Abstract
This study examines from an emic perspective how fixed-term academics in the UK experience academic freedom in light of their working conditions. While traditional accounts portray academic freedom as a heroic right, an obligation serving the common good, this research draws on Deleuze’s concepts of the virtual and the actual to explore how academic freedom is experienced in the mundane and local. Based on interviews and participant-produced drawings with 21 fixed-term academics in the UK, the findings reveal participants’ virtual ideals of academic freedom tied to notions of decent work alongside actual trajectories marked by precarious work. Considering the actual and virtual together, the study conceptualises academic freedom as emerging between these two halves, in a continual flux of potential and lived reality. This novel conceptualisation of academic freedom encompassing both virtual and actual elements enables us to move beyond grand narratives and instead foreground the often-overlooked contextualised experience of individual academics. The proposed virtual/actual approach to freedom offers a conceptual map to trace the multiple, evolving trajectories that academic freedom can take, suggesting that rather than a pure and unique ideal, there are many forms of academic freedom unfolding and emerging simultaneously across contexts.
Keywords
Introduction
“For me academic freedom is very much related to the notion of doing critical research, having that freedom to implement your own ideas, within the framework of a given subject, and having that freedom to question things . . . But not just the freedom to study what I want to study but also having the actual support from the institution to follow that line of thinking.” (P6, fixed-term academic) “Academic freedom meant being able to research what I wanted, what I felt was important to research. I suppose academic freedom to me would [also] cover being able to get a full-time role in a region that didn’t require an entire upheaval of my life.” (P17, fixed-term academic)
Traditionally defined as “a right to free inquiry within the academic institution, but also an obligation to preserving the institution as a site where freedom of inquiry can and does take place, free of intervention, and censorship” (Butler, 2017: 857), academic freedom often refers to the capacity to research and teach without fear of punishment and retaliation for upsetting political, social, or religious orthodoxies (Berdahl, 1990). As such, academic freedom is understood as a kind of right, obligation, guarantee, or protection (Butler, 2017; Karran, 2009), a foundational value for higher education (HE) (Altbach, 2001). Debates around academic freedom often highlight societal, political, and economic tensions, threats and pressures (cf. Berggren and Bjørnskov, 2022; Butler, 2017; Finkin and Post, 2009; Shore and Taitz, 2012; Smith et al., 2011). These debates situate academic freedom as a “universal ideal” (Karran, 2009), for the pursuit of the common good (Finkin and Post, 2009), human well-being (Leiter, 2018), societal progress (Audretsch et al., 2024), and the reduction of inequality (Posso and Zhang, 2023).
However, the above debates perpetuate grand and heroic narratives that can obscure academics’ mundane experiences and expectations, as the ability to enjoy academic freedom is “contingent on local norms and social practices” (Gottfredson, 2010: 272). Therefore, scholars have paid closer attention to the individual level, focussing on academic freedom as “being able to decide on what one should teach and research” (Aberbach and Christensen, 2018: 491), linking it to professional autonomy (Beaud, 2020; Sridhar, 2025). From this perspective, the meaning of academic freedom may vary depending on academic roles, career stage, and associated expectations (Aberbach and Christensen, 2018). These alternative approaches call for a nuanced view of academic freedom that is not necessarily universal and heroic but rather “[o]ne that will account for the complex dynamics in which different groups attempt to inscribe their meaning into the concept” (Szadkowski and Krzeski, 2022: 549). As such, in this study we adopt an emic approach, seeking to understand academic freedom from the perspective of academics themselves and their subjective experiences of work (Azungah, 2018; Tatli and Özbilgin, 2012), as illustrated by the quotations we chose as the epigraph.
Motivated by our own experiences, struggles and aspirations while on fixed-term contracts, we wanted to give voice to the third of academics employed on a fixed-term basis in the UK (HESA, 2024; UCU, 2021), a significant part of the academic workforce, yet one we often hear little about while they silently sustain the running of neo-liberal universities, where “many of them have little experience of academic freedom [and] no experience of job security” (Nelson, 2015: 17). As Nelson (2010) argues, the overreliance on fixed-term contracts breaks the link between academic freedom and job security, inviting us to rethink how academics who do not have a basic sense of security can actually defend a right they barely have. Therefore, this research poses the following question: How do fixed-term academics experience academic freedom in light of their working conditions?
