This paper addresses the impact that the ever-growing involvement of scientists in knowledge-sharing practices by means of social media might have on the material conditions under which academic labour-power reproduces itself. Science communication is advocated for on the basis of its supposedly altruistic character, so scientists are prevented from expecting any form of remuneration ensuing from it. However, as our Marxian-informed analysis of the determinations of the value of the commodity labour-power will elucidate, this novel duty involves the exertion (...) of an additional quantity of work by academics, owing either to the relative complexation of the productive attributes requisite to use social media efficiently, or, particularly, to the accelerated pace at which scientists’ working capacity becomes productively consumed, both in absolute (extension of working hours) and in relative (work intensification) terms. It will be demonstrated that, as science communication via social media brings about an increase in the value of scientific labour power, wages must be raised so as to preserve science labourers in their normal condition. The article will further throw into relief that the political action of scientists themselves stands as the more general mediation for this innermost necessity of the capitalistic relationship of production to assert itself. (shrink)

This article examines the often overlooked yet crucial role of care work within the academic ecosystem. Challenging the dominant paradigm that prioritizes research output, the article argues for recognizing academic labour as a spectrum where teaching, research, and service hold equal value. Drawing on Rajan’s framework of ‘academic care work’, the article demonstrates the inseparable link between care and knowledge, highlighting how care work forms the foundation for knowledge production and reproduction. The analysis situates academic care (...) workers within the complex administrative landscape of higher education institutions, exploring the challenges posed by managerialism and external pressures. The article introduces the ‘Argument from Shared Paradigm’, positing that academics, through their shared experiences and values, are uniquely positioned to advocate for and safeguard care-centred practices in research and teaching. By recognizing care work’s essential contributions, this article calls for a re-evaluation of academic reward systems and a shift towards a more inclusive academic culture. (shrink)

_Steal This University_ explores the paradox of academic labor. Universities do not exist to generate a profit from capital investment, yet contemporary universities are increasingly using corporations as their model for internal organization. While the media, politicians, business leaders and the general public all seem to share a remarkable consensus that higher education is indispensable to the future of nations and individuals alike, within academia bitter conflicts brew over the shape of tomorrow's universities. Contributors to the volume range (...) from the star academic to the disgruntled adjunct and each bring a unique perspective to the discussion on the academy's over-reliance on adjuncts and teaching assistants, the debate over tenure and to the valiant efforts to organize unions and win rights. (shrink)

Purpose Underlying much recent development in data science and artificial intelligence (AI) is a dependence on the labour of precarious crowdworkers via platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk. These platforms have been widely critiqued for their exploitative labour relations, and over recent years, there have been various efforts by academic researchers to develop interventions aimed at improving labour conditions. The aim of this paper is to explore US-based crowdworkers’ views on two proposed interventions: a browser plugin that detects automated (...) quality control “Gold Question” (GQ) checks and a proposal for a crowdworker co-operative. Design/methodology/approach The authors interviewed 20 US-based crowdworkers and undertook a thematic analysis of collected data. Findings The findings indicate that US-based crowdworkers tend to have negative and mixed feelings about the GQ detector, but were more enthusiastic about the crowdworker co-operative. Originality/value Drawing on theories of precarious labour, this study suggests an explanation for the findings based on US-based workers’ objective and subjective experiences of precarity. The authors argue that for US-based crowdworkers “constructive” interventions such as a crowdworker co-operative have more potential to improve labour conditions. (shrink)

Universities are occupied by management, a regime obsessed with ‘accountability’ through measurement, increased competition, efficiency, ‘excellence’, and misconceived economic salvation. Given the occupation’s absurd side-effects, we ask ourselves how management has succeeded in taking over our precious universities. An alternative vision for the academic future consists of a public university, more akin to a socially engaged knowledge commons than to a corporation. We suggest some provocative measures to bring about such a university. However, as management seems impervious to cogent (...) arguments, such changes can only happen if academics take action. Hence, we explore several strategies for a renewed university politics. (shrink)

Academic institutions aim at achieving the highest standards of education and learning. Consequently, they prohibit academic corruption such as cheating or plagiarism. This article examines how international accreditation and quality assurance standards embody academic integrity as a main factor in deciding whether an academic institution should be accredited, and what ranking should an academic institution acquire in a competitive contest for educational excellence. Academic integrity is broadly defined to include, in addition to cheating and (...) plagiarism, compliance with standards of human rights, labor rights, corporate social responsibility, ant-corruption measures, environmental protection, social media usage, protection of underage students, anti-radicalization and extremism, avoidance of conflict of interest, faculty professionalism, students codes of conduct and human experimentation. Academic institutions should adopt policies that are designed to address these diverse standards and accommodate diversity and enhance access to education for all without discrimination. Academic institutions should also strictly require the highest standards in teaching and research. This article will discuss the different policies, laws, rules and regulations adopted by Qatar University as a model for incorporating academic integrity, which may be of interest to the international higher education community. This article will ask two main questions; are accrediting institutions asking the right questions to find out whether an academic institution strictly adheres to a policy of academic integrity, and whether policies adopted by academic institutions, Qatar University as a model, are adequate to address various violations of academic integrity. (shrink)

