Hi @Wojt,
Thanks for registering to the Resilient Livelihoods summit, this is the next session and I’m wondering if you or others in your network will be attending?
Don’t hesitate to introduce yourself here in a comment, so that @atelli, our curator, and other participants can connect with you,
xx
Thanks for drawing the canonical picture of generations’ worth misdeed and systemic hierarchies @alberto! HE is based on a feudal approach ever since its establishment and I feel like it is high time to mention how this has, in the literal sense, bullshitization of academic jobs at any level. I hope you can join us in this session with your honest and open contributions towards a life of sustainable commons. Would be highly appreciated:)
Dear Session participants: Here is our plan for the session. I put in the titles of the short talks. Please check your bio dear @rebecca since I copied it from your webpage affiliated to the university. I have also put in contributors, following up with those signing up here as well as on Facebook. We will be sending you the login link and other housekeeping info Monday morning. Thanks for your help in this dear @noemi
22 June, 2020 at 5 pm (CET)
Contributions by V.Pinto (Italy case, anti-Bologna action and impact in Europe), Pascale Laborier, David Schmudde, Alberto Cottica, Academics for Peace and other peace supporters/activists with their insight on the way forward
BIO`s of Speakers
Asli Telli: Asli is a member of Academics for Peace Network and focuses on digital media facilitated activism, resistance, advocacy and transversal action of displaced commons. She taught and performed field research in Turkey, Switzerland, Malta, France, the US and lately in Germany, The latest projects she contributes to are “Digital Transversal Action of Euro-Migrants against Right Populisms” (www.mobilesolidarity.com) and “Mapping Academic Freedoms” (www.mappingfunds.com). Lately, she reflects with her colleagues on implications of protracted displacements, perish of critical knowledge and inequalities.
Cristina Del Biaggio: Cristina is assistant professor at the Université Grenoble Alpes (France) and at the research laboratory Pacte (www.pacte-grenoble.fr) since 2017. Geographer, her research focuses mainly on migrations and borders. She previsouly worked at the University of Geneva, where she completed her PhD and has successively worked as post-doc, lecturer, researcher, etc. At parallel, she also worked for an NGO based in Geneva where she run a project “Le Comptoir des médias” (Comptoir des médias - asile.ch), a media watch on asylum and refugees.
Rebecca Collins: Rebecca is a human geographer with research interests in the intersection of everyday material culture and sustainability, youth culture(s), and the politics of the body. At present, she is a senior lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Chester in the UK.
Ayse Batur: Ayşe is a translator, editor, currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Academy of Visual Arts (HBK - Braunschweig) in Germany. Batur studied philosophy at the Bogazici University in Istanbul, and Cultural Studies (MA) at the Istanbul Bilgi University. Her dissertation project focuses on the memory politics around the Gezi Uprising.
thanks @ayselucie for this insight. We definitely want to take away a few things from these efforts. There will be note-taking and a document to work on together as follow-up. Strategy thought and action is always challenging, but we must definitely give a thought to it during the discussions we hope to arrive at after the short talks. I`m also hopeful about the discussants I placed at the end as contributors since a few of them who have signed up might have tips/experiences to share with us in that regard. Looking forward!
Hello, I’m an ex academic teacher who lost his job due to cuts in the bioethics department teaching curriculum. Since the time i graduated from my philosophy department, the number of students decreased tenfold and many of my friends at the uni have been struggling with precarisation of their positions. We don’t have the tenure issue here in Poland, but people’s full-time contracts, with social security, employment stability and prestige are being cut-down or replaced with other forms of engagement and there is hardly any recruitment.
Most of them live from grant to grant, from project to project to make ends meet (god bless the EU!). Until recently, young researchers (in their doctoral studies and sometimes after graduation) had no quarantee of employment or income. The latter has changed. (Working as librarians or security guards on night shifts let them catch up with their reading list). We’re also undergoing a reform of higher education that, to many of them, is bound to make the situation even worse.
I’m keen to participate and hear the conversation!
Thank you @Wojt. Would be happy to see you among the discussants after the short talks. The Polish case is interesting since authoritarian measures also apply. How would you see the impact on academic freedoms and freedom of speech? I also wonder what the new reforms will bring.
