Being women scholar-activists: Tensions between the neoliberal university and grassroots housing movements
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Research rarely unpicks the variety of experiences that exist between activists at different intersections. Our paper attends to this shortfall in literature, firstly through the lens of gendered experiences of labour in housing movements, and secondly through the lens of casualised gendered labour as scholar-activists in the neoliberal university. How we, and others, negotiate these everyday politics will be analysed to offer a more complete understanding of the nuances and tensions at play even in the most progressive movements in Britain. By combining our own experiences with those gleaned from interviews with fellow activists, we develop a framework for understanding what we term ‘activist housework’ - often carried out by those of us who are not cis men - and how this shapes our capacity as organisers and researchers. This framework identifies mundane, everyday and behind-the-scenes labour of activism, which too often goes unseen in favour of focus on more emergent, organic and direct forms of resistance (Pain, 2019). Doing so, we consider, allows reflection on where and how resistance can and must change to maintain the welcome growth in housing activism in Britain.
Source: Radical Housing Journal
DOI: 10.54825/iolo6421
Authors: Meg Bishop, Abi O’Connor
Institutions: University of Liverpool, University of Edinburgh
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4385541627