Words from Bev

Somehow from a very early age I was given a lot of responsibility. Was it because they knew I would do it as I was so scared of failure? That I have a strong sense of collectivity? Find it difficult to say no? Can be easily guilt tripped? Or was I just well organised? I was pushed/persuaded to be Head of Department in one institution by three senior men, even though someone else actually wanted to do it. Because, I was told, I’d be good at defending the department (in anticipation of the turbulent changes due to take place). I tried to defend the department but not in the way these three men wanted and they made my life very difficult. I left. In another institution as HoD I worked with another colleague to strongly defend our departments against budget cuts only for us to be placed on the least influential  ”Estates Committee” which involved a detailed study of drains – destroyed by bombing in WW2. Estates cttee did however reveal the implications of private finance in Higher Education, way before the government privatised universities. Oddly it was an education in accounting and preparation for resisting tuition fees. For someone who thrives on intellectual nourishment the only way to do the job/s was to see it as a political education. However, I didn’t expect the emotional labour it would involve

Over time I have noticed how working-class women appear over-represented, not only in the pastoral care jobs but also in the really hard head of department jobs. Is it because middle-class academics are just so much better at avoiding doing these thankless jobs with no power and all responsibility? The “wilful ignorance” of some academics about how things work never ceases to amaze me. It’s a bit like using tech equipment- as soon as you admit to knowing how to do it you get the responsibility. 

Behind all academic research and writing lies an infrastructure of administration that is done at a department (or school, or faculty level). The department level is the most difficult as you are working with your colleagues with no institutional distance between you. A lot of it is totally pointless – seemingly aimed at monitoring us. Yet the Head of Department is a layer, often I thought more like a sponge layer, or a layer of protection against idiocy.  The senior management team (eg the vice chancellor and deputies) make decisions, sometimes with spurious consultation, that are then passed down, landing on the HoD. So you can be told “you need to cut out a third of your budget”. That means you are expected to decide how to do it. You have to be careful whether you pass on this message as cuts = people’s jobs and it can destroy morale in an instant. Or you can become adept in creative finance and ask others who are really good at innovative systems to help. 

You are often told to destroy people’s lives “no more research time”, “no travel allowances”, “no IT support”, and the message is direct. Your department colleagues expect you to resist. Because they have no idea how things work. And/or if they do, they accuse you of making the stupid decisions “an instrument for neo-liberalism”. “No!” I’d say “ I’m trying to keep a department/Centre/Unit/Institute from being shut down, merged, not getting any replacement posts, etc”.  As a HoD you have to work out which battles are worth fighting and with whom. And sometimes they backfire. I managed to resist handing on a huge amount of admissions administration to department colleagues only for the Uni to take away the power of the department to make admission decisions completely (it became a simple matter of quantification – they all have go have BBB?). 

I often felt I was in a battle to protect people from inane punishment (spending valuable time monitoring your colleagues for no purpose whatsoever). Senior management nearly always believe that people are not working enough, even though an academics working week is above 60hrs (they have to be to enable people to write and fill in all the ridiculous forms AND do their research). We usually exist through “a lack of trust environment” (the worst sort of management) where they ask people to sign in, report where they will be, threaten to monitor computer sign ons. I once had a HoD who wanted everyone on Skype so he could monitor us. He was into punishing those who didn’t conform to his work ethics and he took out four grievance cases against highly capable staff (which also took an inordinate amount of everyone’s time). This infantalisation has intensified and it is such a stupid strategy to use with people who are highly competitive and motivated to achieve individually. But it does mean people come up with ingenious solutions to evade surveillance and it means that the HoD has destroyed any means for winning trust and good will. And a lot of academia is run on good will – covering absence, swapping lecture times, sharing resources, examining PhDs, examining in general. The most recent strikes destroyed all that good will and it’s unlikely that it will ever be restored. A classic example of the management being clueless about how things work.

And the amount of emotional labour of a HoD knows no limits. Persuading people to do the admin jobs they do not want to do, which always incrementally expand as excellent research on auditing by Marily Strathern shows. The number of times I was yelled at was extraordinary. Usually when I’d asked people to cover something they didn’t want to do. All the goodwill had been destroyed by the previous surveillant HoD. There used to be a great Twitter site called “Academic Male” that recorded numerous examples of bad behaviour. Sadly, it wasn’t just men. Although we had a great example of a man who shouted at the administrators about how he couldn’t do anything because his new computer didn’t work. We went to check. He’d forgotten to turn it on at the wall.  Another desperately wanted a MAC laptop and printer but clearly had no idea how they worked. He spent a term without being able to print anything out but would not admit it. But usually it was of the kind of “I’m too important to do this”, a “do you know who i am?” well yes and you really are not. A lot of academic egos are massive. 

