The purpose of the research informing this paper was to examine the impact of workload creep on academic identities. Engaging in critical discourse analysis of interview data, emergent linguistic 'clusters' will be contrasted with clusters extant on university websites, suggesting that academic dignity cannot co-exist with neoliberal language.
The purpose of the research informing this paper was to examine the impact of workload creep on academic identity through an examination of linguistic neoliberalism. Funded by SSHRC, the research acknowledges that universities have become replete with many of management innovations common in large corporations, including branding initiatives (Alversson & Spicer, 2016). This has resulted in academics having to become Foucauldian entrepreneurs of the self within an emerging ideology, evident in clusters of words (neoliberal keywords) that affirm the common sense of free market mentality (Holborrow, 2015). Here, critical discourse analyses from two data sources will be examined: university public websites and interviews aimed at understanding how academics articulate their identities within the context of the neoliberal university. According to Rhodes and Slaughter (2009), this phenomenon, known as academic capitalism, unites scientific research, theory, and profit maximization. Within this view, universities are viewed as enterprises, competing for customers/students and capital accumulation. Researchers/faculty are viewed as knowledge producers looking for ideas and findings that can be turned into patents or monetizable commodities. Market-based influences, particularly profit imperatives and obsession with 'image' over substance, have influenced the nature of research/teaching and thereby triggered crises of academic identity (Kouritzin, 2019). This paper will engage in critical discourse analysis of interview data with university academics, highlighting emergent 'clusters' that will be contrasted with the clusters of words and phrases extant on university websites and mission statements. Public clusters “brand” university faculty, staff and students, and put forward institutional identity for funders, corporations and governments. Ultimately, the dissonance between linguistic structural features of the neoliberal paradigm and those of academic identities evoke emotional responses that work to normalize compliance amongst academics. This paper suggests that developing and adopting a discourse of academic dignity offers the best hope for articulating alternatives to the neoliberal episteme.