To answer this, we adopted the Deleuzean lens of the virtual/actual (Deleuze, 1994). The virtual and the actual explain the non-empirical (virtual) and empirical (actual) dimensions of a given object, situation or entity (Peters, 2020). The virtual/actual lens allowed us to explore how ideal images of academic freedom actualised in the lives of our participants and how both dimensions coexist in a circuit (Deleuze and Parnet, 2007). Based on semi-structured interviews and participant-produced drawings with 21 fixed-term academics in UK universities, our findings illustrate participants’ virtual, ideal view of academic freedom as being related to decent working conditions and the autonomy to choose (decide what to research or teach), organise (manage when to do your job) and be flexible in their work (decide how to do your job). The actualisation trajectories of academic freedom for our participants, however, were characterised by precarity, through experiences of captivity (feeling locked and chained to things), submission (feeling dominated by people), and burden (feeling the weight of excessive workload). By taking the virtual and the actual together, we argue that academic freedom unfolds in the midst of these two odd halves (Deleuze, 1994) and the tensions emerging from it.
Our study offers three key contributions. First, we contribute to the de-universalisation and de-heroisation of academic freedom, offering a more nuanced, mundane, and local conceptualisation. By exploring virtual and actual elements, we suggest that academic freedom for fixed-term academics is intimately linked to their expected and actual working conditions: it was about enjoying the basic security to do their job, security they often did not experience. Second, we argue more generally that academic freedom encompasses two sides, the virtual and the actual. These sides are in constant interaction, as a dynamic process where virtuals and actuals fold and unfold creating tension and movement. From this perspective, we argue that academic freedom is a never-settled middle, always becoming. In doing so, we develop a conceptualisation of freedom that brings to the surface the simultaneity of freedom and non-freedom. Third, we provide a theoretical map to trace those actual and virtual forces and the different trajectories that freedom takes. In this study, we suggest that there may be more than one pure or universal form of academic freedom. That is, we argue that there are multiple freedoms emerging and unfolding simultaneously along multiple career stages and contexts.
Our paper proceeds as follows: First, we present the literature on academic freedom, and decent/precarious work. Second, we introduce our Deleuzean framework by exploring the concepts of the virtual and the actual. Third, we describe the data collection and analysis methods. Fourth, we present the findings of this study. Finally, we conclude this article with the discussion and implications of this study for the understanding of academic freedom.
Literature review
Academic freedom as a heroic ideal
Academic freedom, which has long been considered a central tenet of universities (Altbach, 2001; Davies, 2015), can arguably be traced back to Socrates challenging orthodoxy and, more broadly, through historical events as tensions between accepted – often religious – wisdom and freedom of thought (Karran, 2009). During the 19th and early 20th centuries in particular, growing state interference in university teaching and research prompted concern (Stone, 2015). In response, the influence of Germany and the Humboldtian idea of the university pushed back, reasserting the idea that academics should be free to teach and to learn in pursuit of truth without external interference, an ideal that should remain central to how universities operate (Altbach, 2001). Academic freedom has thus been valued both for the pursuit of knowledge free from outside interference and the effects of dogma, but also as the most efficient way to organise said pursuit of knowledge (Polanyi, 1947). By the 20th century, the understanding of academic freedom had grown from merely the right to question orthodoxy, to being able to “choose one’s own problem for investigation, to conduct research free from any outside control, and to teach one’s subject in the light of one’s own opinions” (Polanyi, 1947: 583).
