Feminist scholars working around the neoliberal university

ABSTRACT

A considerable scholarship now describes the increasing neoliberalization of universities and the accompanying impacts on academic research and researchers. However, less attention has been devoted to issues of research project leadership, especially for academics with feminist commitments. This article reports results of a qualitative study of 12 senior academic women from 6 countries who are known for feminist research and explores how they pursue their projects in the context of contemporary changes and challenges. Rather than positioning faculty as passive participants, this study acknowledges their agency within institutional structures, albeit somewhat constrained. The results reveal the range of strategies employed by feminist researchers in various national contexts that enable them to maintain their critical focus despite increasing pressures to conform to neoliberal agendas.

KEYWORDS:

• Research
• feminism
• leadership
• academic
• neoliberal university

Acknowledgements

We thank the participants, the anonymous reviewers and our colleagues Eve Haque, Michelle McGinn and Marie Vander Kloet.

Notes on contributors

Sandra Acker, PhD, is Professor Emerita in the Department of Social Justice Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She co-edited Whose University Is It, Anyway? (2008), with Anne Wagner and Kimine Mayuzumi, and has written about topics including doctoral students, women academic leaders and changing academic work. Her current interest is in the social production of academic research.

Anne Wagner, MSW, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies and the Department of Social Work, Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario, Canada. She was lead editor for Whose University Is It, Anyway? (2008), with Sandra Acker and Kimine Mayuzumi. Her research interests include social justice issues in higher education, youth activism, and violence against women, race, gender, critical pedagogies and neo-liberalism in academia.