Transforming hope labour: Badiou, the Covid-19 Event, and contingent academic work

How has the Covid-19 event erupted hope labour giving rise to a new present? We explore this question through the accounts of forty contingent academics in the United Kingdom in the wake of the Covid-19 event. 

Hosted by Etlyn Kenny, co-organised with Work Inclusivity Research Centre.

A lunch buffet and refreshments will be provided before the seminar from 12.30. PhD students and colleagues beyond BBS are welcomed. 

Hope labour is unpaid or undercompensated labour undertaken in the present for exposure or experience, with the hope that future work may follow. Contrasting existing research on hope labour in organization studies that examines the commitment of the subject to neoliberal, hurtful discourses that normalise hope labour, our study provides an opportunity to explain the commitment of the subject to change, despite the influence of power within society. Specifically, drawing on Badiou’s theoretical ideas, we show the subjective break of contingent academics from the neoliberal ideology of hope labour in the wake of the Covid-19 event and the formation of a counter-ideological understanding that renders hope labour illegitimate. We make a novel contribution to the literature on hope labour by demonstrating the emergence of a new present manifested in patterns of ‘transforming academic passion’ and ‘transforming academic professionalism’ exposing and reconstituting the precarity of hope labour. We conclude by discussing the transformative potential of our conceptualization and the political implications for contingent academic work in the neoliberal university. 

Biography 

Elina is a Professor of Work and Organisation Studies and the Director of Research at Brunel, University of London. She held previous appointments at Aston Business School and Newcastle University Business School and was a visiting scholar at Audencia Business School. 

Elina's research lies at the intersection of organization studies and workplace equality and diversity.  It has been funded by British and European funding bodies and appeared in leading academic journals in the area of management and organisation, such as Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, Organization Studies, Work Employment and Society, Gender, Work and Organization, European Management Review, International Small Business Journal, Public Money and Management, and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, among others. 

She is currently an Associate Editor for Human Relations and has acted as a guest editor for various academic journals. Elina is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA).