Page 14 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

12 CHAPTER 1
scarce resources most efficiently” by distributing it through a process of evaluation to presumably the ‘best’ researchers, because it is thought that “they will produce the best research possible with the available money” (Laudel, 2006, p. 375). Due to the increase in external research funding, the number of early-career researchers has grown as they “form a cheap and flexible academic workforce” (Hakala, 2009, p. 174) who can work on project basis. These developments have created a stronger distinction between core and peripheral academic positions (Parker & Jary, 1995). For academics in the periphery it becomes ever harder to achieve a permanent academic position, not only due to the decrease of permanent positions, but also because the competition for positions is stronger than ever (Hakala, 2009).
In this dissertation, I study postdoc positions and tenure-track assistant professorships because these are the first positions after completing a PhD and before obtaining a more stable, permanent position in academia. These positions require attention as applicants for these positions “are confronted with strict rules of competition, combined with an ‘extensification’ and ‘overflow’ of work, finding themselves alone in dealing with uncertainty about the future” of their careers (Bozzon et al., 2018, p. 16). Moreover, it is argued that the requirements for permanent positions have become broader and more stringent (Bozzon et al., 2018; Özbilgin, 2009). The types of postdoc position I focus on are those that are created because a principal investigator acquired funding for a research project. I perceive tenure-track assistant professor positions as “time-limited posts leading, at the end of a certain period of time, to a tenure procedure to decide whether they will be offered a tenured position” (Enders & Musselin, 2008, p. 134). This means that a tenure-track assistant professorship involves an ‘in or out’ decision after a period of precarity. Both positions that I am interested in are academic positions with a research component that are precarious in nature and for which gatekeepers are responsible for recruitment and selection. I do acknowledge that there is a broad diversity in fixed-term early-career positions (see for example Ackers & Oliver, 2007) and that they differ in the extent of precariousness they have to endure (e.g., teaching-only positions).
When looking at temporary positions in the neoliberal university, a gendered pattern can be observed. Studies and statistics show that women (early-career) academics are disproportionally employed on peripheral, fixed-term positions compared to men (Bryson, 2004; Parker & Jary, 1995; WOPI, 2013). Yet, not only gender inequality but also for example inequalities based on nationality (Śliwa & Johansson, 2014) and ethnicity, and class (Czarniawska & Sevón, 2008; Özbilgin, 2009) are found in academia and academic processes. Multiple categories of social differences can intersect (Czarniawska & Sevón, 2008; Johansson & Śliwa, 2014).