Beyond academia, academic freedom has been argued to be a necessity for a functioning democratic society. For Bergan (2002: p. 49), “a democratic society is hardly conceivable without institutional autonomy and academic freedom” and they are therefore “fundamental to the overall concerns of the Council of Europe: democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.” As Berggren and Bjørnskov (2022) argue, academic freedom is often entangled in political, legal, and religious institutional struggles that impact how academics can pursue their work. The contribution that universities make to the maintenance of democracy and the pursuit of the common good has long been a key reason put forward by scholars for defending academic freedom (Andreescu, 2009). Academic freedom is also a catalyst for human development (Pandey et al., 2025), the advancement of society (Audretsch et al., 2024) and improving policy indicators, governance, and equality (Posso and Zhang, 2023). From this perspective, academic freedom can be seen as a “quasi-universal” and rather heroic concept linked to the common good (Finkin and Post, 2009; Rhodes and Pullen, 2023; Szadkowski and Krzeski, 2022). This universal ideal assumes that “we are all engaged in upholding the same cause; that this cause tends in the same direction; that it has the same purposes, draws on the same sources of authority and applies to the same individuals and constituencies” (Neave, 2002: 332). Thus, academic freedom is often described as a concept ingrained in grand narratives that underpin the societal functions and responsibilities of universities and its academics. An ideal that is needed to protect the diversity of perspectives, acceptance of complexity and divergent views that together allow universities to preserve open inquiry and freedom of thought (Rochford, 2003; Zimmer, 2015).
While academic freedom is closely connected to universities and wider societal institutions, it is important to recognise that the rights being protected are those of the academics who work at the university. Academic freedom may be supposed to protect universities from outside influence, yet it has also been expected to protect academics from the universities themselves (Dworkin, 1996; Parker, 2014). The Humboldtian university specifically aims to protect the principle of Lehrfreiheit, the freedom of academics to examine evidence and to disseminate their findings as they saw fit (Hofstadter and Metzger, 1955).
Considering that much of an academic’s work consists of their thought and speech, academic freedom is pivotal at the individual level. However, few, if any, contemporary universities allow academics complete freedom, with research generally expected to fall within specific disciplinary boundaries and teaching expected to adhere to programme syllabi in order, paradoxically, to preserve and reproduce the university as a site where freedom can exist (Butler, 2017). Furthermore, one should not forget that governments, political institutions, and universities cannot always guarantee freedom (Audretsch et al., 2024) and can limit individual academics’ “right” to exercise it, especially those located in marginalised groups or whose political views diverge from those of the powerful (Gulland, 2023; Hartz, 2024; Rahbari and Burlyuk, 2023). As Kabasakal Badamchi (2022: p. 619) argues, “because there is no guarantee that institutions always favour freedom . . . academic freedom as intellectual and professional autonomy should be prior, if not the only, conception of academic freedom.”
Academic freedom and the precarisation of academia in the UK
While the UK traditionally supports academic freedom, Karran (2007) shows this support lacks strong legal protections. The 1988 Education Reform Act, despite offering some protection, also removed academic tenure to provide education “efficiently and economically,” without considering its impact on academic freedom (Davies, 2015: 989). Subsequent research confirms minimal change in the UK’s HE landscape, leaving academics reliant on universities’ policies for protection (Karran et al., 2017; Karran and Mallinson, 2017).
The Academic Freedom Index (AFI) indicates a decline in the UK’s position since 2014, now ranking above only Greece and the USA in Western Europe and North America (Academic Freedom Index, 2025; Spannagel and Kinzelbach, 2023). The AFI does not consider internal mechanisms like research targets as constraints, arguably conflating institutional autonomy with academic freedom (Lynch and Ivancheva, 2016). This is significant because UK academics rely on employers for protection due to weak legislative safeguards and a lack of required academic involvement in governance (Karran and Mallinson, 2017). This reliance has not inspired confidence, with a majority of UK academics feeling that their freedom was under threat and being also unaware of their institutions’ protective measures (see Prelec et al., 2022).
