1,812 research outputs found
Academia in crisis: the rise and risk of neoliberal education in Europe.
Introductory thoughts / Tamara Shefer -- Toward an educational dystopia? : liquid evil, TINA, and post-academic university / Leonidas Donskis -- Academic homecoming : stories from the field / Frans Kamsteeg -- Universities as laboratories : internationalisation and the liquidity of national learning / Stefano Bianchini -- Liberal arts to the rescue of the bachelor's degree in Europe / Samuel Abraham -- Academia in the fast lane vs. organisational ethnography and the logic of slow food / Harry Wels -- Timescapes in academic life : cubicles of time control / Ida Sabelis -- A nomad of academia : a thematic autobiography of privilege / Joost van Loon -- The truth is out there : "eEducated fo' bollocks. Uni's just institutional daylight robbery' : universities in crisis? What's new? / Simon J. Charlesworth -- Epilogue / Ida Sabelis.Academia is standing at a junction in time. Behind lies the community of the curious, ahead the mass and the market. This book joins in a growing stream of works that explore the vicissitudes of present-day European universities in what Bauman coined as liquid times. Here, a number of concerned (engaged) European scholars attempt to defend and brush up academic core values and practices, starting from their own life worlds and positions in higher education. They share the view that there is no point in turning back, nor in mechanically marching straight on. Above all, they uphold that there is no alternative to treasuring academia as a space for thinking together. Hopefully the fruit of this sine qua non invites to think with, and envision academic activism. Contributors are Samuel Abraham, Stefano Bianchini, Simon Charlesworth, Leonidas Donskis, Frans Kamsteeg, Joost van Loon, Ida Sabelis, Tamara Shefer and Harry Wels
Timescapes in academic life. Cubicles of time control
Under current conditions, it seems not enough to construct a plea for ‘slow science’. Temporalities of academia under TINA require close scrutiny in order to bring out the time regimes of academic life. Economy, efficiency, and effectiveness have produced measures by which not only work processed are uniformized and controlled, but especially the design, the character, and the pace of work, including the embodied experience of working. Consequently, (academic) work determines a lot of other aspects of our existence and it tends to uniformize work load as a given. The image arises of not only 24/7 availability for academic work, but the inevitability of compliance to working in individual bubbles of time control, causing a narrower focus for ‘the academic’ and possibly less space for the rhythms of academic creation and creativity. Autobiographical ‘vignettes’ illustrate this development, highlighting the working of regimes that are not questioned on a daily basis
Letter from Ida Otani to Michi Weglyn, April 26, 1997
A letter from Ida Otani to Michi Weglyn about the firing of Japanese American railroad workers during World War II. Otani describes the hardships her family went through after her father was fired by Western Pacific Railroad and the family was forced to vacate their home because it was on railroad property.These materials are from box 73 and 74 of the Frank Chin Papers. The Frank Chin Papers contain personal and professional correspondence between Frank Chin and Michi Weglyn relating to particular projects on which either author was working as well as files related to the Day of Remembrance Tribute to Michi Weglyn
The author, Ida Allen, recounts some of her life in Maine\u27s woods. She was born
The author, Ida Allen, recounts some of her life in Maine\u27s woods. She was born in a Moxie Gorge log camp in the 1910s, and she remembers how the river drivers and lumbermen got logs from Lake Moxie over Moxie Falls ( the Niagara of the north ) through Moosehead Lake to the company mills. Details
“We Will Sue You If You Publish Our Pictures!”
