ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the various strands of stress and intimidation which form part of the web of fear within which many employees at present-day corporatised universities are enmeshed. Conditions of this kind have been brought about by a variety of factors, one striking feature of which is the ascendancy of new forms of managerialism, both locally and worldwide. Managerial authority is reinforced by disciplinary measures, which can be exercised at various levels of the university hierarchy for non-compliance with managerial edicts or failure to meet prescribed targets, among much else. Additional potentially punitive strategies are at work. Partly in order to preserve their corporate facades, numerous corporatised universities seek to instil obedience and compliance in their employees by means of various types of intimidation and humiliation. Those practices that have been described as rites of degradation can form features of these threatening tactics. Tension and anxiety can bestow uncanny aspects on mundane, commonplace features of academic workplaces.