As Bhaskar (1989:1) argues, we need to take philosophy seriously because it underwrites both what constitutes science and knowledge and which political practices are deemed legitimate. At present, the field of educational research internationally is witnessing a pragmatist trend, whereby practical education research is carried out without reference to ontological and epistemological concerns. For David Reynolds, a leading UK school effectiveness academic, '[p]recisely because we did not waste time on philosophical discussion or on values debates, we made rapid progress' (...) (1998:20). Equally, for Teddlie, '[t]he orientation of many in the US is to do rather than to reflect […] In reality many practitioners are currently interested in what could work at their school […rather…] than in ruminations about social inequalities associated with different socioeconomic classes' (Teddlie and Reynolds 2000:27). The purpose of this chapter is not only to reclaim critical realist social philosophy for educational research, but also to reclaim reality from the positivist and statistical methodology that underpins School Effectiveness Research (SER) and to make clear the difference that realism makes by virtue of its critical explanatory power in unmasking the ideological nature of SER and its adoption by New Labour. (shrink)

The global surge in academic misconduct during the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated by remote teaching and online assessment, necessitates a comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional aspects and stakeholders' perspectives associated with this issue. This paper addresses the prevalent use of answer-providing sites and other types of academic misconduct, underscoring the challenge of detecting all or most of the student misconduct. Exploring factors such as faculty inexperience in remote teaching and assessment, the paper advocates for proactive measures to preserve integrity (...) in education. Emphasizing the need for a culture of integrity beyond traditional classrooms, the paper reviews existing models, then details steps to create a framework using the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s TREE training method. It presents the IEPAR framework (Inspiration, Education, Pedagogical considerations, Assessment design, Response and Restorative practice), and assesses its effectiveness. Incorporating faculty feedback, the paper concludes with evidence-based findings, positioning the IEPAR framework as a robust approach for addressing academic misconduct and fostering a culture of academic integrity in higher education through responsible training of all stakeholders. (shrink)

The practice of early modern natural history depended on the collective collecting activities of a great variety of people. Among them, artisans played a major role in acquiring and distributing knowledge about the natural world and they contributed significantly to the scholarly labour in natural history. This distributed labour was both acknowledged by contemporaries as well as hidden from sight, reflecting the period′s dominant norms for class and gender. By combining an interpretation of the visual representation of labour in European (...) insect studies with an examination of written sources about natural history practices from about 1680 to 1810, this article decodes the often‐codified frontispieces and other more symbolic illustrations to offer new insights into the labour of natural history. Those who identified as scholars and artisans (or both) conceptualised their own intellectual and practical engagement with natural history within the semantic field of work. Some seemed to have even envisioned a new social role for academics as well as artisans. This article analyses the diversity of the “productive forces” in insect studies as they changed over time and it reconstructs what I will call the social imaginaries of participation. (shrink)

Se realizó un estudio con el objetivo de ejemplificar los modos de actuación en el trabajo metodológico interdisciplinario que respondan a la formación académica, laboral e investigativa de los estudiantes de la carrera de Medicina de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas de Camagüey, desde una concepción intra e interdisciplinaria, rectorada por la disciplina Informática Médica. Se elaboraron propuestas de tareas docentes problematizadoras desde una estrategia metodológica a partir de la planificación que cada asignatura del año debe diseñar, las que permitieron (...) la realización de trabajos investigativos por los estudiantes en cada semestre del curso escolar, en las que se combinaron de manera creciente los contenidos y los diversos métodos teóricos y prácticos de las unidades curriculares del plan de estudio de las asignaturas Informática Médica, Metodología de la Investigación, Educación Física, Psicología General y Medicina General Integral como disciplina rectora en la carrera, influyendo en la formación de un profesional más competente. Determining a mode of on-the-job acting interdisciplinary methodologic that the intra answer to Camagüey's academic, labor and investigating formation of the students of the carrier of Medicine of Ciencias Médicas's Faculty, from a conception and interdisciplinary, manager for Information-Technology Medical discipline, he identified the objective of this work. The problem from a strategy elaborated bidding of teaching tasks themselves methodologic as from the planning that he must design each subject of study of the year, the ones that permitted the realization of investigating works for students in each semester of the school year, in the ones that combined of increasing manner the contentses and various theoretic methods themselves and pilots of units curriculares of the curriculum of Information-Technology Medical subjects of study, Methodology of Investigation, Physical Education, Psicología General and Medicine General Integral like ruling discipline in the carrier influencing a more competent professional's formation. (shrink)

Marx developed a sophisticated theory of labour under capitalism’s expanding reproduction but wrote little specifically on immaterial labour. This paper reflects on how to build from Marx’s writings a more comprehensive theory of immaterial labour. Integral to this theorisation is bringing in young Marx’s writings on alienation and human nature, and praxis read as the ‘point of knowledge is to change the world’. Integrating the young and mature work into a single perspective that highlights the actively causal dimension of human (...) creativity and knowledge for the making of history critically adds to and thereby transforms the naturalism and structural determinism of orthodox readings of Marx’s Marxism. We relate this theorisation specifically to the project of liberating academic labour from the shackles of its neoliberal containment by making ‘knowledge socialism’. (shrink)

