For many non-Western scientists, working at European universities is not what they expected it to be. It is accompanied by endlessly long and bureaucratic visa applications for travelers from the global south. Within their book, titled “Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity and Resilience in Europe”, Dr. Olga Burlyuk (UvA), Dr. Ladan Rahbari (UvA), and Dr. Alexander Strelkov (EUR) draw attention to non-Western academics. In their opinion, despite the debate on diversity and inclusiveness at European universities, there is still insufficient room for this group.
Background
Through a joint initiative between the LDE Centre Governance of Migration and Diversity and the newly erected Policy, Politics, and Society team (from the Department of Public Administration, Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences), we welcome Dr. Olga Burlyuk (UvA), Dr. Ladan Rahbari (UvA), and Dr. Alexander Strelkov (EUR) to discuss their new book, which consists of 22 narratives by scientists from the Global South.
Within the book, the authors use precarity to analyse the state of affairs in the academy, from hiring practices to ‘culturally’ accepted division of labour, systematic forms of discrimination, racialisation, and gendered hierarchies, etc. Building on precarity as a critical concept for challenging social exclusion or forming political collectives, the authors move away from conventional academic styles, instead adopting autobiography and autoethnography as methods of intersectional scholarly analysis. This approach creatively challenges the divisions between the system and the individual, the mind and the soul, the objective and the subjective, as well as science, theory, and art.
During the book talk, the authors will be able to talk about their initial motivations for starting the book, touch upon the different chapters and narratives, and the session will conclude with a Q&A.
Who can come?
This book talk will be of particular interest not only to scholars and students within the field of migration studies and public administration but also to scholars and students from various disciplines with an interest in public institutions and institutional change in view of societal transformations due to globalization, international mobility and the diversification of staff. The session can also be relevant for university managers, diversity officers, key decision-makers, and other parties involved in contemporary academia.
Keen to attend?