ISSUE 2: PRECARITY

In this Special Issue, staff and students harness the power of narrative to reflect on the ways in which their educational lives this year have been affected, fractured and shaped by precarity. 
Whilst precariousness is bound up with a sense of general human vulnerability, precarity speaks to the uneven distribution of vulnerability in relation to privilege. Precarity – a ‘politically induced condition’¹ of material and psychological insecurity – is often particularly mapped by hierarchies of gender, race, class and sexuality, nationality and regionality, caring responsibilities, ability and age.  
The stories that follow foreground a series of challenging encounters with precarity – social, medical, financial, technological and intellectual – that staff and students at the University of Exeter (UK) have faced over the past year. Some consider the pandemic’s impact on Higher Education, focusing on mental and physical health, social privilege, and digital hurdles. Some describe personal experiences of discontinuity and discrimination in the intellectual community. Some explore how tide changes ‘beyond’ institutional walls have altered participants’ relationships to and within the University.
As events continue to expose the myriad ways in which experiences of precarity affect perceptions of risk and change, these narratives describe the repercussions on staff and students’ lives. Together, the stories reveal how various intersecting social dimensions of precarity have led to a series of different – but related – experiences during a period of crisis.
It is too early to speculate on how the events of the past year may transform our understandings of education in the future. But the last 12 months have clearly shown the extent to which precarity is woven into the fabric of the HE environment. With this Special Issue, we hope to join the unfolding conversations around how we meet with precarity in our institutional lives, and how – through care and collaboration – we might discuss, challenge and work through it together.

July 2021

PROJECT LEAD Dr. Natalie Pollard
Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literary Studies, University of Exeter (UK)

EDITOR Deborah Ashfield
MA student in English and Related Literature, University of York (UK)

CONTACT
For inquiries, questions, collaborations, and to express your interest in submitting a story to Unhoming Pedagogies, please contact Natalie Pollard. 

¹  Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? Verso, 2009. p. 25.