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Care in times of the pandemic: Rethinking meanings of work in the university

In this paper, we challenge the meanings of work that marginalize academic activities associated with care and contribute to inequitable gender divisions of academic labor. We argue that the pandemic crisis and the revision of the meaning of “essential work” that accompanied it has served as a catal...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Altan‐Olcay, Özlem, Bergeron, Suzanne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9348070/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35942417
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12871
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author Altan‐Olcay, Özlem
Bergeron, Suzanne
author_facet Altan‐Olcay, Özlem
Bergeron, Suzanne
author_sort Altan‐Olcay, Özlem
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description In this paper, we challenge the meanings of work that marginalize academic activities associated with care and contribute to inequitable gender divisions of academic labor. We argue that the pandemic crisis and the revision of the meaning of “essential work” that accompanied it has served as a catalyst for such concerns to get a hearing. But while there has been significant attention paid to domestic care demands and their impact on academic labor, there is less focus on the caretaking work we do in the university even though the gender unequal distribution of teaching, mentoring and service work has also intensified in the pandemic. We argue that this is in part due to the institutional discourses and practices that continue to devalue many components of everyday academic labor. In order to challenge these limits, we extend ideas from Feminist political economy (FPE) to university settings in order to reframe academic labor and revalue care as an essential part of it. We offer two suggestions, connected to FPE methodologies, for gathering and reconceptualizing data on academic work to push the project forward. We conclude with the argument that this project of revaluing caring labor is essential for achieving goals of equity, faculty well‐being, and the sustainability of universities.
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spelling pubmed-93480702022-08-04 Care in times of the pandemic: Rethinking meanings of work in the university Altan‐Olcay, Özlem Bergeron, Suzanne Gend Work Organ ORIGINAL ARTICLE In this paper, we challenge the meanings of work that marginalize academic activities associated with care and contribute to inequitable gender divisions of academic labor. We argue that the pandemic crisis and the revision of the meaning of “essential work” that accompanied it has served as a catalyst for such concerns to get a hearing. But while there has been significant attention paid to domestic care demands and their impact on academic labor, there is less focus on the caretaking work we do in the university even though the gender unequal distribution of teaching, mentoring and service work has also intensified in the pandemic. We argue that this is in part due to the institutional discourses and practices that continue to devalue many components of everyday academic labor. In order to challenge these limits, we extend ideas from Feminist political economy (FPE) to university settings in order to reframe academic labor and revalue care as an essential part of it. We offer two suggestions, connected to FPE methodologies, for gathering and reconceptualizing data on academic work to push the project forward. We conclude with the argument that this project of revaluing caring labor is essential for achieving goals of equity, faculty well‐being, and the sustainability of universities. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-05-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9348070/ /pubmed/35942417 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12871 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Gender, Work & Organization published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
spellingShingle ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Altan‐Olcay, Özlem
Bergeron, Suzanne
Care in times of the pandemic: Rethinking meanings of work in the university
title Care in times of the pandemic: Rethinking meanings of work in the university
title_full Care in times of the pandemic: Rethinking meanings of work in the university
title_fullStr Care in times of the pandemic: Rethinking meanings of work in the university
title_full_unstemmed Care in times of the pandemic: Rethinking meanings of work in the university
title_short Care in times of the pandemic: Rethinking meanings of work in the university
title_sort care in times of the pandemic: rethinking meanings of work in the university
topic ORIGINAL ARTICLE
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9348070/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35942417
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12871
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