Technologies of self-care in precarious neoliberal academia: women academics’ craftwork as strategies of coping and complicity

Rodriguez, JK, Ridgway, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4426-6516, Oldridge, L ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9915-9959 and Edwards, M, 2024. Technologies of self-care in precarious neoliberal academia: women academics’ craftwork as strategies of coping and complicity. Work, Employment and Society. ISSN 0950-0170

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Abstract

This article explores the use of craftwork as a technology of self-care by women academics to cope with work demands and commodified narratives in academia. It combines discussions about work pressures in academia and technologies of the self to theorise self-care strategies used to navigate academic demands and identify new research avenues. Through the memory work of the four women academic authors, the article shows craftwork as a strategy of self-care to achieve self-control, self-preservation and self-(re)positioning. The article extends the theorisation of self-care, showing its simultaneous function as a coping and complicity mechanism that responds to and engages with individualised well-being narratives in academia. It also advances and complicates understanding of how technologies of self-care sustain the power structures of the academic labour process, showing the visceral and emotional dimensions of these technologies. The article outlines the contours of a research agenda to interrogate ethical self-care in academia.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Work, Employment and Society
Creators:	Rodriguez, J.K., Ridgway, M., Oldridge, L. and Edwards, M.
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Date:	7 December 2024
ISSN:	0950-0170
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1177/09500170241297523 DOI 2324841 Other
Rights:	© The Author(s) 2024. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	17 Dec 2024 09:20
Last Modified:	17 Dec 2024 09:20
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/52728

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