A Look at The University as a Socio-Academic Device in times of Precariousness: Emergent Subjectivities of Students and Faculty

Abstract

The academic programs are contextualized in the university as a socio-academic device. This makes necessary to apprehend their organizational and social context. Traditionally, the university, has been approached from frames of analysis and methods stemming from business contexts and mostly within a reductionist view that limits the scope of analysis. Most of these approaches highlight the management-structural dimension of the university, overlooking the significance of what happens to its social actors in times of precariousness. Through this essay we aim to: (1) Present some approaches that portray the university as a complex social device with inherent contradictions; (2) Problematize the 'social assignment‘ of the university in the context of economic/labor precariousness; and (3) Examine the implications of economic-labor precariousness for the emerging subjectivities of students and professors.