In this article, I deal with the notion of ‘academic identity’ holistically, seeking to bring together the teacher and researcher roles of academics in the neoliberal university. The article begins from the perspective of early-career academics who occupy the majority of fixed-term, teaching-only contracts in Higher Education, arguing that such casualisation of academic labour entrenches the role of the academic asHomo economicus. Drawing on the work of Foucault, I demonstrate how a neoliberal governmentality is now not only (...) exerted upon academics from without, but increasingly they are subjecting themselves to the logic of efficiency and effectiveness too. The neoliberal governmentality of the university thus influences and shapes academic subjectivities, such that what it means tobean academic is confined to this marketised logic. Despite the pressures placed on academics to ‘produce’ measurable outputs and demonstrate their impact, I argue that moving beyondHomo economicusis possible, arguing instead for a re-claiming of ‘the academic’ asHomo academicus. The idea ofHomo academicuscan only be supported when three conditions are present: collegiality is afforded greater importance than competition; the discourses of ‘productivity’ and performativity are balanced against simply ‘doing good work well’ (Pirrie in Virtue and the quiet art of scholarship, Routledge, London, 2019), and; academics are mindful to practice the ‘quieter’ intellectual virtues, including the virtue of ‘unknowing’ (Smith in J Philos Educ 50:272–284, 2016). (shrink)

A fierce critique of productivity and sovereignty in the world of labor and everyday life, Bruno Gullì’s Earthly Plenitudes asks, can labor exist without sovereignty and without capitalism? He introduces the concept of dignity of individuation to prompt a rethinking of categories of political ontology. Dignity of individuation stresses the notion that the dignity of each and any individual being lies in its being individuated as such; dignity is the irreducible and most essential character of any being. Singularity (...) is a more universal quality. Gullì first reviews approaches to sovereignty by philosophers as varied as Gottfried Leibniz and Georges Bataille, and then looks at concrete examples where the alliance of sovereignty and capital cracks under the potency of living labor. He examines contingent academic labor as an example of the super-exploitation of labor, which has become a global phenomenon, and as such, a clear threat to the sovereign logic of capital. Gullì also looks at disability to assert that a new measure of humanity can only be found outside the schemes of sovereignty, productivity, efficiency, and independence, through care and caring for others, in solidarity and interdependence. (shrink)

The non-academic education as the development of socio-cultural experience that takes place outside the pedagogically organized process is considered in the article. The freedom of human cognitive activity, the expansion of the range of his hobbies, the enrichment of the spiritual world is ensured through a network of institutions of non-academic education. Non-academic education institutions transfer the knowledge and skills necessary in the field of work, which does not belong directly to the scientific content of professional activity. (...) The term “non-academic education” is not yet widespread, it is used mainly by practitioners in the field of solving general problems of education, based on human educational needs. However, the reality it reflects is well known to all, it is learning in the process of daily life. In essence and content, it is the same process of acquiring knowledge and skills, deepening worldview and enriching personal potential, which is in academic education. The difference is that it takes place outside the walls of institutions that are part of the education system. Non-academic education takes place in social institutions that perform other functions in the social division of labor: in the family, in the field of work, in various formal and informal groups and associations. A clear training goal is not necessary. Non-academic education is spontaneous, without time limits, not certified, unlike academic. Non-academic education may have some kind of documentary evidence, albeit of a non-state type. A teacher in academic education is necessarily an employee of an educational institution, and in non-academic education it is an employee, a coach, and a teacher. Training in non-academic education can be carried out on the educational portal through social services, distance learning courses of various organizations, mass open courses. (shrink)

Temporary labor migration programs have been among the most controversial topics in discussions of immigration reform. They have been opposed by many, perhaps most, academics writing on immigration, by immigration reform activists, and by organized labor. This opposition has not been without some good reasons, as many historical temporary labor migration programs have led to significant injustice and abuse. However, in this paper I argue that a well-crafted temporary labor migration program is both compatible with liberal (...) principles of justice and likely to be an important part of a sensible immigration policy for the near future, at least. I show how the many injustices and high potential for abuse of earlier programs may be avoided. I also show good reason to favor a well-crafted temporary labor migration program over either the more likely alternative outcome of officially tight borders (which would almost certainly maintain our current dependence on large-scale unauthorized immigration) and the much less likely option of nearly open borders. As increased labor migration of all sorts is an intrinsic part of increased economic globalization, it is especially important to craft guidelines for just temporary labor migration programs if we are to both gain the advantages of globalization and protect the rights of workers. (shrink)

Higher education is increasingly unable to engage usefully with global emergencies, as its functions are repurposed for value. Discourses of entrepreneurship, impact and excellence, realised through competition and the market, mean that academics and students are increasingly alienated from themselves and their work. This book applies Marx’s concept of alienation to the realities of academic life in the Global North, in order to explore how the idea of public education is subsumed under the law of value. In a landscape (...) of increased commodification of higher education, the book explores the relationship between alienation and crisis, before analysing how academic knowledge, work, identity and life are themselves alienated. Finally, it argues that through indignant struggle, another world is possible, grounded in alternative forms of organising life and producing socially-useful knowledge, ultimately requiring the abolition of academic labour. This pioneering work will be of interest and value to all those working in the higher education sector, as well as those concerned with the rise of neoliberalism and marketization within universities. (shrink)