I never ceased to be surprised at how many lies people were prepared to tell: “Have you done your marking”, yes they’d say, when they hadn’t. “Did you turn up for your office hours” “yes” they’d say when clearly they hadn’t been seen during those hours for weeks. I and the department administrator were so upset with one colleague whose lack of marking meant that students would not be able to graduate that I hauled him into his room (he was large) and we locked him in, saying we’d release him when he’d done it. I think he was so surprised he actually did the marking. And nobody would ever believe I could haul him. 

But also there is always at least one person in a department who is having a very difficult time and academic jobs – the intense competition, the constant measurement of productivity, public performance, the lack of support, the lack of recognition, the time demands – are designed to generate anxiety. It’s important to listen, be there, make accommodations (often relying on the good will of others). I’ve previously written about the environment we inhabit built on constant measurement and a colleague who was driven to suicide as a result, and I know many who have been close (see The Dirty History of Feminism and Sociology: Or the War of Conceptual Attrition).  Some new recruits even believe that they will have time to write and that people will hang around discussing interesting things. Unlikely. Our lives are filled up with more audit stupidity, infantalisation and punishment. Disenchantment is rife. After the recent strikes, alienation is the major affect.

Chasing people to do the things they are allocated to do is such a waste of time but one of the main jobs of the HoD, when hte administrators have hit a brick wall. Frequently. Chasing people is one of the things that really upset the admin team. “Why can’t they just do their job?” they’d ask. Quite. And nobody wants to upset administrators as they are the ones who really are doing all the hard administration (register checking, space organisation, timetabling changes, sickness, marking reports). I never ceased to be amazed, again, at how many academics are rude to administrators, treating them as if servants without any understanding of how a department works, or the skills that they bring to the job. They are the most valuable asset for a department. On the appointment of a departmental research officer our research income increased by 9x. And guess what she’s recently been sacked to “make efficiencies”. 

So why did I do it? In the first instance, as co-director of Women’s Studies for political reasons. I learnt so much about occupying a space where you are not wanted, not considered scholarly, and put down with snide comments almost daily. But you have to face it and make it work. We did, it wasn’t easy, yet I remain proud (see Women’s Studies in Britain in the 1990s: Entitlement cultures and institutional constraints). The most important lessons I learnt from this experience was:

•  Occupy the spaces of power and influence (e.g. finance, estates and planning and promotions committees). Let them know you are there and in a Foucauldian manner hold them to account (you are watching!). 
• Institutionalise spaces e.g. obtain physical space. It says you are there. 
• Make sure you have good administrators. They decide whether you will survive or not
• Always read minutes carefully – that’s where clever operators sneak things through 
• Always make time for some form of intellectual nourishment to sustain you e.g. a reading group, because that’s why you’re an academic and not an administrator. 
• Have a life outside of academia – with friends who laugh at the battles in which you’ve been engaged. A friend of mine who at the time worked in Goldman Sachs said “bloody h Bev, you’re world makes banking look easy.” Have a good time. 

In the second and third instance as HoD, power revealed itself – they were clever enough to keep me out of spaces. I had it written in my contract when I moved institutions that I could not be made to be HoD again. But a brilliant department had been so demoralised I just hated to see it dissipate. It has since been totally destroyed which is pure intellectual sabotage.

At one university a former HoD who didn’t like what I was doing (he’d left me with a £45k deficit for which I was held responsible) would check my diary and schedule meetings with the Dean when he knew I couldn’t attend. Sometimes he’d tell me my meeting was cancelled. Then he’d replace all the agreements the department had made with his own. He also reported that I’d upset the department. I hadn’t (the Dean checked) but he kept me on the defensive all the time. The Dean also operated power through a great deal of deception. I found a “hidden” budget. I always attended the 3hr Friday afternoon meetings with 25 other HoDs and I did annoy people by questioning things they hoped would go unnoticed. The head of Law told me the Dean was very relieved when I decided to leave. What did I learn (in addition to the above):