This sentence summarizes the feelings of a group of sex workers, members of a self-led sex workers organization in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, shortly after Sabelis and Nencel finalized a participatory visual methods workshop. Until then, they had assumed the project had gone relatively well; the photo workshop was a big success (lots of laughter, experiment, and fast-growing quality of expressive pictures). It wasn’t until later, during the interviews after the picture taking that they realized something was most definitely wrong. After a brief analysis of what went “wrong”. Sabelis and Nencel scrutinize the assumptions behind their research practices, which are generally considered by the feminist research community to be a proper way to do research. In the aftermath, they contend that being engaged feminist scholars inadvertently can create a particular form of myopia, that generally goes unnoticed when all goes well, but when things go wrong, it unveils its limitations. Firstly, regarding the significance and the ability to create “empowering” reflexive spaces through research. Secondly, showing the myopia of western feminist researchers to recognize the power constituting vulnerability. And finally, even though everything is in place to succeed, a lot more time is required to assure that relationships and networks are solidified in order to produce the trust required for genuine communicative practices, something which all too often is lacking due to the time constraints created through grant-makers’ requirements. Despite all these drawbacks, this experience did not make the authors question the value of critical feminist research. On the contrary they continue to see its worth as well as adhere to its epistemological principles. Rather, knowledge gained through this “failure” made them acutely aware of the challenges contemporary critical feminist researchers are up against, being caught up in neo-liberal research regimes and colonial development practices.</p
Letter from Ida Boitano to Ernest Besig, Director, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, 1942
Letter from Ida Boitano to Ernest Besig. Boitano thanks Besig for the money he sent from Korematsu. She writes of her concern for Korematsu, and ask Besig to try to convince him not to contact her directly, out of fear it could be dangerous for her. She writes, "I happen to be Italian, and this is war, so we must both be careful." Stamped "confidential."The ACLU-Northern California case file records contain legal documents and correspondence pertaining to the case argued before the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States (1944), challenging the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066
"We will sue you if you publish our pictures!": Blind-spots in research on sex-workers
This sentence summarizes the feelings of a group of sex workers, members of a self-led sex workers organization in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, shortly after Sabelis and Nencel finalized a participatory visual methods workshop. Until then, they had assumed the project had gone relatively well; the photo workshop was a big success (lots of laughter, experiment, and fast-growing quality of expressive pictures). It wasn’t until later, during the interviews after the picture taking that they realized something was most definitely wrong. After a brief analysis of what went “wrong”. Sabelis and Nencel scrutinize the assumptions behind their research practices, which are generally considered by the feminist research community to be a proper way to do research. In the aftermath, they contend that being engaged feminist scholars inadvertently can create a particular form of myopia, that generally goes unnoticed when all goes well, but when things go wrong, it unveils its limitations. Firstly, regarding the significance and the ability to create “empowering” reflexive spaces through research. Secondly, showing the myopia of western feminist researchers to recognize the power constituting vulnerability. And finally, even though everything is in place to succeed, a lot more time is required to assure that relationships and networks are solidified in order to produce the trust required for genuine communicative practices, something which all too often is lacking due to the time constraints created through grant-makers’ requirements. Despite all these drawbacks, this experience did not make the authors question the value of critical feminist research. On the contrary they continue to see its worth as well as adhere to its epistemological principles. Rather, knowledge gained through this “failure” made them acutely aware of the challenges contemporary critical feminist researchers are up against, being caught up in neo-liberal research regimes and colonial development practices
Diversity in cycle policies
From the preface of the book Cycling Culture:In her chapter, Ida Sabelis considers how the very ordinariness of the bicycle as a transport choice in the Netherlands can actually render it invisible despite its ubiquity. Whereas the resurgence of Dutch cycling in the 1970s was brought about by concerted policy intervention (Stoffers 2012), the very success of these processes four decades on risks losing grasp of the mechanisms needed to bring about change. Moreover, normative assumptions about what it means to travel and about the travelling body become problematic for those who do not, for whatever reason, conform to those norms. A process of “othering” takes place. Applying insights developed in the sociology of diversity and applied in business, she shows how these barriers, physical and conceptual, might be overcome. Whilst not explicitly discussed in the chapter, it is worth noting that the manner in which the topic is explored here typifies work emerging from the mobilities field in that it is clearly indebted to postcolonial and feminist theory for its framing of the problematic and in the search for solutions
Universities as Laboratories. Internationalization and the Liquidity of National Learning
The essay explores circumstances and opportunities that mark the internationalization of European Universities after the Cold War. It reports the results achieved by the European human capital strategy with a specific focus on the Erasmus mobility impact on young generations. It expands the analysis to transnational research and networks as modern methods of work for academic investigation. Then, the essay highlights some crucial aspects of the debate on the social role of Higher Institutions, how disciplines should complement education, and University potentials implemented in support of their social engagement. Particular relevance is given to the internationalization of Higher Education Institutions in years characterized by globalization. By affecting national policies of education and research, its inputs contributes, in fact, to melt the homogenization of cultures and languages promoted in the last two centuries. By contrast, this process generates tough resistances, which threaten the transnational education under construction. Subsequently, it is widening the gap between mobile and sedentary educated people. This may produce social conflicts with unpredictable impacts on how knowledge should be constructed, with the risk of stifling the role of Universities as laboratories of universal culture
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