The marketisation of UK universities, driven by performance metrics, competition for funding, and managerialism, has reshaped academic work, emphasising efficiency, outputs, and institutional priorities over intellectual autonomy (Butler and Spoelstra, 2012; Parker, 2021; Willmott, 2011). Thus, relying on individual universities to protect academic freedom is risky (Rhodes, 2017). Measurement tools, like the Research Excellence Framework (REF), promote competition to publish in journals ranked by the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS), emphasising publication venue over scholarly content (Rhodes, 2017; Rowlinson et al., 2011). Such pressures compel academics to publish in specific journals – a growing challenge as targets intensify (Willmott, 2011) – and are used to justify organisational changes, redundancies, and managerial diktat (McCann et al., 2020). Proposed changes to the REF may further damage the job prospects of early-career and fixed-term academics (Piotrowski, 2025). Removing the portability of published works risks leaving academics unable to leverage their past work to find new positions as the works would normally remain with the institution they were published at (Grove, 2025); while removing limits on the number of publications that can be submitted per author “risks concentrating research in the hands of a small number of ‘star performers’” (Morris and Bombi, 2023). Government-created measurement regimes like the REF influence research types, echoing state interference, and adversely affect academic staff’s work quality and security (Butler and Spoelstra, 2012; Clarke et al., 2012; Jones et al., 2020; Loveday, 2018; Rhodes and Pullen, 2023).
The neoliberal transformation of HE elevated the currency of flexibility, efficiency, and market-driven imperatives. The undermining of stable career trajectories created an “academic precariat” (Standing, 2011; Vatansever, 2023) trapped in fixed-term, part-time, and 0-hour contracts. Moreover, institutional pressures often lead fixed-term academics to prioritise immediately rewarded activities at the expense of long-term career development through research and publication (Bozzon et al., 2017; Jones et al., 2012). The lack of job security leaves academics in a continuous state of professional limbo, unable to plan for the future or invest in their careers (Bone, 2019; Hughes, 2021). With their jobs permanently at risk, fixed-term academics are “vulnerable to top-down mandated redefinitions of faculty responsibilities” (Nelson, 2015: 18).
Decent work and precarious work
While academic freedom has traditionally been framed in heroic terms – promoting democratic development, innovation, and societal progress – this may ignore other, more mundane conditions that allow freedom to emerge and unfold in the first place. The quotes in the epigraph suggest a potentially overlooked dimension, pointing to elements such as psychologically safe working environments (“having the actual support from the institution”), employment opportunities, work stability and security, and the ability to combine professional and personal life (“get a full-time role in a region that didn’t require an entire upheaval of my life”). Rather than endorsing grand understandings of academic freedom, fixed-term academics seem to approach it from a perspective rooted in the more ordinary, yet primary and foundational conditions of their work and employment. In this way, the concept of academic freedom is inextricably linked to the broader concept of decent work.
Originally developed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the concept of decent work sets out four primary goals: the promotion of rights at work, employment, social protection, and social dialogue (ILO, 1999). Initially, the concept focussed on the economic and legal dimensions of work and employment. However, critiques from various disciplines quickly emerged, highlighting the multidimensional nature of decent work (Burchell et al., 2014; Deranty and MacMillan, 2012; Standing, 2008). Organisational psychologists in particular emphasise the need to consider both macro-structural factors and micro-psychological experiences of work, advocating for meaningful and dignified forms of work (Blustein et al., 2023a; Duffy et al., 2016; Pereira et al., 2019). In doing so, they are able to show the potential inconsistency between workplaces legally providing decent work (e.g. complying with policies and regulations) but workers not perceiving them as such (Blustein et al., 2020). In other words, they reveal the tensions when objective conditions of work do not align with subjective experiences.
This is particularly evident in relation to precarious work (Blustein et al., 2016). Precarious work is characterised by insecure, uncertain, and unstable jobs, typically involving low wages and limited benefits, and often associated with little protections and rights (Kalleberg, 2018). Precarious forms of work are often enabled and sustained by legal, political, and institutional arrangements (Blackham, 2020; Seikkula, 2024). As such, they are legal, contractually aligning with health and safety regulations, working time legislations, as well as workers’ rights to compensation, representation, protection, and benefits. However, the subjective experiences of workers in these roles are often far from decent. Scholars have highlighted the emotional and social toll of precarity on individuals (Blustein et al., 2022, 2023a), describing how it produces feelings of frozenness and fatigue (Han, 2018; Ronde, 2024). Others have conceptualised precarisation as a process, emphasising the “subjective feeling of precarity” (Alberti et al., 2018: 449) and framing precarity as lived experiences (Formby et al., 2024). These issues are particularly true for marginalised populations (Blustein et al., 2023a; Formby et al., 2024; Ivancheva et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2021). Ultimately, decent work and precarious work are not separate dimensions, rather, they “reflect opposite points along a continuum of work conditions” (Blustein et al., 2023b: 427).
