• The Sussex campus ‘Forever Strike’: estrangement, resistance and utopian temporality

    Author(s):
    Heather McKnight (see profile)
    Date:
    2019
    Group(s):
    Utopian Studies
    Subject(s):
    Education, Higher, Labor, Protest literature, Rhetoric, Student movements, Utopias
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    heterotopia, Higher education, Labour, Rhetorics of political protest, Student activism, Utopian literature
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/ptp9-5d40
    Abstract:
    The 2018 strike undertaken by academics working in the UK was the largest called in University and College Union history, lasting for fourteen days over 4 weeks, with 88% of members voting for strike action across 64 universities.[1] This article explores how the campus at the University of Sussex during the time of this strike became a strange, conflicted and transformative space; both a heterotopia and a site for a critical utopian process, where norms can be bent and broken, where people can function outside of the normal rules and disciplinary technologies of contemporary academia.[2] The picket lines were supplemented by strike supporting events, teach-ins, teach-outs, occupations, marches, workshops and socials; linking it with debates on the public university, decolonizing the curriculum. The strike action reached beyond the pensions debate and demonstrated radical utopian potential. [1] “UCU Announces 14 Strike Dates at 61 Universities in Pensions Row.” [2] Foucault, “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias, ‘Des Espace Autres.’” 2
    Metadata:
    Published as:
    Journal article    
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    4 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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