The article examines the negative impact of neoliberal policies upon the work of border intellectuals within the university, whose scholarship seeks to explicitly challenge longstanding structural inequalities and social exclusions. More specifically, the notion of neoliberal multiculturalism is defined and discussed with respect to the phenomenon of economic Darwinism and the whitewashing of contemporary academic labor, despite a tradition of progressive struggle within the academy. In response to the current counter-egalitarian climate of neoliberalism, a call is issued for (...) a critical pedagogy that supports a revolutionary vision of human rights and democratic life. (shrink)

The division of cognitive labor is fundamental to all cultures. Adults have a strong sense of how knowledge is clustered in the world around them and use that sense to access additional information, defer to relevant experts, and ground their own incomplete understandings. One prominent way of clustering knowledge is by disciplines similar to those that comprise the natural and social sciences. Seven studies explored an emerging sense of these discipline‐based ways of clustering of knowledge. Even 5‐year‐olds could cluster (...) knowledge in a manner roughly corresponding to the departments of natural and social sciences in a university, doing so without any explicit awareness of those academic disciplines. But this awareness is fragile early on and competes with other ways of clustering knowledge. Over the next few years, children come to see discipline‐based clusters as having a privileged status, one that may be linked to increasingly sophisticated assumptions about essences for natural kinds. Possible mechanisms for this developmental shift are examined. (shrink)

Forty years ago Amartya Sen delivered his Tanner Lecture, 'Equality of What?', in which he introduced to the world a novel approach to the idea of equality by way of the notion of 'basic capability' as 'a morally relevant dimension'. We can now see with hindsight that Sen's argument - that we should focus upon equality of basic capabilities ('a person being able to do certain basic things') - launched what has become an academic armada now proceeding under the (...) flag of 'the capability approach'. While that flag has ventured far and wide and engaged many area of inquiry, this volume of essays is the first to explore how the capability approach (the CA) might shed light upon labour law. Three dimensions of the CA's potential for illuminating labour law are examined. Part I enquires into the nature of the basic relationship between CA and labour law - do they share common ground or disagree about what is important? Can the CA provide a normative 'foundation' for labour law? Part II goes further by examining the relationship of the CA and other well-established perspectives on labour law, including economics, history, critical theory, restorative justice, and human rights. Part III examines the possible relevance of the CA to a range of specific labour law issues, such as freedom of association, age discrimination in the workplace, trade, employment policy, and sweatshop goods. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Clear Division of Labor Within Environmental Philosophy?William M. Throop (bio)In discussions about the future of environmental philosophy, I have found myself supporting two positions that are in tension with one another. The first, which has been well explored in the last decade, is that environmental philosophy should have a more dramatic impact outside of academic circles. It should affect policy and guide the behavior of non-philosophers, (...) which usually requires that it deeply engage the empirical details of problems it addresses. The second is that environmental philosophy needs to improve its status within the larger philosophical community, which requires its practitioners to use methods that dominate mainstream philosophy and to be conversant with contemporary work in ethical theory, epistemology, metaphysics, and continental philosophy. Some have argued that this tension places a double burden on those training to be environmental philosophers; they must demonstrate both theoretical and practical excellence. I fear that such a standard will limit [End Page 147] the growth of environmental philosophy. It will be daunting to new environmental philosophers and achieved by only a few.With respect to this tension, I suggest that environmental philosophy should support a robust division of labor. Many new environmental philosophers should be recruited from cohorts trained primarily in core areas of philosophy. Most of these thinkers will probably focus on highly theoretical issues—issues that anyone in the field would recognize as philosophical.Their knowledge of environmental problems may be superficial and their audience likely will consist primarily of other philosophers. Their impact beyond philosophy may be quite limited (except for their students). I come from this tradition, and I am still delighted by the purely intellectual puzzles that our field generates. Work of this sort should be honored, but our field will be sterile if it is dominated by this kind of thought.I hope that many other new environmental philosophers will be trained in interdisciplinary environmental graduate programs or "applied" philosophy Ph.D. programs where they will acquire the interdisciplinary expertise necessary to address practical problems and to effectively engage non-philosophical audiences. This group of "practical" environmental philosophers should also include a host of practitioners in other fields who contribute to philosophical dialogue. I suspect that much work in this area will be case-based, empirically sophisticated and, where it addresses non-philosophical audiences, more reliant on compelling metaphors than on tight arguments. I doubt that it is fruitful to view this group as applying the work of the former group. The aims, the sources of insight and the standards of quality for the two groups are categorically different. For practical philosophers, the political feasibility of a proposal matters, and the arguments must have the capacity to move relevant stakeholders. The results of this work may appear to be philosophy-lite to those in the first group, but only if judged by standards that are inappropriate if we accept a division of labor in the field.This division of labor cannot be an apartheid. Many promising innovations in environmental philosophy will come from the interface between these groups. And unfortunately, a good bit of questionable work done in each group may result from a failure to understand progress that has been made by the other group. For example, philosophers focused only on theory may draw implications for action that fail to accord with current empirical information. Practical philosophers may [End Page 148] critique simplified metaethical positions that have long been abandoned in favor of more sophisticated versions. A healthy dialogue and a mutual respect should diminish these dangers. Such a division of labor has significant implications for graduate education, hiring and evaluation of faculty, and allocation of prestige within the field. The health and growth of environmental philosophy will depend on part on how we address these implications.William M. Throop Bill Throop is provost and professor of philosophy at Green Mountain College, an environmental liberal arts college in Poultney, VT. His background is in epistemology and philosophy of science, but in the last decade his work has focused on conceptual and ethical issues in ecological restoration and wilderness preservation. E-mail: [email protected] © 2007 Indiana University Press... (shrink)

We argue that using a calendar-tracker to capture invisible labour in the academy comes with conceptual and ethical limitations, which might affect how successfully our tracker can provide academics with conceptual resources to understand their invisible work as work.

