Beyond silence and conformity: a reflection on academic activism as resistance to managerialism in the contemporary university

Activism within universities can take numerous forms including: undertaking research that involves or informs progressive social change; employing critical and transformative pedagogies; and challenging institutional arrangements within uni- versities that adversely affect staff (Flood, Martin, & Dreher, 2013). Resistance to such institutional arrangements is important because they represent ‘forces at work in the contemporary university which jeopardize the long-honoured aims [and purpose] of higher education’ (Berg & Seeber, 2016, p. ix). This chapter offers an auto-ethnographic account of my experiences of working as a critical social work educator and trade unionist in contemporary academia. In doing so, it provides insight into the increasingly neoliberalised higher education sector, its aggressive managerialism, the culture of conformity and silence, and the bullying this can engender..