Postgraduates performing powerfully in a changing academic environment

Abstract

AbstractOver the last 20 years, there has been considerable discussion around the changing nature of tertiary education. Much of this work has described how tertiary institutions and academic staff are forced to compete, account for and justify their work within a narrowing neoliberal discourse characterised by competition and entrepreneurialism, the privileging of certain forms of knowledge above others and the monetisation of academic labour. Following from the postgraduate workshop at the New Zealand Geographical Society 2012 conference, we, as postgraduate students, provide a contribution to this discussion that explores how postgraduate students might ‘perform powerfully’ through collective action to enact a different university in an increasingly uncertain and entrepreneurial academic climate. We outline various forms of collective action to maximise postgraduate students' sense of agency and seek to highlight possibilities in an increasingly uncertain and entrepreneurial academic climate.