Conference environments enable diverse roles for academics. However, conferences are hardly entered into by participants as equals. Academics enter into and experience professional environments differently according to culture, gender, race, ethnicity, class, and more. This paper considers from a philosophical perspective entering and initiating culturally into academic conferences as a woman. It discusses theories of gender and emotional labor and emotional management, focusing on Arlie Hochschild’s foundational work, and affect in gendered social relations, considering Sara Ahmed’s theorization of (...) the feminist killjoy and the affect alien. It applies these lenses to explore problematic experiences of women initiates at conferences. The paper proceeds with a theoretical discussion of gender, emotional labor, and affect. Then the paper discusses women academics’ experiences generally and at conferences, including educational research conferences, with reference to relevant higher education researc... (shrink)

This article offers a critical theoretical exploration of the transformation of academic life that is currently taking place under the sign of ‘neoliberalization’. The main aim is to differentiate appropriation from exploitation as strategies of surplus labour dispossession, to identify the growth of appropriative techniques in academic life, and to situate the proliferation of such techniques in the broader transformations of global political economy. Alloyed with poststructuralist social theory, the historical materialist thrust of the article demonstrates how, in (...) the technologically articulate ‘social factory’ of advanced capitalism, the spatial operations of these techniques of dispossession have a particularly ‘aesthetic’ character that is immanent to their appropriative operation, and which renders their workings both more discreet and effective. The article aims: (1) to problematize the neoliberal concepts of efficiency, transparency, and autonomy, in terms of practical outcomes; (2) to stimulate reflexive consideration of the ‘positioning’ of academics themselves in the reproduction of these techniques; and (3) to ask how these techniques might generate new ‘historical subjects’ of struggle and organization in academic life. (shrink)

The development of genomics has dramatically expanded the scope of genetic research, and collections of genetic biosamples have proliferated in countries with active genomics research programs. In this essay, we consider a particular kind of collection, national biobanks. National biobanks are often presented by advocates as an economic ‘‘resource’’ that will be used by both basic researchers and academic biologists, as well as by pharmaceutical diagnostic and clinical genomics companies. Although national biobanks have been the subject of intense interest (...) in recent social science literature, most prior work on this topic focuses either on bioethical issues related to biobanks, such as the question of informed consent, or on the possibilities for scientific citizenship that they make possible. We emphasize, by contrast, the economic aspect of biobanks, focusing specifically on the way in which national biobanks create biovalue. Our emphasis on the economic aspect of biobanks allows us to recognize the importance of what we call clinical labor—that is, the regularized, embodied work that members of the national population are expected to perform in their role as biobank participants—in the creation of biovalue through biobanks. Moreover, it allows us to understand how the technical way in which national biobanks link clinical labor to databases alters both medical and popular understandings of risk for common diseases and conditions. (shrink)

The article describes the evolution of problems in the Lithuanian labour law and labour law science since the re-establishment of independence in 1990. Three periods of evolution are presented: the Soviet period (lasted until 1990), the transitional period (1990- 2004) and the period of the Labour Code (2003 and onwards). During the Soviet period, the Code of Labour Laws regulated employment relationship in strict detail as the main employer was the state itself. Good reflections of that period can be pointed (...) out: active (but forced) collective bargaining, single tariff system that implemented equal treatment in the field of remuneration for work and fluent performance of enforcement of labour laws (legal clarity). During the transitional period, new labour laws were introduced and tuned-up with international labour standards (ILO), but in general there were no essential changes in practice. During all that period, the Lithuanian Labour Code was drafted and came in force in 2003. The period of the new Labour Code started together with the European integration and had to bring new trends of the European labour market into Lithuanian practice. The government and academics brought few initiatives for the liberalisation of labour laws but most of them were stuck in the stage of consulting with social partners (Tripartite Council). Nevertheless, 22 years after the collapse of command economy labour laws incompatible with free labour market still dominate. It is obvious that the Lithuanian Labour Code is outdated and needs general reconstruction. Scientific researches and the EU Council recommendations call for the introduction of flexibility, implementation of flexicurity aiming for full integration into the single European labour market. Some strict labour code rules are prevented from functioning in practice. The courts are forced to derogate from disproportionate and improper articles of the Labour Code. The author brings some of the existing problems of labour law into light and proposes their possible solutions. The existing crisis of labour law could be solved by drafting a new Labour Code with the help of academic researchers and by introducing it directly to the Parliament for adoption. (shrink)

One of the problems the institutional crisis of philosophy is facing in Romania is the difficulty of philosophy graduates to find a suitable place on the complex labor market. The article attempts to elucidate whether philosophy graduates subsequently teach what they study during their university education and to find solutions for a better integration on the labor market of these graduates. An important part of the article is dedicated to analyzing the institutional offer vis-à-vis the challenges that philosophy (...) graduates face once they are attempting to find a job on the labor market. From our analysis we conclude that there is no direct connection between the diversity of jobs among philosophy graduates and the courses that they took during their university studies. (shrink)

