Feminist Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: The Limits of Precarious Labour

In recent years, feminist pedagogy has been advanced as a strategy for disrupting the neoliberal corporatization of the university classroom. In this paper, we both recognize and trouble this disruptive potential, examining how the working conditions faced by adjunct instructors affect our ability t...

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Main Authors: Jacqueline Potvin, Kimberly Dority
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Mount Saint Vincent University 2022-04-01
Series:Atlantis
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Online Access:https://atlantisjournal.ca/index.php/atlantis/article/view/5567/4748
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author Jacqueline Potvin
Kimberly Dority
author_facet Jacqueline Potvin
Kimberly Dority
author_sort Jacqueline Potvin
collection DOAJ
description In recent years, feminist pedagogy has been advanced as a strategy for disrupting the neoliberal corporatization of the university classroom. In this paper, we both recognize and trouble this disruptive potential, examining how the working conditions faced by adjunct instructors affect our ability to put our commitments to feminist pedagogy into practice. Based on our own experiences as sessional instructors, we argue that conditions such as heavy workloads, alongside limited access to institutional resources and community, contribute to faculty burn-out and hinder our ability to build and maintain feminist student-instructor relationships. Drawing on existing scholarship on feminist pedagogy, and emerging work exploring the challenges of teaching within the neoliberal university, we argue for the need to extend and complicate dominant understandings of feminist pedagogy as a series of values and practices that individual instructors can implement, and to recognize how its enactment is limited by the adjunctification of higher education.
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spelling doaj-art-d300e8b367f34df2a22a7ab507b44c622025-08-20T03:05:23ZengMount Saint Vincent UniversityAtlantis1715-06982022-04-014315668Feminist Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: The Limits of Precarious LabourJacqueline Potvin0Kimberly Dority1University of GuelphWestern UniversityIn recent years, feminist pedagogy has been advanced as a strategy for disrupting the neoliberal corporatization of the university classroom. In this paper, we both recognize and trouble this disruptive potential, examining how the working conditions faced by adjunct instructors affect our ability to put our commitments to feminist pedagogy into practice. Based on our own experiences as sessional instructors, we argue that conditions such as heavy workloads, alongside limited access to institutional resources and community, contribute to faculty burn-out and hinder our ability to build and maintain feminist student-instructor relationships. Drawing on existing scholarship on feminist pedagogy, and emerging work exploring the challenges of teaching within the neoliberal university, we argue for the need to extend and complicate dominant understandings of feminist pedagogy as a series of values and practices that individual instructors can implement, and to recognize how its enactment is limited by the adjunctification of higher education.https://atlantisjournal.ca/index.php/atlantis/article/view/5567/4748adjunctificationneoliberalismpedagogyprecarityrelationality
spellingShingle Jacqueline Potvin
Kimberly Dority
Feminist Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: The Limits of Precarious Labour
Atlantis
adjunctification
neoliberalism
pedagogy
precarity
relationality
title Feminist Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: The Limits of Precarious Labour
title_full Feminist Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: The Limits of Precarious Labour
title_fullStr Feminist Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: The Limits of Precarious Labour
title_full_unstemmed Feminist Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: The Limits of Precarious Labour
title_short Feminist Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: The Limits of Precarious Labour
title_sort feminist pedagogy in the neoliberal university the limits of precarious labour
topic adjunctification
neoliberalism
pedagogy
precarity
relationality
url https://atlantisjournal.ca/index.php/atlantis/article/view/5567/4748
work_keys_str_mv AT jacquelinepotvin feministpedagogyintheneoliberaluniversitythelimitsofprecariouslabour
AT kimberlydority feministpedagogyintheneoliberaluniversitythelimitsofprecariouslabour