ABSTRACT
This chapter explores competing narratives of precarity, flexibility and efficiency in higher education (HE). Discussions of the casualisation and precarity have become increasingly prominent in HE, with 54 per cent of UK academic staff on insecure contracts, but casualised working is often presented as a flexible arrangement benefiting staff and students, or an unavoidable reality in a marketized HE sector.
However, there are concerns that this flexibility is asymmetrical, as workers often find themselves vulnerable, financially insecure and unable to make long-term plans. This chapter outlines the material, psychological and social impacts on both staff and students in relation to teaching, research and wellbeing and examines how unions and grassroots movements have engaged with these issues through collective bargaining and creative outputs such as zines. It concludes by exploring what is next for HE and precarity, and how we can resist this damaging trend.
