Swimming clubs instead of committees as a road to well-being: A critical provocation to HE futures

Abstract

In the context of the increased frustration and anxiety around managerialism of universities, this talk explores how a group of 52 academics, from six different universities, diverse disciplines and levels are responding collectively outside of their work. Moreover, it tracks the enactment of five ‘Slow Swimming Clubs’ across Europe, set up by the author. The clubs represent a particular form of leisure crafting, called slow swimming. Using an auto-ethnographic approach, the impact of these Slow Swimming Clubs are explored over a 13 year period. The presentation reflects on the initial impact of this practice, around an individualised compensatory respite from the academics’ feelings of frustration and insecurity. This respite was framed in terms of temporal and aesthetic task crafting. The presentation then reflects on how the external, counter-performative nature of leisure crafting has opened up time and space for job crafting, back in their universities. The differentiating feature of this research is around the role of academic agency in moving beyond respite towards structural contestation and more systemic change. It also highlights the importance of the relationship between leisure and work within this crafting process. Through placing the aesthetic and temporal dimensions in the foreground, the article offers a significant conceptual contribution to crafting typology. It also extends slow scholarship, by advocating an embodied, sensual and experiential response to the fast pedagogies of managerialism. Most crucially here, the talk will explore the contribution of the Slow Swimming Club form of leisure crafting to HE and management futures, around well-being, space and time.