about practical or theoretical questions. This curiosity
shapes the research questions that mobilize entire processes of scholarship. The individual quest to satisfy
one’s burning questions alongside others in an academic community is guarded by scholarly institutions,
such as academic freedom and tenure, and organizationally through collegial governance. If this is a core
value (or perhaps the core value) of universities, the
ability to mobilize scholars to embrace SLs as part of
their identity will depend on how livelihood anxiety
within a scholarly context is currently being generated
in relation to this core value satisfying curiosity or
wonder is being jeopardized. This anxiety within the
scholarly community is then analogous to the grain of
sand that irritates the oyster to create a pearl. With this
tension in mind we can now address the four core political areas Scoones identifies as needed for revitalized
livelihoods analysis (2015, p. 109-116), and consider
what would be done differently if campuses shared
commitments to “sustainable scholarly livelihoods”
(SSLs).
The politics of interests
Scoones’ “politics of interests” identifies how livelihood opportunities are shaped by one’s interests but
that these interests are, in turn, shaped by “the structural features that define our own lives” (p. 110).
That curiosity has been a central, shared interest for
mobilizing resources within scholarly communities is
identified very early on. Aristotle in describing the
origins of the pursuit of theoretical knowledge (and
philosophy more generally) grounds it in a general
desire found in all humans to know things for their
own sake (1947, p. 243–249 (980a–983a)).While this
shared interest is embedded within the modern university, as Scoones notes one also needs to consider
the broader political economy in which livelihoods (in
this case scholarly livelihoods) are situated. Scoones
points to impacts on livelihoods of “intense globalization under neoliberalism,” which includes “the
appropriation of resources for livelihoods through
commodification and financialization” (p. 111). These
forces have led, in part, to features of the corporatized
university including the commodification of teaching materials as well as research outputs (through
applying intellectual property rights to these outputs
and knowledge commercialization). The separation
of these ownable materials from the scholar, now
understood as a knowledge worker, leads to further
unbundling of the scholarly profession.
How might a SLA address this? Up until recently,
the integration of the scholarly identity was assumed.
All scholars were expected to do research, teaching, and service (whether to the scholarly or wider
community). This meant that the scholar was highly
portable and self-sustaining. No matter what occurred
historically to universities as organizations (whether
plagues, fires, or barbarian invasions, etc.), the integration of this identity meant scholars could sustain
themselves as individuals and form new scholarly
communities as needed while being generally welcomed as a resource by a new community. A SL
framework that takes as its start individual livelihoods
naturally scales down to that of the traditional “lonely
scholar” seeking answers that satisfy his or her own
curiosity. This points to the need to reintegrate the
individual scholarly identity. The rebundling of the
scholarly identity necessitates the rejection of university contractual relationships that remunerate only
one element of the scholarly identity (whether it be
just research, teaching, or administrative service). In
the classroom, such rebundling would also view students as teachers and faculty as learners. Scholars
have also traditionally sustained their scholarly activities through shared assets, including their libraries
and learning spaces (such as laboratories). In response
to corporatization and commodification of the scholarly materials of universities, a sustainable scholarly
livelihood (SSL) would suggest scholars fully embracing open licensing of research and teaching materials
along with open patenting of university innovations
(or minimally sharing with scholars in universities that
are legally committed to employing all their resources
towards scholarly purposes). To further advance campus sharing, other elements of the sharing economy
need to be embraced for scholarly purposes. This
would include sharing of buildings, lands, tools, and
equipment for scholarly ends. For example, university
libraries would now need to expand to include campus
tool libraries.
To advance the “whole-institution approach” a university as a corporate body could view itself as its
own SL writ large, in the service of the many SSLs
that comprise it. This would demand a de-bifurcation
of the university. Non-academic university administrators and staff serving the academic community would
be contracted to share the SSL identity alongside traditional scholars. At the same time, political science
and administration departments could explore how the
bicameral university’s governance model (separating
academic functions from financial management) and
corporate divisions (between management and labor)
could be altered so that scholars themselves control
boards of governors and the allocation of material
resources of the university. In a university setting this
is enabled both by traditions of collegial governance
but also by faculty members themselves being, through
tenure, effectively treated as long-term (human) capital assets (and therefore investments) of the university.