Academia is rife with precarious working conditions. The McDonaldization (Hayes, 2021) of HE has created an academic “precariat” (Millar, 2017; Standing, 2011; Vatansever, 2023) pushed by universities that increasingly rely on the casualisation of academics, through the prevalence of fixed-term and 0-hour contracts. Employed on an ad-hoc basis for specific tasks or projects, these workers are typically excluded from long-term security and benefits, and face the pressures of temporary employment (Campbell and Price, 2016; Koumenta and Williams, 2019). This “retrenchment of securities,” as Jørgensen (2016) argues, highlights a process of precarisation that pushes academics to undertake short-term jobs characterised by a lack of stability, protective regulation, trade union representation, and bargaining power. In the UK, academics on fixed-term contracts represent about 30% of all academic staff (HESA, 2024; UCU, 2021), demonstrating the wide-spread use of this type of insecure and unstable contracts across the sector.
In this “academic system, which prioritises economic efficiency over academic freedom and well-being” (Ekstasis et al., 2024), the experience of fixed-term academics, particularly ECRs, has been characterised by “unpaid overwork, self-exploitation, exclusion from social benefits, lack of infrastructural and institutional support, exclusion from institutional decision-making mechanisms, and in many cases vulnerability to workplace misconduct” (Vatansever and Kölemen, 2022: 6). These non-decent working conditions are not limited to ECRs on fixed-term contracts, with established academics also facing some of these issues (e.g. Gill, 2010; Hartz, 2024; Korica, 2022). It is however the combination with precarity that makes it particularly challenging for fixed-term academics, as their experience is often associated with exploitation, marginalisation, neglect, and identity struggles (Bristow et al., 2019; Mason and Megoran, 2021; Tekeste et al., 2025). While some scholars have demonstrated that ECRs and fixed-term academics are not necessarily passive victims of predatory neoliberal universities (e.g. Bristow et al., 2017; Vatansever, 2023), the experience of academics on fixed-term contracts remains too often that of little agency, vulnerability, bullying, and dehumanisation (Cooper and Majumdar, 2024; Mason and Megoran, 2021; Ratle et al., 2020; Zawadzki and Jensen, 2020).
Recognising that precarity undermines access to decent work (Blustein et al., 2020), we suggest that decent work is not merely a background condition for academic labour but is a central tenet for the realisation of academic freedom itself. Rather than treating academic freedom as an abstract right, institutionally protected independently of the labour conditions under which academics work, we must acknowledge that precarious employment associated with non-decent working conditions restricts not only material security but also intellectual agency (Mason and Megoran, 2021; Stoica et al., 2019; Vatansever and Kölemen, 2022). Understanding this relationship invites us to rethink academic freedom not just as a heroic pursuit, but as a practice deeply embedded in and contingent upon the material and subjective conditions of work. Torn between objective rights to pursue independent research and the subjective experience of unsecure working conditions, fixed-term academics face multiple contradictions. To explore these tensions, we draw on Deleuze’s actual/virtual couplet.
The virtual and the actual
There are growing calls to realise the potential of Deleuzean philosophy in organisation studies (Pick, 2017; Styhre, 2002). In this article, we aim to mobilise the virtual and the actual to develop our analytical sensitivity. Deleuze’s (1994) virtual/actual couplet cuts across several of his writings (cf. Deleuze, 1991, 1994; Deleuze and Guattari, 1994; Deleuze and Parnet, 2007).The term virtual is traditionally used to signify the “absence of existence,” as something opposed to the real, without tangible presence or material embodiment (Lévy, 1998: 23). The actual, on the other hand, is “that which appears to us in spatio-temporal reality” (Clisby, 2015: 128). However, for Deleuze, “it is the virtual field that serves as the genetic or productive condition of real experience” (Smith, 2009: 34), that is, the virtual “explains the development of the actual object” (Clisby, 2015: 128). Thus, Deleuze defines the virtual as something “opposed not to the real but to the actual . . . the virtual must be defined as strictly a part of the real object” (Deleuze, 1994: 208–209). Whereas the actual has concrete existence the virtual does not, it is ephemeral (Deleuze and Parnet, 2007); and yet, it is not less real for that fact, for the virtual “possesses full objective reality” (Deleuze, 1994: 211) that manifests as dynamic agency (Roffe, 2012) or movement (Deleuze, 1991). In doing so, the virtual/actual couplet “cohere in a relationship of mutual influence over the production of reality” (Clisby, 2015: 128).
