Resources

Contents

 

  • Downloadable precarity awareness posters
  • Letter templates for requesting institutional changes
  • Precarious employment reading list

 

Further resources will be added in future - watch this space!

1. Precarity Awareness Posters

The following posters have been developed to raise awareness of experiences of precarity and how colleagues can help. They are free to download - please hang them in your workplaces and share widely online. Kindly produced for the States of Precarity project by Dr Zoe J Ayres (@zjayres)

1. Recognising the challenges created by fixed-term contracts 

Roughly 30% of UK geographers are currently employed on fixed-term contracts (HESA, 2024), yet the personal and professional impacts of these contracts is not widely recognised. This poster summarises some of the key ways in which fixed term contracts affect colleagues.

2. How to support colleagues on fixed-term contracts 

Regardless of our positions within our departments, we can all do a better job at recognising the needs of fixed-term colleagues. This poster summarises some of the most valued ways in which respondents said that others had helped them.

3. Recognising how people experience precarity differently

Fixed-term contracts are not all experienced in the same ways by the same people. This poster summarises some of the key contributing factors to experiences of precarity relating to fixed-term contracts.

2. Letter Templates

The following letter templates are free to download and are intended to be used to lobby members of senior management to improve specific factors that contribute to negative experiences of fixed or short-term contracts.

Request the delayed closing of institutional email accounts

The immediate removal of institutional email accounts can negatively affect individuals' abilities to maintain academic profiles and professional networks between contracts. Use this letter to request your university introduce a policy to delay the point at which email accounts are closed.

Request the introduction of minimum contract lengths

The widespread use of zero hours and very short-term (less than 12 month) contracts has major implications for individuals' wellbeing and career development. Use this letter to request that your university establishes a policy around the minimum length of fixed term contract used, where contacts must exceed 12 months.

Request probation that is proportional to employment

Probation lengths can exceed contracts and colleagues can find themselves on repeated periods of probation each time contracts are renewed. This can have major implications for mental health and peoples' abilities to plan their lives. Use this letter to request that probation periods are proportional to the duration of employment.

3. Precarity Reading List

Help us create a resource for others by suggesting additions to this list!

Articles

Berg, L.D., Huijbens, E.H. and Larsen, H.G., (2016)

"Producing anxiety in the neoliberal university" 

The Canadian Geographer/le géographe canadien, 60(2), pp.168-180.

Burton S, Bowman B (2022)

"The academic precariat: understanding life and labour in the neoliberal academy"

British Journal of Sociology of Education 43(4) pp.497-512

Cinnamon, J. (2020)

"Power in numbers/Power and numbers: Gentle data activism as strategic collaboration"

Area 00 pp.1-16

Evans, B., Allam, A, Bê, A., Hale, C., Rose, M., and Ruddock, A. (2024)

"Being left behind beyond recovery: ‘crip time’ and chronic illness in neoliberal academia"

Social & Cultural Geography https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2024.2410262 

Gilmore, S., & Harding, N. (2022)

"Organizational socialization as kin-work: A psychoanalytic model of settling into a new job" 

Human Relations, 75(3), 583-605.

Guasco, A. (2022)

"On an ethic of not going there"

The Geographical Journal 188 pp.468–475

Hall, R. & Bowles, K. (2016)

"Re-engineering Higher Education: The Subsumption of Academic Labour and the Exploitation of Anxiety"

Workplace 28 pp.30-47.

Hawkins, H. (2019)

"Creating care-full academic spaces? The dilemmas of caring in the ‘anxiety machine’"

ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 18(4) pp.816-834.

Horton, J. (2020)

"For diffident geographies and modest activisms: Questioning the ANYTHING‐BUT‐GENTLE academy"

Area 00 pp.1-6

Hughes, S. M. (2021)

“Wait for a permanent contract”: The temporal politics of (in) fertility as an early career researcher.

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 39(8), 1725-1736.

Iglesias, C. and Freeman, E.  (2024)

"As women in academia, having children can feel impossible. Talking about it makes us feel less alone”

Science [Available from: As women in academia, having children can feel impossible. Talking about it makes us feel less alone | Science | AAAS Date Accessed: 2nd November 2024]

Ivancheva, M., Lynch, K., & Keating, K. (2019)

"Precarity, gender and care in the neoliberal academy" 

Gender, Work & Organization, 26(4), 448-462

Jones, C. H., & Whittle, R. (2021)

"Researcher self‐care and caring in the research community" 

Area, 53(2), 381-388.

Joanes, J., & Joyce, M. A. (2022)

"At Breaking Point: An Intervention On Resilience Within The UK Academy"

SENTIO, 111

Loveday, V. (2018)

"The neurotic academic: Anxiety, casualisation, and governance in the neoliberalising university."

Journal of Cultural Economy, 11(2), pp.154-166.

Mason, O., & Megoran, N. (2021)

"Precarity and dehumanisation in higher education"

Learning and Teaching, 14(1), 35-59.

Menard, C. B., & Shinton, S. (2022)

"The career paths of researchers in long-term employment on short-term contracts: Case study from a UK university" 

Plos one, 17(9), e0274486. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274486

Nordling, L. (2023)

"Falling Behind: Postdocs in their thirties tire of putting life on hold"

Nature Falling behind: postdocs in their thirties tire of putting life on hold

Oliver, C. (2022)

"“Significant nothingness” in geographical fieldwork." 

Geoforum, 134, pp.82-85.

Peters, K. (2021)

"For the place of terrain and materialist ‘re’-returns: Experience, life, force, and the importance of the socio-cultural" 

Dialogues in Human Geography, 11(2), 195-199

Pascoe, S., Sanders, A., Rawluk, A., Satizábal, P., & Toumbourou, T. (2020)

Intervention—“Holding Space for Alternative Futures in Academia and Beyond”.

Antipode Online. Intervention – “Holding Space for Alternative Futures in Academia and Beyond” - Antipode Online

Pickerill, J. (2024)

"Challenging neoliberal time: Creating space for radical praxis in geography"

Area, e12981

Todd, J. D. (2020)

"Experiencing and embodying anxiety in spaces of academia and social research"

Gender, Place & Culture, 28(4), 475–496. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2020.1727862

Zielke, J., Thompson, M., & Hepburn, P. (2022)

"On the (im) possibilities of being a good enough researcher at a neoliberal university"

Area.

Books

Murgia, A. and Poggio, B. (2018)

"Gender and precarious research careers"

London: Routledge

Reports

Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) (2024)

"Precarious work in higher education: Insecure contracts and how they have changed over time"

UCU  https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/10899/Precarious-work-in-higher-education-May-20/pdf/ucu_he-precarity-report_may20.pdf 

Websites

Universities and Colleges Union (UCU)

Blog Posts

Brax, D. (2024) 

"Living on Hope? Reflections on 'Hope Labour' in Academia"

Lex Academic - Guest Blog Living on Hope? Reflections on ‘Hope Labour’ in Academia | Lex Academic Guest Blog - Lex Academic

Shahid, S. (2021) 

"Understanding Academic Precarity with Iris Marion Young: Who’s Responsible?"

Blog of the APA https://blog.apaonline.org/2021/12/31/understanding-academic-precarity-with-iris-marion-young-whos-responsible/