1. Even more the importance of “being there.” Not to be scared by a roomful of 30+ men and only one other female HoD. Resist the gendering (ie silly woman cannot understand budgets/policy, etc)
2. To recognise dissimulation . A great deal of HE is built on bourgeois culture as Bourdieu notes so effectively. People say to your face “what a great idea”, whilst trashing you behind your back, and trying to stop you doing things.  
3. Not allowing the moral censure of the powerful “you have a £45K budget deficit” to become personal (when other departments have a £500k surplus – Accounting department, of course).
4. To be really up to date on HE policy. I read the Times Higher Ed magazine rigorously.
5. To create an alternative space if the one I was operating in was being closed down to me (only possible in a rich Uni). Sometimes this is possible if you are very annoying and they want you out of their space. However, this also relies on ALLIES in other spaces in the Uni
6. Build allies across the University (this takes a huge amount of time but feminist and queer networks help).
7. If you can get voted onto the powerful bodies that influence the Uni eg trustees/council. I became a good friend of the VC at one university only to find out that nobody took him seriously because he’d been caught kerb crawling three times. Power had devolved to the faculty.
8. Some people just want power over others (read Machiavelli, Weber). They don’t want it to create interesting intellectual spaces but just to get recognition for being powerful. I think I’ve learnt to recognise (all male)  as being the “feudal lord” style – they offer you things: “come in on this research grant”, “there’s a job coming up”, etc. They want you to be beholden to them. I’m just not good at that. 
9. Always join the union. Share knowledge of policies. Ask for support when you need it
10. And in situations where you are on the backfoot and the place is so tricky, full of male narcissists who collude in each other’s power , and lacks transparency, and you are exhausted, leave…. 

My fourth experience was in a University, yet working for an American philanthropic company. This took power, surveillance, punishment and dastardly politics to a whole new level. I’d been so excited to work with “global activists” who were great, but the HE institution wasn’t. I’d been warned by the experience of two eminent sociologists who had previously left in frustration, exasperation and horror. Power lay in very different places, dissimulation was elevated to an art form and I was plunged into institutional power struggles that had been going on for years: “don’t you remember what he said at that dinner party?” came up in one meeting. It transpired the dinner party had been 23yrs ago. 

I also (as Director) held a huge budget £64million semi-autonomously plus buildings and the Uni wanted it all, autonomously. As a small team of 6 (2 academics) we were monitored monthly and from the start three of the admin staff constantly complained about an academic member of staff who they wanted sacking. It was not a healthy atmosphere, especially as all he wanted was promoting. The head of the philanthropic association behaved like a feudal lord dispensing good words and punishment in equal measure. They certainly didn’t want “activism.” We had no idea what was going on behind our backs most of the time. I can only say it was the most damaging time for a number of us. The Fellows sustained us. I learnt so much that was positive from them but so much that was negative from the institution. Some of the staff may never recover. What did I learn: get out while you can. 

So the point of including institutional labour in this archive is to note that nothing could ever be done, written, resisted, taught, without an administrative infrastructure and the labour of others.. And rather than thinking of administration as a dirty word as one of my most administratively incompetent favourite academic colleagues did, one who relied on a huge amount of female labour to become famous, one who didn’t turn up for exam boards (how did he think students would graduate?), I’d rather see it as liquid labour that enables other things to happen. But, most importantly, you can make things happen and I think ultimately that is by holding people to account. Feminists/m would not be in the position they are now in HE institutions if it hadn’t been for all the feminist bodies that were in place to do things creatively, to ask why things were done in a particular way and for whose interests. Yet nothing happens with power, taking it, institutionalising it, diminishing people in the process (Spinoza is particularly good on this), so learning to recognise its workings is incredibly useful, but may not save you from it. 

I’d rather be positive and think that a tiny bit of my labour is in the sedimented traces of all my colleagues. And that I’ve done my bit for feminism, which of course is never enough.

A labour of love: The Sociological Review

The Sociological Review is the oldest sociology journal in the UK. It was always interesting, quirky and interdisciplinary in comparison to the mainstream sociology journals. It was the first to publish feminist work and always had good ethnographic papers (because of the editorships of anthropologist Ronnie Frankenberg, Rosemary Deem and then much later Roland Munro). When I was invited to become editor in 2011 I was stunned. Me? I was so flattered I couldn’t say no even though I was also Head of Department.