Deleuze (1994: p. 210) argues that every object, situation, or entity is composed of two “unequal odd halves,” a virtual half and its actual half. The virtual and the actual halves cannot separate, they coexist in a perpetual oscillation or exchange in which they “enter into a tight circuit which we are continuously retracing from one to the other” (Deleuze and Parnet, 2007: 150). The virtual tends towards a process of actualisation. For example, Lévy (1998) employs the metaphor of the seed and the tree to illustrate this process: “The tree is virtually present in the seed” (Lévy, 1998: 23). Thus, the seed has the potential to become a tree where the virtual actualises “according to divergent lines; but these lines do not form a whole in their own account, and do not resemble what they actualise” (Deleuze, 1991: 105). As Lévy (1998: p. 24) further illustrates, This does not signify that the seed knows exactly what the shape of the tree will be, which will one day burst into bloom and spread its leaves above it. Based on its internal limitations, the seed will have to invent the tree, coproduce it together with the circumstances it encounters.
The virtual can actualise in multiple directions designating a range of differential trajectories. Hence, the process of actualisation does not necessarily proceed by resemblance of the virtuality that it embodies (Hammer, 2007). As such, “the virtual is the mode of reality implicated in the emergence of new potential” (Massumi, 2021: 134). However, besides the movement from the virtual to the actual, we must also consider and recognise the movement from the actual to the virtual (Linstead and Thanem, 2007). That is, the virtual is not contained in any actual forms, rather, it moves and runs between them (Massumi, 2021). As such, the virtual/actual couplet work as a circuit: “From virtuals we descend to actual states of affairs, and from states of affairs we ascend to virtuals, without being able to isolate one from the other” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1994: 160). These two modes of being conceptualise an ontology of becoming (Nellhaus, 2025).
The virtual/actual couplet has interesting implications to develop our theorisation of academic freedom. Conceptualising freedom as an object with two-halves, we can trace the virtual elements of freedom and its manifold and perhaps dissonant actualisation trajectories. As Deleuze (1994: p. 209) illustrates, “[e]very object is double without it being the case that the two-halves resemble one another.” The actual/virtual couplet inspires us to explore the concrete and more abstract aspects that make “freedom” and the differential trajectories that this freedom can take in our participants’ experiences.
Methodology
In this study, we follow a metaphysics of becoming. This ontology questions static and monolithic representations of reality, privileging “becoming” over “being.” As Li (2016: p. 50) argues, whilst being “refers to a fixed, certain, and complete status,” becoming “refers to an interdependent and interactive process with other entities before and after any entity acquires its status or form.” Ontologically, a focus on becoming allows us to understand academic freedom not as a “self-contained” subject, but as flux and transformation (Nayak and Chia, 2011). We locate this flux in the movements between virtual and actual elements (Deleuze, 1994).
An ontology of becoming leads us to understand academic freedom as “unfolding processes involving actors making choices interactively, in inescapable local conditions, by drawing on broader rules and resources” (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002: 577). In this way, academic freedom becomes a “momentary apprehension of an ongoing process . . . that never results in an actual entity” (Clegg et al., 2005: 158). Becoming tears apart any sense of a stable and fixed identity where academic freedom unfolds in a “zone of ambivalence” (Clegg et al., 2005). As Deleuze and Guattari (1987: p. 293) suggest, “a line of becoming has neither beginning nor end, departure nor arrival, origin nor destination . . . A becoming is always in the middle.” Thus, a metaphysics of becoming enables us to reject a reification of academic freedom, embracing instead its evolving and unsettled nature.
