My question is: In undertaking a degree, does a student exchange their labour power for anything? i.e. Is student learning/studying a form of labour? These are just some initial notes. Comments welcome. Quoting from Chapter 6 of Capital: ‘The Sale and Purchase of Labour-Power’. Translation of online version differs from Penguin Classics/Fowkes version below. My … Continue reading “Is student learning a form of labour?”
Here are our slides for the Academic Identities conference, 8-9th July 2014, Durham. The abstract is also below. A paper will follow sometime this summer. Download these slides. In this paper we analyse ‘academic labour’ using categories developed by Marx in his critique of political economy. In doing so, we return to Marx to help … Continue reading “Slides for ‘Academic Identities’ conference”
My paper for the conference, Governing Academic Life is available for download and I welcome comments here or via email. Thank you. Abstract We are witnessing an “assault” on universities (Bailey and Freedman, 2011) and the future of higher education and its institutions is being “gambled.” (McGettigan, 2013) For many years now, we have been … Continue reading “The Co-operative University: Labour, property and pedagogy”
A paper for ‘Friction: An interdisciplinary conference on technology & resistance‘, University of Nottingham, Thursday 8th May & Friday 9th May. In a paper published last year, I argued for a different way of understanding the emergence of hacker culture. (Winn 2013) In doing so, I outlined an account of ‘the university’ as an institution … Continue reading “The university as a hackerspace (‘Friction’ conference)”
As I write, the fourth wall is crumbling. I am sitting in my office towards the end of a winter’s day. I hear pigeons nesting outside my window, see my bookshelves reflected in the darkness of the glass. Today, I write to you as an academic from within an institution – ‘the university’ – which … Continue reading “Fragments of the working day”
In some earlier notes, I asked whether the worker co-operative form is suitable for a university in light of how the international co-operative movement defines the ‘character’ of worker co-operatives and the re-conceptualisation of academic labour that this organisational form would imply. I asserted that the university is already a means of production which capital employs … Continue reading “Is the worker co-operative form suitable for a university? (Part 3)”
See an introduction to this series of notes here. 7. Neary, Mike (2013) Student as Producer: a pedagogy for the avant-garde; or, how to revolutionary teachers teach? [v2] Paper presented at Walter Benjamin, Pedagogy and the Politics of Youth conference, London. [unpublished] In the 2010 article of the same title, the avant-garde Marxism of Benjamin … Continue reading “Student as Producer (7)”
See an introduction to this series of notes here. 2. Neary, Mike and Hagyard, Andy (2010) Pedagogy of Excess: An Alternative Political Economy of Student Life. In: The Marketisation of Higher Education and the Student as Consumer. Eds. Molesworth, Scullion and Nixon. Routledge, Abingdon, pp. 209-224. In this book chapter, Neary argues for “an alternative … Continue reading “Student as Producer (2)”
See an introduction to this series of notes here. 1a. Neary, Mike (2008) Student as producer – risk, responsibility and rich learning environments in higher education. Articles from the Learning and Teaching Conference 2008. Eds: Joyce Barlow, Gail Louw, Mark Price. University of Brighton Press. Centre for Learning and Teaching 1b. Neary, Mike and Winn, Joss … Continue reading “Student as Producer (1)”
“A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.” (ICA identity statement) In my earlier notes, I listed six basic characteristics of worker co-operatives, as approved by the ICA in 2005. I then began to discuss them … Continue reading “Is the worker co-operative form suitable for a university? (Part 2)”