Resisting neoliberalism: The challenge of activist librarianship in the UK HE Context

Katherine Quinn – Sociology department, University of Warwick

MA Librarianship undertaken University of Sheffield, 2014Supervised by Dr Jo Bates

Resisting neoliberalism: The gist

1.Rationale and aim

2.Definitional work

3.Gramsci

4.Ethnography

5.Findings

Rationale and aim

• Aim: to assess the possibility of developing a radical democratic alternative to neoliberalism in LIS research and practice. Within this broad aim my objectives include:

1. to examine processes of neoliberalisation in HE and LIS2. to analyse methods of resistance through Radical Librarians

Collective3. to examine the possibilities for developing radical democratic LIS

Resisting neoliberalism: Definitional workNeoliberalism:

- Big ‘N’ Neoliberalism (Hayek, von Mises etc), ‘processes of neoliberalisation’ (Peck, 2013), and/or neoliberal subjectivities (Gill, 2010)?- Wendy Brown (2015) “governing rationality” - Human capital, competition, markets

Analysis: Antonio Gramsci – 1891-1937• To illuminate instances, disruptions,

nuances of neoliberalism and its contestations within my empirical fieldwork

• Hegemony, politics, ‘Common Sense’, praxis, organic intellectuals

Sebastian Barlyi, Flickr CC 2.0

Methodology• Ethnography, reflexive, poststructural feminist• Experiences as MA student, participant in Radical Librarians Collective• Observation of RLC gathering, London, 2014• Interviews with:- Library managers – (current or former)- LIS academics- Library workers/researchers who identify as ‘radical’/critical• Thematic analysis with Gramscian framework

1) Do we need activist librarianship? Critique of the Academic LIS in UK HE

- Competition, ‘the business analogy’ (Collini, 2012)

- Neoliberal common sense ‘words make worlds’

- Spaces for solidarity, existence of counter-hegemonic – CritLis, academic/public

Part 2: Radical Librarian Collective: Alternative practices of library work

- ‘The root’ of RLC-The gathering: prefigurative action/Praxis-Practices of radical library work

• Library workers groups as ‘CPD’• ‘guerrilla collection development’• Every-day interactions• Info on software, privacy etc• Meeting as local and national group

Part 3. The future development of activist Librarianship• Agonism, critical self-reflection• Challenge of organisation, facilitation, and horozontilism in practice

(see Freeman, 1971)• Learning from others – building connections with other groups,

getting training, enhancing network.• Outward facing work• Update since 2014

Conclusions…•Need for ‘activist librarianship’ but also uncovering

and extending of pre-existing solidarities•Networks like RLC can extend this•Counter-hegemonic claims and action need to be self

critical and open

Thanks! Questions?

@katherinebquinn k.quinn.1@warwick.ac.uk

Concise(ish) bibliography• Brown (2015). Undoing the demos: Neoliberal’s stealth revolution.

Cambridge MA: MIT Press• Collini, S (2012). What are Universities for? London: Penguin Books• Freeman, Jo. (1972). “The tyranny of structurelessness”. The Second

Wave (2). retrieved from:http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm 01/04/2014• Gill, R. (2010). Breaking the silence: the hidden injuries of the

neoliberal university. In R. Gill & R. Ryan-Flood (Eds.), Secrecy and silence in the research process: feminist reflections (pp. 228–244). London: Routledge.• Peck, J (2013). Constructions of neoliberal reason. Oxford: OUP

Cont.• Forgacs, D. (Ed.). (2000). The Antonio Gramsci Reader. Selected writings 1916-1935. New York: New York

University Press.• Freeman, Jo. (1972). “The tyranny of structurelessness”. The Second Wave (2). retrieved

from:http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm 01/04/2014• Gill, R. (2010). Breaking the silence: the hidden injuries of the neoliberal university. In R. Gill & R. Ryan-Flood

(Eds.), Secrecy and silence in the research process: feminist reflections (pp. 228–244). London: Routledge.• Hall, S. (2011). The Neo-Liberal Revolution. Cultural Studies, 25(6), 705–728.

doi:10.1080/09502386.2011.619886• Honig, B & Pearce, N. (2013) The optimistic agonist: An interview with Bonnie Honig. Open Democracy.

Retrieved from: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/nick-pearce-bonnie-honig/optimistic-agonistinterview-with-bonnie-honig

• Johnson, I. M. (2011). Bibliometrics and the brain dead. Information Development, 27(2), 92–93. doi:10.1177/0266666911404012

• Massey, D. (2013). Vocabularies of the economy. Soundings, 54(54), 9–22. doi:10.3898/136266213807299023

• Morrone, M (ed). (2014) Informed Agitation: Library and Instruction Skills in Social Justice Movements and beyond. Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press