| Editors | Coşku Çelik, Ecehan Balta, Ezgi Doğru |
| Publication Secretary | Ümit Özger |
| Issue Editors | Demet Özmen Yılmaz, Koray Yılmaz, Umut Ulukan |
This Issue…
Praksis Issue 67: Academia in the Grip of Authoritarianism and Marketization
Melek Zorlu ve Nevra Akdemir
Academic Capitalism: The Real Subsumption of Capital in the Universities
Muammer Kaymak
The market-oriented transformation that begins with commercialization in universities and evolves into corporatization has given rise to a significant body of critical literature under the title of academic capitalism. This critical literature, which emphasizes the changes brought about by the transformation in education, research, and publishing in universities, refrains from theorizing the transformation within the framework of capitalism’s developmental dynamics, focusing instead on exposing the destruction caused by the process in terms of traditional academic values, or limiting itself to a critique within the framework of the subjective experiences of academic labor. In this paper, while aiming to take stock of the transformation, we intend to analyze academic capitalism by focusing on the historical evolution of the university, employing Marx’s theoretical framework concerning the early formation and the law of motions of capitalism as a starting point to investigate how capitalism has become dominant in this specific field. In this context, we attempt to show that the transformation referred to as academic capitalism is a strategy aimed at establishing the real subsumption of capital in the sphere of scientific production and how this strategy uses the experiences of primitive accumulation practices from the early history of capitalism and modern labour control methods.
Keywords: Academic capitalism, entrepreneurial university, commercialization of science, academic labour, the real subsumption of capital.
Precarity is a Feminist Issue: Gender and Contingent Labor in the Academy
Robin Zheng
Feminist philosophers have challenged a wide range of gender injustices in professional philosophy. However, the problem of precarity, that is, the increasing numbers of contingent faculty who cannot find permanent employment, has received scarcely any attention. What explains this oversight? In this article, I argue, first, that academics are held in the grips of an ideology that diverts attention away from the structural conditions of precarity, and second, that the gendered dimensions of such an ideology have been overlooked. To do so, I identify two myths: the myth of meritocracy and the myth of work as its own reward. I demonstrate that these myths—and the two-tier system itself— manifest an unmistakably gendered logic, such that gender and precarity are mutually reinforcing and co-constitutive. I conclude that feminist philosophers have particular reasons to organize against the casualization of academic work.
Zheng, R. (2018), Precarity is a Feminist Issue: Gender and Contingent Labor in the Academy. Hypatia, 33: 235-255. https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12401
Emotional Labor in Academia: Student Course Evaluations in the Process of Marketization
Ayşegül Akdemir Son- Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm- Ayşenur Emer- Ayşe Sıla Nur Dal
Although there is a large body of literature on the marketization of higher education and the impact of neoliberalism on universities, emotional labor practices in academia have not been sufficiently covered. This article aims to fill this mentioned gap and contribute to recognizing emotional labor as a form of labor in academia. Several themes stand out in the in-depth interviews conducted with academics around the course evaluation surveys. Our findings suggest that course evaluation surveys are not considered reliable by academics and do not work as a tool for feedback due to the way they are implemented. This situation damages the student-academician relationship. Moreover, the use of surveys contributes to the marketization of higher education and the depoliticization of university education. By using these surveys in performance evaluations, academics are obliged to act according to student expectations, which weakens course content and hinders critical thinking. On the other hand, in-depth interviews based on the surveys also uncovered gender-based differences. Surveys indicate that female academics are locked into the role of “academic mother” and this situation entices female academics to perform more emotional labor than their male colleagues and goes beyond their professional roles. The emotional responses of academics to surveys are complex and multidimensional, too profound to be explained solely by depersonalizing negative feedback from student surveys or by creating emotional distance to protect themselves from stress. Interviews show that these surveys had profound emotional effects on academics and intensified their emotional labor practices. These findings highlight the need to re-evaluate course evaluation surveys in terms of both the quality of education and their impact on academics.
Keywords: Academia, marketization, emotional labor, gender, course evaluation surveys.
Barınamıyoruz [We Can’t Shelter] Movement: Students’ Demands for the Right to Housing in the Grip of Authoritarian Neoliberalism
Ozan Bal – Hakan Yücel
In recent years, high inflation and authoritarianism have been intensely discussed in Turkey, while the perspective on universities has also paralleled these. In the relevant literature, the topics focused on student life have been the pressure mechanisms in universities, precarious youth labor, debt, diploma inflation and the sense of futurelessness. On the other hand, although not yet the subject of comprehensive studies, student youth have also developed collective reactions under these conditions. One of these is the Barınamıyoruz Movement, which started with a protest in September 2021 in Istanbul by a group of young people sleeping in a park to draw attention to the housing problem and quickly became a platform that triggered other park vigils or dormitory protests in different parts of Turkey. Barınamıyoruz is an important experience in terms of showing that the student movement can create new demands and new practices under the conditions of authoritarian neoliberalism. We asked the question of how these protests were organized and sought an answer to this question with a field research based on interviews with young people who took the initiative in the movement. Based on the findings of the field research, we first explained this situation with the changes in the student space caused by authoritarian neoliberal policies such as the massification of the university, the expansion of its place in physical and social space, the spread of student debt, the creation of a fragile youth labor force, and the deepening of this whole cycle with the housing problem. We argued that the contradictions between the university designed with these policies, the perceived university image, and the experienced student life deepened and that students did not feel like students. We then stated that Barınamıyoruz adopted a self-organization logic that would also spread the movement in the face of the expansion of the university and certain strategic attitudes that made this possible, in other words, it took a position in the field of the student movement that was suitable for this spatial change. Thus, we argued that the movement caused a kind of economic struggle form to the tendency of young people who could not feel like students, believed that they could not live their youth, and were disturbed by this, to claim youthfulness.
