Page 118 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

116 CHAPTER 5
Poggio 2006, p. 229).
Martin (2006) argues that “knowing how and around what issues and in
what settings men and women practise gender collectively is a high priority goal” (p. 269) and she thus pleads for more research on practicing gender in groups. In collective settings multiple individuals can influence, reinforce, and affect each other (Van Arensbergen et al., 2014b). In hiring committees in particular, the interactions of committee members are of importance. The research question I want to answer in this study is: how do hiring committee members practice gender in hiring procedures for assistant professor positions?
This chapter is based on a qualitative case study of hiring procedures for assistant professorships in a Dutch university. Gaining access to hiring committees has proven difficult due to the sensitive and confidential nature of selection decisions (see also Rivera, 2017; Van den Brink, 2010). I secured access to six hiring committees, which gave me the unique opportunity to witness the saying and doings of academic hiring and study practicing gender in real time and space. The data consist of 70,5 hours of observations, field notes, and e-mail correspondences between hiring committee members. I found that gender was practiced at different moments in hiring procedures. I distinguish the key moments of practicing gender 1) before the committee deliberations start, 2) during hiring decision-making, and 3) after the committee had parted. Overall, I found seven patterns of practicing gender before, during and after committee deliberations.
The chapter is organised in four sections. I start with an elaboration of my theoretical perspective on academic hiring as a practice and practicing gender. Then I will explain the research methodology, followed by the research findings. Finally, I will elaborate on the discussion and conclusions of the findings.
5.2 Hiring as a practice
In this chapter, I draw on practice studies to understand organizational processes, and academic hiring processes in particular. According to Martin (2003) there is a “growing consensus that practice is key to understanding social life” (p. 345). A practice-based approach has the “capacity to describe important features of the world we inhabit as something that is routinely made and re-made in practice using tools, discourse, and our bodies” (Nicolini, 2012, p. 2) and as such, people’s actions are central to organizational outcomes (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011). Practice studies are concerned with (social) processes and see social life as an on-going routinized and