise a commitment to care: for colleagues, students, our friends, families and selves. This ethic of care emerged as we interrogated our gendered experiences in a set of experimental interventions designed to disrupt gendered neoliberal practices. These interventions – the formation of a national Women and Gender Geographies Research Network (2013), an interactive seminar (2015), and a panel session at the New Zealand Geographical Society Conference (2016) – generated different experiences of living, working, and relating in academic spaces. In productively disrupting, we learned the value of collectives to generate momentum and build solidarity, and the importance of creating safe spaces for sharing experiences. Our experiments emphasize that mutual trust, especially within our collective, is critical to progress. The interventions’ generative work privileged other forms of labour and fostered an active and equitable (knowledge) community in which practices of care for diverse academic communities and ourselves were paramount.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethics of care
• slow scholarship
• neoliberal university
• collective action
• feminism
• resistance

Acknowledgements

This work would not have been possible without the encouragement and support of NZGS, WGGRN, participants at the NZGS Dialogues, and participants and panellists at the NZGS Panel Discussion on ‘Gendered Geographies of Academic Work’. In particular we would like to thank Annie Bartos, Sophie Bond, Kelly Dombroski, Alison Greenaway, Tolu Muliaina and Yvonne Underhill-Sem.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Puāwai is a Māori term. v. to bloom, come to fruition, open out (of a flower). n. flower, blossom, bloom. www.maoridictionary.com. The Puāwai Collective is an Auckland-based collective that has its roots in the Women and Gender Geographies Research Networks, but which evolved organically as we sought to make sense of our gendered experiences of the academy and to act to do things differently. The authors of this paper constitute the original members of Puāwai (Kate Davies (NIWA, Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand), Karen Fisher, Erena Le Heron, Emma Sharp and Roseanna Spiers (School of Environment, University of Auckland, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand).

2 These, for some, are very serious medical conditions, which have a defined screening and treatment process. While individual members follow up their conditions/circumstances clinically or with support in other spheres, we narrate our experiences of care within our own group, as this is our focus in this paper.

3 The Auckland NZGS Branch awarded grants to Auckland-based WGGRN members who were also members of the NZGS, and who were unwaged or did not have access to research and travel funding to enable them to attend a national WGGRN symposium in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Authors of this paper, with the exception of Karen, were recipients of this award.

4 Yvonne Underhill-Sem, Sophie Bond, Annie Bartos, Tolu Muliaina and Kelly Dombroski. Facilitator Alison Greenaway.