Keywords: Housing, student movement, university, production of space, collective action
From Assessment to Condemnation: Neoliberal Subjectivities in the Academia
Leyla Bektaş Ata
This study examines the impact of neoliberalism on academia and the market-oriented transformation of universities. Neoliberalism weakens collective structures by placing the individual at the center and dominating the academic environment with a corporate logic. In universities, attributes such as competition, entrepreneurship, and individuality are prioritized, reshaping academic production based on personal achievement and market demands. Focusing on the effects of neoliberal policies on Turkish universities since the 1980s, this article discusses the rise of the neoliberal subject and its influence on academic publication processes. Competitive dynamics prioritize individual success over collective values, eroding fundamental academic principles such as equality, solidarity, and open communication. The research analyzes how market-driven pressures have personalized the publication process, based on peer review reports received by both national and international academic articles, along with the responses of editors and authors to these evaluations. It offers a systematic critique of academia’s transformation under free-market conditions and argues for reclaiming the public mission of academia while resisting the commodification of knowledge.
Keywords: Neoliberalism, university, academic publishing evaluation, peer review, public sphere
“It is All about You”: Homo-Neoliberalus and Psychological Epistemology
Ersin Aslıtürk – Sertan Batur
In recent years, there have been important debates within the discipline of psychology on the psychology of neoliberalism and the neoliberalism of psychology. Compared to other humanistic disciplines, critical discussions on this issue in psychology are delayed, but they correspond to an important need. While, on the one hand, the neoliberal/entrepreneurial subjects try to improve themselves, grow, be happy, use their happiness as capital, and regulate their emotions and inner worlds effectively, on the other hand, the discipline of psychology holds these subjects’ hands and guides them in the context of these psycho-economic needs. This article first briefly summarizes the psychology of the neoliberal subject, and then reveals the individualist epistemological and ontological framework of psychology that matured as neoliberalism rose in the last century. Then, issues such as the construction of the entrepreneurial self, psychologization, essentialism and responsibilization, the growth/development imperative and emotion/mind management are critically discussed. Finally, in the current authoritarian neoliberal period, where political and social alienation increases, the individual-focused messages given by psychology gurus are analyzed and the possibilities of epistemic resistance/praxis are discussed.
Keywords: Neoliberalism, neoliberal subject, psychology, psychologization, critical psychology
Round Table
At the Margins and at the Center of the Academy: Crisis, Resistance and Freedom**
Discussors: Ezgi Pınar, Gürsan Şenalp, Hülya Kendir and Aysuda Kölemen
Climate Crisis with its Gender and Urban Dimensions: An Analysis Based on the Assessments of Alternative Agri-Food Actors in Istanbul
Selma Değirmenci- Ayla Ezgi Akyol Giatzoglou
The climate crisis caused by patriarchal capitalism is having an increasingly devastating impact upon the agri-food system. The production of food within the industrial agri-food system triggers the climate crisis on the one hand and makes access to food a burning issue on the other. This article aims to understand the effects of the climate crisis on the city and the agri-food system with a gender dimension through interviews with volunteers who are trying to build alternative production-consumption networks in Istanbul by working in cooperatives, food communities, urban gardens, etc. Through in-depth interviews with 11 women and 11 men from alternative agri-food actors, the ways in which the climate crisis is experienced in the city and its impact on the agri-food system are analyzed. In addition, it is questioned how to fight against the crisis in the city and how gender affects both the way the crisis is experienced and the solutions that can be developed against this problem.
Keywords: Climate crisis, alternative agri-food actors, gender, patriarchal capitalism, city.
Book Review: “Occupy, resist, produce”: If Workers Take the Helm
Çağatay Edgücan Şahin
Gürler, D. (2023) İşçi Denetimi Mücadelesi: İşgal, Direniş, Üretim!, İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 272 sf.
Book Review: Capitalism and Democracy: The Anatomy of a Dichotomy
Coşku Çelik
Cemgil, C ve Ö. Turan (2023) Kapitalizm ve Demokrasi: Bir Zıtlığın Anatomisi, İstanbul: Metis Yayınları, 320 sf.