I could have said no. It wasn’t institutional labour. It didn’t have to do it. I remember thinking what an opportunity to be able to shape the future of sociology. Oh! how naïve I was. I entered a space without an infrastructure. Something I have become obsessed with since. To cut a very long story short after an incredibly laborious process, assisted by an amazingly tenacious administrator – Attila Szanto – we established a charity foundation, unearthed a budget, established business accounts, appointed accountants, negotiated with HMRC (UK tax office), developed a legal and financial structure (a dual structure with a trading arm (the journal) and a charitable arm, run by trustees). The trustees decide to which activities the journal will commit in order to serve its charitable status.

And this was just the start. I thought I’d be editing articles – but that only happened after getting all the institutional structures in place. It was a whole new area of expertise to be learnt and none was easy. Issues kept appearing which needed dealing with. We had a publisher but the contract had not been negotiated since 1990 – how to negotiate a contract?! I contacted other journal editors – no-one knew. Corporate publishers run rings around academic editors who are not savvy with corporate publishing.

Thanks to Robert Rojek from Sage Publishers, I learnt a huge amount about licencing. We did print journals at that time too and that was costly. After spending years trying to make sense of different University budgets, I was now confronted by an entirely new world of corporate publishing competition. And whilst trying to understand finance the regulations on publishing kept changing and the Research Excellence Exercise (an academic’s productivity measure) was becoming more significant, where and how they published was measured. Journals were ranked by status (although initially denied). We needed to up our game and become “competitive” as well as get a fair deal.

And it wasn’t just law, budgets. VAT, libraries, printers, publishers, there was a whole cultural capital in knowing how to generate a highly rated journal article, finding appropriate reviewers, how to persuade people to do the “free labour” of reviewing (whilst all the time doing the “free labour” of setting up the whole organisation). I developed a series of “how to”, such as writing for the Sociological Review (now developed fully by Michaela Benson).

It is not surprising that most academics do not know how this essential piece of their lives works. It was an education, a really difficult one, but in retrospect one I really didn’t need at that time in my life (my dad was dying) and I was juggling so many things. I remember visiting my dad in hospital and thinking I’d like to just lie down and stay in there with him (all responsibility would disappear). Considering it was a male terminal cancer ward it shows how bad it all felt. And at times it got worse.

There were moments after we had been able to employ people to do things such as administration it would explode – five people from the editorial board and employees accused each other of bullying: I was the final point to handle all the complaints. We had no HR department, no procedures. We had to employ lawyers and spent a huge amount of time and money listening to people’s bad behaviour and resentments held against each other since their undergraduate times.  Remember I was doing this role voluntarily, alongside being a HoD, running a research team, teaching and trying to publish my own work and now look after my dying mum and dealing with the grief of my dad dying. But I was stuck. I was scared to walk away in case all that labour and emotional investment collapsed. Then it would have all been for nothing. I could envision a vital new space.

In retrospect I’m so proud of what we’ve done. The final products look amazing and I do think we revitalised sociology and its sister disciplines. I’ve worked with amazing people (Attila, Simon, Rosemary, Michaela, Sarah, Les, Abby, Chantelle, Gurminder, Mike, Steve, Emma, Rolland, Joanna, Marcus, and all the new people such as Kat, Priya, Karen, Agata, Erica, Asiya). Attila and Michaela have been exceptional, and it is Michaela’s vision and Attila’s efficiency that is now driving the organisation.

Having had a training in how capitalism works: especially first developer benefits, diversification, consolidation, protection, monopolisation, I knew we needed to become stable and sustainable. Following the initial development of an electronic system for submissions Simon Yuill developed a non-exploitive system that does not see all a person’s data to the publishers. Unique. He developed a modular site so we have all our offerings together. We have a fellowship, magazine, podcasts, fund projects, writing workshops, seminar series, monographs, open book reviews, events including a huge conference, and also support Connected Sociologies and Discover Society – see Projects. And I was able (with Simon, Attila and Erica) to develop the Solidarity and Care Archive during Covid lockdown.

It was a labour of love, it nearly killed me, but unlike universities and departments which can be heartbreakingly destroyed after you leave, such as Goldsmiths – see The Goldsmiths crisis: how cuts and culture wars sent universities into a death spiral and How the Tories pushed universities to the brink of disaster.

the Soc Review is looking amazing. It’s blossomed in amazingly creative ways (check the art). It became a collective effort for a collective environment even though at times it felt very lonely. I feel I achieved something that isn’t about me and for something I really believed in (is that too ego?). It shows that even when the world around us is full of despair of different types there is hope. I’m hoping it will be like the many headed hydra – attack sociology and it comes back stronger and flourishing.