In this article, I use a Marxist feminist methodology to map the organisation of migrant sex workers’ socially reproductive paid and unpaid labour in one city and country of arrival, London, UK. I argue that unfree and ‘free’ labour exists on a continuum of capitalist relations of production, which are gendered, racialised, and legal. It is within these relations that various actors implement, and migrant sex workers contest, unfree labour practices not limited to the most extreme forms. My analysis reveals (...) that many migrant sex workers have very limited ‘freedom’. This is in stark contrast to the classical liberal claim of sex worker rights activists and academics that the vast majority of migrant sex workers are free, and therefore not coerced, exploited or trafficked. I then consider whether the emerging labour approach to trafficking could help achieve ‘freedom’ for migrant sex workers. Advocates argue that anti-trafficking efforts must, and can, be refocused on extending minimum labour and social protections to all vulnerable workers. I argue that this approach is disconnected from material interests and history. Rather, migrant sex workers, sex worker rights activists, and all migrant and citizen workers and activists globally must collectively organise against ‘labour unfreedom’ and hence for meaningful control over their labour and lives. (shrink)

International debates surrounding the management of universities in Western states have focused heavily upon the implications of neo-liberalism and the economisation of knowledge at national and international levels. However, investigations at the institutional level reveal that programmes for the development of human capital, organisational reputation and service quality in education and research are encouraged through regimes of self-development, directed towards organisational objectives. This article utilises governmentality theory to explore the relationship between governance and subjectivity within the Australian higher education system. (...) The governance of higher education, it will be argued, is enabled by mentalities of government which are dependent upon contemporary technologies, techniques for self-evaluation and career-planning, expertise about university labour, and—importantly—practices which engender an enterprising academic identity. To explore the utility of this analysis in contemporary Western liberal states, this study explores the construction of subjectivity implicit within Monash University’s Performance Development Online technology. Embedded with “technologies of the self,” this performance management platform is positioned within Monash as a gateway which requires academics to reflect upon their careers and selves, encouraging the genesis of marketable identities. This article points to the utility of further research into the development of career in a changing academic environment. (shrink)

Empirical data show that members of underrepresented and historically marginalized groups in academia undertake many forms of undervalued or unnoticed labor. While the data help to identify that this labor exists, they do not provide a thick description of what the experience is like, nor do they offer a framework for understanding the different kinds of invisible labor that are being undertaken. We identify and analyze a distinct, undervalued, and invisible labor that the data have left (...) unnamed and unmeasured: ontological labor, the work required to manage one’s identity and body if either or both do not fit into academic structures, norms, and demands. We argue that ontological labor efforts should be understood as a form of labor. We then provide a characterization of ontological labor, detailing the labor as navigating one’s obligations to give and managing entitlements to take. We also highlight the ontological labor that takes place through instances of resistance, such as through complaint or refusals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:All You That Labor: Religion and Ethics in the Living Wage Movement by C. Melissa SnarrSarah A. NeeleyAll You That Labor: Religion and Ethics in the Living Wage Movement C. Melissa Snarr New York: New York University Press, 2011. 205pp. $49.00Melissa Snarr’s All You That Labor offers an ethical and sociological analysis of the role of religious and feminist organizations in the living wage movement, (...) both of which have been previously overlooked. Snarr not only brings religion [End Page 194] into the conversation but also effectively demonstrates that religious activism has played a significant role in the US living wage movement since its conception in Baltimore. Although Snarr is an activist in the movement, her academic rigor comes through as her research weaves the stories and experiences of other activists with the rich religious traditions of Walter Rauschenbusch, John Ryan, and Martin Luther King Jr. She argues that religious leaders are well equipped to provide leadership and change the conversation on the topic since they are versed in ethical arguments and challenging ideologies. Religious activists, as Snarr aptly shows, have brought attention to the issues of race and gender oppression in wage discrimination, which is significant since Snarr provides statistical evidence that persons of color and women are significantly underpaid in the United States.One of the many strengths of the book is Snarr’s unique perspective on the topic. She provides arguments that are both sociological and ethical. The work beautifully combines the two disciplines to offer a well-balanced history of the movement, analysis of key issues, and critique of society. Furthermore, the feminist work is written by an insider, one of the activists in the movement, without neglecting research or critique. At no point does Snarr oversimplify the issues related to the movement. She offers a complex view of multiple poverties and does not allow the living wage movement to be reduced to economic discourse. Spiritual, emotional, physical, and political poverties receive equal attention alongside monetary poverty with the statement that “most people in poverty experience the intersection of multiple poverties simultaneously” (23). The argument and ethical imperative is clear: systems of oppression are widespread and attempt to destroy on multiple fronts, and religious activism is well suited to provide the multidimensional, holistic response needed to adequately confront economic oppression of groups with a long history at the margins.Perhaps one of the greatest contributions of Snarr’s book is that it is a work in feminist ethics that pays equal attention to women and people of color. An entire chapter on wage discrimination is expected from a white feminist; however, there is an equally detailed chapter on racial discrimination before the chapter on gender justice. The chapter on race argues that the movement itself provides an example for racial justice because it is one of the most racially diverse social action movements. The chapter on gender provides complexity to the systems of sexism as Snarr argues that the movement furthers gender oppression through unpaid or underpaid activist positions filled by women. What is not clear is how the issues of sexism and racism are related in the larger system of economic oppression.Snarr provides example after example of approaches and actions that were effective, although some only to a small extent, and the book concludes with an invitation for the reader to join the movement with a vision for future [End Page 195] justice. Snarr’s book is a timely academic account of the living wage problem and an ethical call for action when the economic future, especially for the United States poor, remains uncertain and worker justice is beginning to receive attention.Sarah A. NeeleyIliff School of Theology/University of DenverCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Efforts to understand gender segregation within and among science disciplines have focused on both supply- and demand-side explanations. Yet we know little about how academic scientists themselves view the sources of such segregation. Utilizing data from a survey of scientists at thirty top U.S. graduate programs in physics and biology and semistructured interviews with 150 of them, this article examines the reasons academic scientists provide for differences in the distribution of women in biology and physics. In quantitative analyses, (...) gender is more salient than discipline in determining the reasons scientists provide for gender disparities between disciplines, suggesting that gender may act as a “master status,” shaping the experiences of scientists regardless of the gender composition of the discipline. Qualitative interviews confirm this interpretation and reveal that scientists also perceive mentoring, natural differences, discrimination, and the history of the disciplines to be important factors. Results contribute to research on the relationship between emotional labor and occupational gender segregation conducted in professions such as law and nursing. (shrink)

