Fixed-Term and Temporary

Teaching Fellows, Tactics, and the Negotiation of Contingent Labour in the UK Higher Education System

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4138902
AutoresKimberley Peters (0000-0001-7297-6334, Geography and Earth Sciences, Llandinam Building, Aberystwyth University, Ceredigion SY23 3DB, Wales, autor de correspondencia), Jennifer Turner (0000-0002-7143-1751, University of Leicester, autor de correspondencia)
Año2014
Volumen46
Número10
Páginas2317-2331
Fecha de publicación2014-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEnvironment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1068/a46294
OpenAlexW2020447842
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas19

This paper autobiographically considers the role of teaching-only staff as a contingent labour force in the contemporary higher education system in the UK. The aims are twofold. First, whilst much attention has been paid to the role of the research fellow, there has been less consideration, in the UK context, of the teaching fellow as an alternate form of postdoctoral experience. Accordingly, this paper gives voice to the teaching fellow-a member of academic staff who is not allocated writing and research time as part of their contract-whose views are often marginalised in ongoing debates concerning the plays of power in the neoliberalised academy. Second, the paper raises these voices to bring into consciousness the impacts of the teaching fellow experience for the fellows themselves and the faculties they work in. It is argued that teaching fellows face challenging circumstances with regard to their career trajectories in the academy. Accordingly, this paper considers the ways in which fellows, through tactics of place-making, presence and visibility, and collaboration, negotiate the challenging structural and institutional conditions that underscore their contracts. It is contended that exploring the teaching-only workforce is vital for critically assessing the workings of the contemporary academy and questioning the unequal power relations that shape work places in a culture where contingent labour is expanding; becoming less of a fixed-term and temporary feature of the university system but, rather, a stable and enduring one

Consciousness · Higher education · Negotiation · Pedagogy · Political science · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Visibility · Workforce · Engineering · Higher Education Governance and Development · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Psychology