This ontology breaks down “pre-established distinctions and dualisms inherent to the mainstream literature” (Cloutier and Langley, 2020: 14) such as those between freedom and non-freedom, emancipation and oppression. By adopting this perspective, we were able to identify in our participants’ data, the “interpenetration of phenomena that are very often taken to be separate and distinct” (Cloutier and Langley, 2020: 14).
Recruitment of participants
Our study involved analysis of data produced by small, purposive, and homogeneous samples of participants (Patton, 2002). Subjects were recruited based on three criteria: (1) they are currently working or have recently (within the last 5 years) worked in the Higher Education sector on fixed-term contracts, (2) work in the social sciences or humanities, and (3) are employed at UK-based universities. To recruit participants, we employed a “snowball tactic” (Parker et al., 2019). The study started with initial participants who met the inclusion criteria and were then asked to recommend further contacts. In total, 21 individuals (11 female; 10 male) agreed to participate in this study (see Table 1).
Participants.
FT: full-time contract; PT: part-time contract; R: research contract; T: teaching contract; R&T: research and teaching contract
Participant was on a permanent contract at the time of the interview and reflected on their past experiences.
Participant had left academia at the time of the interview and reflected on their past experiences.
Participant fixed-term roles included positions in teaching, research, or a combination of both. Teaching-focussed roles ranged from teaching assistant (usually involving seminar teaching and marking) to teaching associate or fellow positions (which could also include module leadership and supervision). Research-focussed positions included research assistants or associates (working on someone else’s research project, including grants led by principal investigators) as well as research fellows (who usually worked on their own research project more independently, e.g. after securing their own funding). Two participants were employed on a research and teaching basis, with their workload and responsibilities involving both elements. Whether teaching or research focussed, all participants had a definite end-date on their contracts (fixed-term going from 6 months to 3 years). Eight participants were working part-time (a few hours a week, usually up to 20–25 hours) while 13 were full-time (35–40 hours per week under UK standards).
Whilst some participants had strong publication records (including several published articles in highly ranked journals, as well as monographs) and/or had secured prestigious research funding bids, others were at earlier stages of their careers and developing their research pipeline. Some participants were on their first fixed-term contract while others were on their second, third, or even fourth. We purposefully chose not to single out individuals based on number of contracts or publications. This decision was made to limit participant identification, particularly as some expressed concerns about potential professional repercussions while taking part in this study. We also did not want to sustain reductive narratives equating academic “success” with publication output alone. Reasons for being on a fixed-term contract are multiple, multidimensional, and often structural, extending well beyond individual productivity (including career stage, life stage, institutional opportunities and support, job market, immigration and right to work status). To protect participants’ identities and their data, we use codes and general descriptors (Table 1).
Data collection and analysis
We conducted 21 digitally recorded, semi-structured interviews combined with participatory drawings (e.g. Schyns et al., 2013). Interviews lasted between 45 and 90 minutes and were conducted either face-to-face or online via Zoom. Recordings were transcribed verbatim, and drawings were digitised for analysis. The interviews were designed around three key areas of interest: academic freedom, lack of freedom, and resistance, drawing on participants’ accounts of their day-to-day work experience and aspirations (see Appendix 1 for an overview of the interview guide).
During the interviews we utilised participant-produced drawings to elicit further responses and facilitate the exploration of additional “layers of experience” (Bagnoli, 2009). The use of drawings offers “a different kind of glimpse into human sense-making that written or spoken texts do, because they can express that which is not easily put into words” (Weber and Mitchell, 1995: 34). During the interviews, participants hand-drew images to deepen the exploration of the research topic. The process involved: (1) posing a question requiring a drawing, for instance: Draw a picture representing how you experience (lack of) freedom in the context of your academic role; (2) providing around 15 minutes for drawing production; and (3) discussing the drawings with participants, who explained their meanings and metaphors. In total, we collected 40 drawings (two drawings per participant, except for two participants who produced only one drawing each), and the meanings and explanations associated with each one of these drawings.
Participants were informed before the interview about the production of drawings. During the interview, we explained to participants how we would proceed with the drawings. We emphasised that they would not be assessed based on their artistic skills and that the use of simple pictograms and stick people would suffice. Some participants showed some concerns and hesitation regarding their drawing skills whilst other showed excitement. Despite some initial concerns for some, all participants were able to produce meaningful drawing insights.
