Paradoxes of 'career' and 'progress' in the neoliberal university: a self-critique and deconstruction

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Gee, R. ORCID: 0000-0002-0783-2614, Lundy, C., Oldridge, L. ORCID: 0000-0001-9915-9959 and Brown, S.D. ORCID: 0000-0001-7841-3225, 2023. Paradoxes of 'career' and 'progress' in the neoliberal university: a self-critique and deconstruction. International Journal of HRD: Practice, Policy and Research. ISSN 2397-4583 (Forthcoming)

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Abstract

This paper takes a person-in-context approach to explore how the neoliberal university, embroiled in discourses of ‘progress’, influences academics’ narrativization and navigation of career. Whilst aware of the role ‘progress’ plays in framing a ‘traditional career’, academics find themselves having to navigate the contours of the university –where matrices shout to the tide of ‘progress’ and where what gets measured supposedly gets done. Such matrices, providing a violent quantification of reality(Gee,2020), reduce pedagogy to lustful percentages of satisfaction, research to star status –mirroring the aspirations of a McDonald’s ‘Dining room Server’ -and community engagement to a hurtful simile of impact. This research engages in dialogical-biography to provide insight into career turning points and meaning-making, with attention to broader contextual and conceptual dimensions. The paper explores tensions between ‘social justice’ and ‘progress’ with the aim of furthering debate within career-studies on the paradoxical relations of ‘career’ and ‘progress’ in academia today and considering the implications for human resource development.

Item Type:

Journal article

Publication Title:

International Journal of HRD: Practice, Policy and Research

Creators:

Gee, R., Lundy, C., Oldridge, L. and Brown, S.D.

Publisher:

World Federation of People Management Associations

Date:

1 December 2023

ISSN:

2397-4583