‘Pandemia’: a reckoning of UK universities’ corporate response to COVID-19 and its academic fallout

R. Watermeyer*, K. Shankar, T. Crick, C. Knight, F. McGaughey, J. Hardman, V.R. Suri, R. Chung, D. Phelan

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

101 Citations (Scopus)
75 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Universities in the UK, and in other countries like Australia and the USA, have responded to the operational and financial challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic by prioritising institutional solvency and enforcing changes to the work-practices and profiles of their staff. For academics, an adjustment to institutional life under COVID-19 has been dramatic and resulted in the overwhelming majority making a transition to prolonged remote-working. Many have endured significant work-intensification; others have lost — or may soon lose — their jobs. The impact of the pandemic appears transformational and for the most part negative. This article reports the experiences of n=1,099 UK academics specific to the corporate response of institutional leadership to the COVID-19 crisis. We find articulated a story of universities in the grip of ‘pandemia’ and COVID-19 emboldening processes and protagonists of neoliberal governmentality and market-reform that pay little heed to considerations of human health and wellbeing.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)651-666
Number of pages16
JournalBritish Journal of Sociology of Education
Volume42
Issue number5-6
Early online date5 Jul 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 18 Aug 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Research Groups and Themes

  • Covid19

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • pandemia
  • disaster capitalism
  • remote working
  • work intensification
  • university leadership

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