Universities would then become effectively a kind of
“worker cooperative” (an observation made by Tirole
2017). The university viewed as its own SSL would
also seek to internalize its production and consumption
processes, where possible, to minimize risk. This could
entail creating its own learning spaces, buildings, and
equipment customized to its local ecosystems and
social and scholarly preferences. Such campus production and consumption would, by definition, contribute
to a circular economy enabling cradle-to-cradle (C2C)
production, something seen as central to achieving sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12; Paul
33
shapes the research questions that mobilize entire processes of scholarship. The individual quest to satisfy
one’s burning questions alongside others in an academic community is guarded by scholarly institutions,
such as academic freedom and tenure, and organizationally through collegial governance. If this is a core
value (or perhaps the core value) of universities, the
ability to mobilize scholars to embrace SLs as part of
their identity will depend on how livelihood anxiety
within a scholarly context is currently being generated
in relation to this core value satisfying curiosity or
wonder is being jeopardized. This anxiety within the
scholarly community is then analogous to the grain of
sand that irritates the oyster to create a pearl. With this
tension in mind we can now address the four core political areas Scoones identifies as needed for revitalized
livelihoods analysis (2015, p. 109-116), and consider
what would be done differently if campuses shared
commitments to “sustainable scholarly livelihoods”
(SSLs).
The politics of interests
Scoones’ “politics of interests” identifies how livelihood opportunities are shaped by one’s interests but
that these interests are, in turn, shaped by “the structural features that define our own lives” (p. 110).
That curiosity has been a central, shared interest for
mobilizing resources within scholarly communities is
identified very early on. Aristotle in describing the
origins of the pursuit of theoretical knowledge (and
philosophy more generally) grounds it in a general
desire found in all humans to know things for their
own sake (1947, p. 243–249 (980a–983a)).While this
shared interest is embedded within the modern university, as Scoones notes one also needs to consider
the broader political economy in which livelihoods (in
this case scholarly livelihoods) are situated. Scoones
points to impacts on livelihoods of “intense globalization under neoliberalism,” which includes “the
appropriation of resources for livelihoods through
commodification and financialization” (p. 111). These
forces have led, in part, to features of the corporatized
university including the commodification of teaching materials as well as research outputs (through
applying intellectual property rights to these outputs
and knowledge commercialization). The separation
of these ownable materials from the scholar, now
understood as a knowledge worker, leads to further
unbundling of the scholarly profession.
How might a SLA address this? Up until recently,
the integration of the scholarly identity was assumed.
All scholars were expected to do research, teaching, and service (whether to the scholarly or wider
community). This meant that the scholar was highly
portable and self-sustaining. No matter what occurred
historically to universities as organizations (whether
plagues, fires, or barbarian invasions, etc.), the integration of this identity meant scholars could sustain
themselves as individuals and form new scholarly
communities as needed while being generally welcomed as a resource by a new community. A SL
framework that takes as its start individual livelihoods
naturally scales down to that of the traditional “lonely
scholar” seeking answers that satisfy his or her own
curiosity. This points to the need to reintegrate the
individual scholarly identity. The rebundling of the
scholarly identity necessitates the rejection of university contractual relationships that remunerate only
one element of the scholarly identity (whether it be
just research, teaching, or administrative service). In
the classroom, such rebundling would also view students as teachers and faculty as learners. Scholars
have also traditionally sustained their scholarly activities through shared assets, including their libraries
and learning spaces (such as laboratories). In response
to corporatization and commodification of the scholarly materials of universities, a sustainable scholarly
livelihood (SSL) would suggest scholars fully embracing open licensing of research and teaching materials
along with open patenting of university innovations
(or minimally sharing with scholars in universities that
are legally committed to employing all their resources
towards scholarly purposes). To further advance campus sharing, other elements of the sharing economy
need to be embraced for scholarly purposes. This
would include sharing of buildings, lands, tools, and
equipment for scholarly ends. For example, university
libraries would now need to expand to include campus
tool libraries.
To advance the “whole-institution approach” a university as a corporate body could view itself as its
own SL writ large, in the service of the many SSLs
that comprise it. This would demand a de-bifurcation
of the university. Non-academic university administrators and staff serving the academic community would
be contracted to share the SSL identity alongside traditional scholars. At the same time, political science
and administration departments could explore how the
bicameral university’s governance model (separating
academic functions from financial management) and
corporate divisions (between management and labor)
could be altered so that scholars themselves control
boards of governors and the allocation of material
resources of the university. In a university setting this
is enabled both by traditions of collegial governance
but also by faculty members themselves being, through
tenure, effectively treated as long-term (human) capital assets (and therefore investments) of the university.
Universities would then become effectively a kind of
“worker cooperative” (an observation made by Tirole
2017). The university viewed as its own SSL would
also seek to internalize its production and consumption
processes, where possible, to minimize risk. This could
entail creating its own learning spaces, buildings, and
equipment customized to its local ecosystems and
social and scholarly preferences. Such campus production and consumption would, by definition, contribute
to a circular economy enabling cradle-to-cradle (C2C)
production, something seen as central to achieving sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12; Paul
33