One of the indicators that symbolize the success of an academic field is its academic publications in well-established citation indices. This article first explored the bibliometric characteristics of publications on “teachers' emotional labor” in the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, two prestigious citation indices available in the Web of Science. Search with the term “teacher emotional labor” retrieved 173 publications that included this term in their titles, abstracts, or keywords in (...) the WoS database between 1900 and 2020. The bibliometric characteristics pertaining to numbers of publications, document types, research categories, research areas, authors, journals, universities, and countries were reported. Then, CiteSpace was utilized to visualize TEL research and to obtain insights into its research focuses and its future directions. The findings will contribute to TEL research by informing scholars in the fields of L2 research and psychology and others. (shrink)

The criticism of “traditional,” “toxic,” or “patriarchal” masculinity in both academic and popular venues recognizes that there is some sense in which the character traits and tendencies that are associated with masculinity are structurally connected to oppressive, gendered social practices and patriarchal social structures. One important theme of criticism centers on the gender distribution of emotional labor, generally speaking, but this criticism is also particularly meaningful in the context of heterosexual romantic relationships. I begin with the premise that (...) there is a gendered and asymmetrical distribution in how much emotional labor is performed, but I also consider that there might be meaningful and informative distinctions in what kind of emotional labor is characteristically performed by different genders. Specifically, I argue that the social norms around stoicism and restricted emotional expression are masculine-coded forms of emotional labor, and that they are potentially prosocial. Responding to structural and interpersonal asymmetries of emotional labor could well involve supplementing or better cultivating this aspect of male socialization rather than discarding it. (shrink)

The academic and medical literature highlights the positive effects of empathy for patient care. Yet, very little attention has been given to the impact of the requirement for empathy on the physicians themsel..

In recent years, British science policy has seen a significant shift ‘from deficit to dialogue’ in conceptualizing the relationship between science and the public. Academics in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) have been influential as advocates of the new public engagement agenda. However, this participatory agenda has deeper roots in the political ideology of the Third Way. A framing of participation as a politics suited to post-Fordist conditions was put forward in the magazine Marxism Today in (...) the late 1980s, developed in the Demos thinktank in the 1990s, and influenced policy of the New Labour government. The encouragement of public participation and deliberation in relation to science and technology has been part of a broader implementation of participatory mechanisms under New Labour. This participatory program has been explicitly oriented toward producing forms of social consciousness and activity seen as essential to a viable knowledge economy and consumer society. STS arguments for public engagement in science have gained influence insofar as they have intersected with the Third Way politics of post-Fordism. (shrink)

One hundred years ago, Frederick Taylor and the pioneers of scientific management went into battle on US factory-floors. Armed with stopwatches and clipboards, they were fighting a war over measure. A century on and capitalist production has spread far beyond the factory walls and the confines of 'national economies'. Although capitalism increasingly seems to rely on 'cognitive' and 'immaterial' forms of labour and social cooperation, the war over measure continues. Armies of economists, statisticians, management-scientists, information-specialists, accountants and others are engaged (...) in a struggle to connect heterogeneous concrete human activities on the basis of equal quantities of human labour in the abstract – that is, to link work and capitalist value. In this paper, we discuss contemporary capital's attempt to impose the 'law of value' through its measuring of immaterial labour. Using the example of higher education in the UK – a 'frontline' of capitalist development – as our case-study, we explain how measuring takes places on various 'self-similar' levels of social organisation. We suggest that such processes are both diachronic and synchronic: socially-necessary labour-times of 'immaterial doings' are emerging and being driven down at the same time as heterogeneous concrete activities are being made commensurable. Alongside more overt attacks on academic freedom, it is in this way that neoliberalism appears on campus. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHow can political actors identify which putative expert is truly expert, given that any putative expert may be wrong about a given policy question; given that experts may therefore disagree with one another; and given that other members of the polity, being non-expert, can neither reliably adjudicate inter-expert disagreement nor detect when a consensus of experts is misguided? This would not be an important question if the problems dealt with by politics were usually simple ones, in the sense that the (...) answer to them is self-evident. But to the extent that political problems are complex, expertise is required to answer them—although if such expertise exists, we are unlikely to know who has it. This conundrum is illustrated by the financial crisis. The consensus views of financial regulators prior to the crisis appear to have been mistaken, in that the regulators not only failed to anticipate a crisis of the type that occurred, but adopted regulations that may have encouraged the concentration of mortgage risk in financial institutions. Similarly, once the crisis broke, academic financial experts, financial regulators, and journalists—who communicate information from one branch of the division of epistemic labor to another—converged on a narrative of the crisis that, once again, may plausibly be described as inaccurate, but that nonetheless has come to shape the understanding of the crisis shared by the rest of the polity. (shrink)

