Page 119 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

recurrent activity (Nicolini, 2012). Practicing is rapid, directional (one way, linear) and temporal (Martin, 2003). It is done in real time and space and once something is said or done, it is irreversible (Martin, 2006). Practice theory aims for explaining everyday activity (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011) or “the way in which activities are performed in organizations” (Poggio, 2006, p. 225).
In line with previous studies, I conceive academic hiring as a social practice (Van den Brink, 2010; Van den Brink & Benschop, 2012b). Academic hiring processes constitute of recruitment and selection practices with the aim to find and choose candidates (Rees & Rumbles, 2010). Earlier studies on academic hiring have shown that academic hiring practices are subjective and political endeavours (Bozionelos, 2005; Van den Brink & Benschop, 2012b) that involve negotiations between multiple committee members who have their own agendas (Van den Brink et al., 2013) and varying degrees of power (similar to grant reviewing panels, Van Arensbergen et al., 2014b). Bozionelos (2005) showed, for example, that committee members from similar traditions / disciplines can build coalitions and together influence job interviews and hiring decision-making according to their interests. Therefore, hiring decisions tend to be outcomes of political contests (Bozionelos, 2005).
Just like committee members have different interests, previous studies on academic hiring practices have shown that they also have different standards of what constitutes quality (Roumbanis, 2017) and that the evaluation of quality is prone to personal preference (Herschberg et al., 2018b). Quality, as such, has an emotional component (Rivera, 2017) and oftentimes involves formal but also tacit criteria (Herschberg et al., 2018a; Van den Brink & Benschop, 2012b). Because evaluation is a subjective, political endeavour, it can give room to gendering dynamics.
5.3 Practicing gender
Martin (2003, 2006) describes a twin dynamic of gender practices and practicing gender. She defines gender practices as “a class of activities that are available— culturally, socially, narratively, discursively, physically, and so forth—for people to enact in an encounter or situation in accord with (or in violation of) the gender institution” whereas practicing gender focuses on the “literal activities of gender”, “the means by which the gender order is constituted at work” (Martin, 2003, p. 354). Gender practices include widely known and accepted forms of for example expressions, such as referring to women at work as ‘girls’ (Martin, 2006). An example of practicing gender is that evaluators inflate strengths and downplay weaknesses in
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