Dear Noemi, I used the word “precaious” because it is what I was. In 10 years at the University of Geneva. As PhD student and “teaching assistant” first and as post-doc later I cumulated something like 24 contracts. And while in Switzerland I had no perspective for a permanent position. And it is not only a question of socio-economic instability (I always managed to get contracts inside and outside university in order to have a decent salary), but more in terms of status and perspectives.
Best, Cristina
I second that, especially since some of us in the session are not working in the academic milieu but would be happy to think along the lines of what is being done, and how others can contribute to existing or new efforts.
@Wojt thank you for sharing, so you are more of a freelance academic nowadays?
I suspect many of the short contracts that Cristina talks about as well are also that: basically freelancing in a very traditional environment where status is tied to the job security… which makes it a complete misnomer when all of your contracts are meant to get you closer to a permanent position.
Are you seeking for a permanent position… and if so, what makes you feel hopeful?
Hi Asli,
Apologies, I’ve only just seen your message – but I’ve also seen you’ve pulled together a bio for me from my dept webpage, which is absolutely fine! If there’s anything else you need from me, do
let me know. I have a few meetings today but will be keeping an eye on email.
Look forward to seeing you online this evening.
Best wishes,
Rebecca
I am adding my comment on first generation academics from the call to this thread: I am from a rural area and in fact most of the people I graduated school (A-levels) with (as myself), were the first in their families to go on to university. 10 Years after starting our studies, getting good academic jobs seems often to have to do with connections and confidence, both of which a lot of first generation academics lack. We also do not have guidance and reaffirmation to go on in that direction from our families. What I have observed is many of us defaulting to other or administrative work after their studies, unable to break into the next level.
Maybe it is not a coincidence that the economical situation of especially young academics has become worse while there have also come more first generation academics who are not aware what to demand, what would be the best career moves and how to protect their rights.
Hi, everybody!
Thank you for these very informative discussion, food for thought for me.
Unfortunately I had to leave earlier, and didn’t contribute as much as I’d wanted.
Thank you all for your voices and participation, it was a great experience for me!
When I finish with what I’ve got to do, I’ll write back with some answers to your questions.
Thanks again for having me!
w
Thanks to you and all who joined. The conversation is still going, and we will be posting the notes with highlighted questions that we keep reflecting on!
This will be a repeat to Noemi’s round of thanks:) I really appreciate all the sincere sharing during this session. We managed to turn a cold-zoom connection into a warm moment of reflection. Thanks to @noemi’s initiative of note-taking, we started producing documentation right away. I also copied the discussion in the chat pane and will add those to our googledoc as well. If there is anything you thought was left to address, pls. post it here. This was only a warm-up into great things we’ll do together. Let’s keep up the hope and take this forward!
So this tweet just went viral…
I guess this is the best you can get at the moment as a colored women in academia, esp. if you`re still climbing the ladder of tenure. Even more sadly, it is considered an honorable gesture to turn such an offer down whereas this should be the norm. No relocation support, travel funds or any extra benefits mean you are there just to follow a default plan presented to you by the institution and better not resist since this is and will be your only chance! We are discussing such hot topics here at the moment: Netzwerk für Gute Arbeit in der Wissenschaft | Call for Participation: “Precarious Internationale: solidarity network meeting” The discussions and online input from participants (video and audio) take place in a Moodle platform where you can sign up as a guest here: Login | HU-Moodle and join the discussions under course title: Precarious International. On July 1st, there will be an online gathering via zoom embedded in moodle platform. Just hop in if you find the time any time until July 1st.
dear @noemi @ayselucie @cdb77 @rebecca @MariaEuler and all others present at our session last Monday, I added notes onto documentation Noemi scribed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uTnOP46yLuDZ-rLRNs0guiAv5UDsniA8BREG5M0gZfA/edit Could you pls. in your available time, check if you`d like to change/add anything? We will then post a legible blurb to the interested community at large and possibly think of a road map in short and longer term. Some of this could very well be within Edgeryders Livelihoood Summit.
I would say since most people are stressed for time - it woudl be good to publish the notes, and because it will be a wiki everyone can go in and make modifications.
The most important is to have it up sooner rather than later, while our thoughts from the session are still fresh and the participants can publish their reflections forward in the comment there.
Alright, agree with that. Will make the last touch on the title, then go ahead and publish in wiki form, @noemi. Thanks:)
Thanks for such a great write-up of our discussion last week. I’ve added a little more detail to my section, just to help with clarity. Look forward to seeing where this conversation goes next.