Today’s medical training environment exposes medical trainees to many aspects of what has been called “the hidden curriculum.” In this article, we examine the relationship between two aspects of the hidden curriculum, the performance of emotional labor and the characterization of patients and proxies as “bad,” by analyzing clinical ethics discussions with resident trainees at an academic medical center. We argue that clinicians’ characterization of certain patients and proxies as “bad,” when they are not, can take an unnecessary (...) toll on trainees’ emotions. We conclude with a discussion of how training in ethics may help uncover and examine these aspects of the hidden curriculum. (shrink)

Academic freedom in China is unquestionably under threat from various quarters. Yet the assumption that only the logics of authoritarian Communist Party power shape the terrain in which scholars operate provides us with a limited perspective on these threats. The Chinese academy has become deeply entangled with transnational forces, and is increasingly driven by similar business logics to those in play in universities around the world. We argue that these forces too contribute to the context for the exercise of (...) academic freedom and its restriction. As is the case elsewhere, discourses around developing the national ‘knowledge economy’ and related logics of securitisation around knowledge production create conditions in which some forms of academic research are prioritised over others. Echoing the ‘culture wars’ plaguing the academy in many other countries, the research agendas most under threat in China are ones that connect to transnational movements and struggles, especially those focussed on labour and class, gender and feminism, race and ethnicity and human rights. In this article, we outline what we see as the key forces shaping the landscape for academic freedom in China, with a concentration on areas of research and teaching in the social sciences and humanities that are most at risk in the current conjuncture. (shrink)

Over the last 20+ years, globalization has made international trade and investment more efficient and productive. In the absence of coordinated global regulatory regimes, it has also made multinational corporations (MNCs) impervious to social concerns in the countries where they operate. There is considerable debate in the academic, political, and business arena as to the causes of the apparently inequitable distribution of benefits between labor and capital. Notwithstanding, the relative merits of this debate, and facing tremendous societal pressure, (...) companies have adopted voluntary codes of conduct to ensure that workers making products for them in poor and developing countries are protected from hazardous working conditions and receive wages that meet local laws and market conditions. These codes, however, suffer from a lack of credibility and proof of substantive compliance. A new type of nongovernmental organization (NGO) has emerged that monitors a company's compliance with prespecified standards and provides assurance to the external stakeholders that the company has fulfilled its voluntary obligations. From an historical perspective, this has been an innovative phenomenon where the monitoring organization purports to act as an honest broker to ensure all concerned that the company/industry has fulfilled its obligations. In this article, we undertake a thorough examination of two such organizations, that is, Fair Labor Association, and Social Accountability International, that have played a pioneering role in bridging the gap between societal expectations and corporate performance. We examine their governance structures, operating procedures, monitoring standards, and public disclosure of findings, and above all, their success in improving the level of corporate compliance with their self‐created codes or standards. Unfortunately, our findings and conclusions are disappointing. In our view, the two groups have mostly failed to meet their avowed goals. Rather than using their NGO status to help companies improve their code compliance, they have suffered from managerial capture and have been reduced to corporate apologists. (shrink)

In the seventy-five years since the end of World War II, pairs of countries have entered into over a thousand bilateral labor agreements to regulate the cross-border flow of workers. These agreements have received little public or academic attention. This is likely, in part, because there is limited data or easily available information on BLAs. This Article hopes to change that by introducing three new resources: a dataset documenting the formation of over 1,200 BLAs; a corpus including the (...) texts of over 800 BLAs; and a dataset coding whether over 500 BLAs mention twenty topics that the ILO has identified as best practices for these agreements. Using this data, we show that, unlike some other forms of bilateral agreements, the rate of BLAs being signed has remained relatively high during the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Additionally, we also show evidence that, although many BLAs were formed during this period, relatively few agreements include various worker protections advocated for by activists, scholars, and NGOs. (shrink)

Latinos comprise the largest minority group in the U.S. and 63 percent are foreign-born. An educational gap exists between Latinos in the U.S. and other groups in the U.S. Lower educational attainment has ramifications for labor market and other socioeconomic outcomes. Factors involving family context have best explained the educational gap, along with English proficiency and migration history. This study, using the Census long-form data, explores the role of socio-economic background, ethnicity, and migration history on educational outcomes of Latinos (...) in the Midwest, an area that is experiencing recent growth in its Latino population. Results indicate that these factors do impinge negatively on academic achievement of Latino and Non-Hispanic black youth. In order to be more effective in alleviating the achievement gap, multicultural education must not only incorporate culture and inclusion, but also a true understanding of the factors and circumstances that impact youth achievement and how these impact achievement. (shrink)