In Canada, most university labourers -- whether tenured faculty, adjuncts, teaching, lab, or research assistants, librarians, as well as service staff -- are often protected by a labour union, yet we still face the challenges of the neoliberal university. This year, many unions in Ontario, for instance, bargained to renew our contracts. York University is currently poised on the precipice of a strike as the university admin and the contract academic labourers responsible for approximately 60% of teaching struggle to agree to a fair deal by the end of this week.
It's therefore very timely that we share anthropologist, Dr. Deidre Rose's Working Bibliography on Precarious Academic Labour in Canada.
Writing from her position as a member of what is becoming known as the precariat -- here describing adjunct, sessional, and other temporary academic labourers -- Rose invites others to help add to her years of research "on the conditions of contingent faculty."
This annotated bibliography adds to the growing research and reflection on precarity in academia, and in anthropology, and is an important resource for thinking and teaching about the current state of academic labour.
Do you have resources or publications to add to Rose's bibliography, or our post? Follow Rose's Research Gate link to connect with her project, or tweet (@anthrolens) or email (anthrolens@gmail.com) us to add to our links below!
Quick links and further reading:
Precarity in the Canadian context:
Precarity in the Canadian context:
- Dr. Deidre Rose's Working Bibliography on Precarious Academic Labour in Canada.
- The Network for Precarious Anthropologists is a closed FaceBook group started by Canadian anthropologists "in recognition that there are a growing number of Canadian anthropologists who find themselves in precarious circumstances with limited or know employment security, [as] a network for precarious anthropologists in order to facilitate solidarity and communication, and opportunities to work through, together, the common (and uncommon) issues that we face."
- The Precarity issue of CASCA's Culture Newsletter (Spring 2015) - gives a good sense of some of the issues facing universities and anthropologists in the Canadian context
Precarity in American anthropology:
- Academic Precarity in American Anthropology: A Forum - a series of open-access articles from Cultural Anthropology.