REDUX: #PrecAnthro. Let’s talk about unionisation. #hautalk
First published on the 21st of June 2018 The HAU controversy is both a disappointment and an opportunity. It is a disappointment because it reflects the troubled condition…
Tag: Precarity
Pyramid Scheme. #hautalk
For people immersed in bureaucratic institutions, like universities, the current ruckus over HAU raises at least one longstanding anthropological question: what kind of organizational structure not on…
Situating #hautalk. A polyphonic intervention
As an established blog with personal and institutional contacts to many of those involved in the recent upheaval at HAU and the Society of Ethnographic Theory, we do…
My Brother is an Only Child. #Precarity and Solidarity in Post-Neoliberal Societies
This text, written by our guest editor Salvatore Poier, is a plea for solidarity and a request to engage in a vigorous and honest debate about the meaning…
Accumulation by Dispossession, Solidarity in Precarity and the Future of Higher Education…
…A Quick Manifesto by a group of Anthropology and Global Studies students at the University of Sussex As both consumers of knowledge capital, and investors in our own education, we…
#PrecAnthro in support of #USSstrike: once the pension dispute is won UCU should prioritise the fight against casualisation
On the 22nd of February 2018 University and College Union (UCU), the largest academic union in the world with over 100,000 members went on an unprecedented long strike,…
Anthropologists on the Strike
Yesterday, lecturers began 14 days of strikes in over 60 universities across the United Kingdom. Nominally, the strikes are to oppose pension changes proposed by university employers that would end…
This Anthropology Day, Let’s Remember George Hunt
It’s Anthropology Day, our discipline’s latest invented tradition! A time for reflection on chocolate mint and the values of our discipline, Anthropology Day 2018 is uniquely placed this y…
#Precarity everywhere?
“On politics and precarities in academia”- this was the title of the EASA seminar held at the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern from November 16-17, 2017.…
Overlapped Precarities #precarity
The EASA AGM Seminar in Bern simply came in a bad time. It confronted me with a dilemma: while I was eager to follow the workshops and act…
The Precariat Fights Back. A conversation with Dan Hirslund and Carrie Benjamin #precarity
This conversation took place after a workshop entitled “Between precarious norms and empowering alternatives – a workshop on the strategies of labour organisation between national and international ac…
How to write about #precarity from a precarious position
Let me start with a confession: Throughout the past year or so I have become somewhat hesitant to attend conferences and other academic gatherings. This sense of reluctance…
The uncanny predictability of precarious existence #precarity
EASA’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) Symposium “On politics and precarities in academia: anthropological perspectives” took place in mid-November at the University of Bern. The two-day seminar, organis…
Deliveroo Riders Aren’t Workers, Says London Tribunal
by Rebecca Prentice In a surprise setback for trade unions attempting to organise the ‘gig’ economy, a London tribunal has ruled that Deliveroo riders are self-employed contractors, not…
Jeremy Morris: Cheesed off, but not because of sanctions: Russians adapt to immiseration as global capital increases its grip
With the constant, confusing, and often misinformed media noise around Russia, you would be forgiven for believing a number of unhelpfully distorting half-truths: that Russia has been a…
Academia in Dark Times of Austerity Politics and Authoritarianism #precarity
In these days, two at first sight independent developments are threatening academic freedom. Neoliberal austerity politics and authoritarian political tendencies both leave their traces in academia, s…
Job insecurity for ECRs: a round table discussion
Earlier this year I attended a workshop on academic writing. The intent, so I thought, was to explore avenues in academic research to see how our writing could…
Packing my library, or the impossibility of precarious feeling
1. Packing my library Twelve or fifteen standardized brown boxes of books, covered in dollar store tarps and dust from lizard corpses and asbestos toxins — I’m lining…
Roundtable: Comment by Dorothy Noyes #CollaborativeDilemmas
Dorothy Noyes, Professor of English and Comparative Studies at the Ohio State University, responds to the questions Chiara Bortolotto has recently raised in her virtual roundtable on “‘Col…
Virtual roundtable: “Collaborative dilemmas” in the age of uncertainty
“Collaborative dilemmas” was the title of a workshop held last April at EHESS in Paris under the framework of “UNESCO frictions: heritage-making across global governance” in collaboration with…
Roundtable: Answers by Simone Toji
As a researcher who was raised in Brazil, my uncertainty and dilemmas may have a different punch compared to other cases. The context of uncertainty in Brazil includes…
Roundtable: Answers by Chiara Bortolotto
For more than ten years I have been exploring UNESCO policies in the field of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). My interest spans from the uses of culture as…
Roundtable: Answers by Giulia Scalettaris
Are these developments, usually condemned as corrupting us as scholars and leading to the death of pure research, introducing some kind of innovation vis-à-vis established academic work? In…
Precarious publishing in Latin America
If you find yourself in a big Latin American city like Buenos Aires, Mexico City, or São Paulo, chances are it won’t be long before you come across…