The construction of academic time: sub/contracting academic labour in research

Abstract

This article offers a poststructuralist analysis of the academic division of labour in the UK higher education sector. It takes the standpoint of a contract researcher and explores some new contradictions of an intensified academic division of labour. It raises some political, social and methodological questions of these divisions through exploring their class and gender dimension. As Paul Rabinow (1986) has argued despite talk of reflexivity, most academics remain deathly silent about the conditions of their own production. He argues that reflection upon our own social, political, economic and cultural location within the academy is one of the greatest taboos ? far greater strictures operate against addressing the significance of ‘corridor talk’ than operate against the denunciation of objectivism. Until we can bring to the surface and publicly discuss the conditions under which people are hired, given tenure, published, awarded grants and feted, ‘real’ reflexivity will remain a dream' (Gill 1998: 38)