ABSTRACT
The ways we produce knowledge through research, convey knowledge and understanding through teaching, and connect academic workforces to the societies they live in, are all issues at stake in contemporary struggles. A world university system has grown over a long period, embedded in empire and contemporary global inequalities. Academic labour is becoming more regimented and given narrower goals at the same time that mass-participation university systems have grown and universities themselves are expected to perform wider social tasks. The academic labour force is increasingly casualised while the non-academic half of the university workforce is increasingly outsourced. A global division of labour in the production of knowledge still operates and now underpins hierarchies of universities. New agendas of state control-at-a-distance, rising dependence on fees and other forces are pushing universities towards corporate models where professional managers are the significant decision-makers. Struggles over access and hegemony in developing countries and declining conditions of employment in richer countries are becoming endemic. The result is rising tensions within universities as organisations and a developing crisis of sustainability. There is also a flowering of alternatives and debates about new possibilities for university work and life.
