Contextualizing and Organizing Contingent Faculty : Reclaiming Academic Labor in Universities

This book presents an overview of the context and work conditions of contingent faculty in higher education. It addresses questions related to the ways in which faculty theorize about contingent academic labor, and under what conditions they are able to unite, organize, and constitute an opposition to management.

Contextualizing and Organizing Contingent Faculty: Reclaiming Academic Labor in Universities seeks to develop a counterculture that eschews the neoliberal ideology and interloping market values in higher education. More than merely lamenting the disruptive effects of these marketplace values in higher education institutions, it develops both theoretical insights and practical organizing strategies pertinent to challenging new academic-capitalist values and behaviors. Contributors, local and international, present cases from various institutions to illuminate how national trends concerning contingent faculty are articulated, implemented, and challenged at the local level. They present organizing strategies which are analyzed from an interdisciplinary perspective, providing a thorough and comprehensive view of the contingent labor movement. This book will provide useful lessons to a broad array of audiences in universities, labor movements, and national and local governments.