‘Maybe one way forward’: Forging collective collegiality in the neoliberal academy

Abstract

Tension between individual and communal interests is endemic in neoliberal universities. As a group of 10 academics from a Business School in an Australian University, we employed the collective research method of memory-work to investigate how collegiality is experienced and learnt by academics. Although collegiality is employed to enable productivity and efficiency in the neoliberal university, our diverse yet intersecting experiences of collegiality diverged from this institutional construct. We shared and explored our memories of collegiality together during the COVID-19 pandemic and learnt how collegiality emerges through acts of care which produce feelings of support, visibility, and equality, thereby improving our wellbeing at work. We propose the concept of ‘collective collegiality’ as sitting alongside institutionalised notions of collegiality, representing a ‘counter space’ to performative notions of collegiality and enabling us to learn from each other how to navigate, survive, and even thrive, in the neoliberal academy. By enacting the lived experience of collective collegiality, we bring to light alternatives to neoliberal workplace ideals which may foster more organic, flexible workplaces and ways of working together.