As participants began their drawings, the interviewer would leave the participant alone, either leaving the interview room, leaving the drawing table sitting at another desk or by a window, or disconnecting the camera for 10–15 minutes for online interviews. Our objective was to avoid participants feeling observed or judged during the drawing production. Whilst participants developed their drawings, they would use pens, pencils, or crayons, and a piece of paper, often remaining silent and focussed on their drawings.
The drawings produced rich and insightful data that we would not have collected through traditional or non-visual means (Weber and Mitchell, 1995). Drawings allowed the metaphorical exploration of the research topic. As Biscaro et al. (2025: p. 746) argue, metaphors are not just “innocent linguistic embellishment,” they shape and emphasise the underlying assumptions and characteristics of the research subject. In doing so, the drawings and their metaphorical meanings revealed participants’ experiential basis with freedom/non-freedom in the context of their academic work. The drawings served as a catalyst to explore the interview questions in more depth and prompt new discussion. As participants described their drawings, the interviewers would ask for more details and insights regarding specific elements, items, or metaphors included in their drawings.
The analysis consisted of a series of iterative cycles. We followed a thematic and abductive approach. Abductive reasoning is a “double story: one part empirical observations of a social world, the other part a set of theoretical propositions” (Tavory and Timmermans, 2014: 2). Abduction involves a conversation between theory and data. Thus, we mobilised Deleuzean concepts surrounding the virtual and the actual, employing theoretical concepts as “heuristic devices” (Coffey and Paul, 1996) - as sources of inspiration to enrich our understanding and analytical interpretations, developing codes emerging from theory and raw data. In doing so, we followed Gioia’s et al. (2013) approach to data analysis. In the first cycle of analysis, we engaged in a systematic development of phenomenological first-order concepts emerging from our first transcript to identify connections between these concepts and establish “superordinate themes for the case” (Smith and Osborn, 2004: 234). To strengthen the rigour and credibility of our analytical process, initial coding was carried out by the four researchers “to expand, correct or check the subjective views of interpreters” (Flick, 2004: 179). In this stage, multiple readings of the transcripts and the drawings were needed, and we created memos with interpretive reflections to refine our analysis. After the first case, we repeated the process with the following four transcripts. The first cycle yielded numerous first-order concepts that we compiled in a codebook.
In the second cycle, we continued the analysis process assigning an even set of interviews to each researcher who continued the coding process employing the codebook and creating new first-order concepts if the existing ones did not capture the essence of the participant’s experience. Then, in the third cycle, we began triangulating the first-order concepts, discussing the findings whilst cleaning and merging the codes. Once the first-order coding process was carried out, we began the second-order coding process looking for patterns, categories, and broader connections between our codes, developing a set of themes. Finally, the second-order themes were condensed in a general aggregate dimension (see Table 2). To present our data, we include a balanced presentation of findings including descriptions and interpretations of drawings, metaphors, and explanations given by participants.
Analytical concepts and themes.
A reflective note
Before presenting our findings, it is important to consider the researchers’ influence on participant recruitment, data collection, and analysis. All authors were early-career academics and employed on fixed-term contracts within UK universities at the time of data collection and writing. This shared experience with the study participants provided us with an “easier entrée, a head start in knowing about the topic and understanding nuanced reactions of participants” (Berger, 2015: 223). As our situation often mirrored that of participants, we were able to engage in a more open and authentic dialogue than might have occurred if more senior academics had collected the data. Nevertheless, to mitigate any “assumption of shared experiences” (Gawlewicz, 2016), we engaged in reflective work as a team throughout the data collection and analysis processes. During the interviews, participants were encouraged to elaborate and provide examples to avoid assumptions based on perceived similarities (Berger, 2015). Additionally, participant-produced drawings allowed us to move beyond assumptions of similarity by representing participants’ specific lived experiences, ensuring that the project remained centred around their voices and experiences, always mindful regarding issues of over-identification.
Findings
The virtuality of academic freedom
For our participants, academic freedom was often associated with an idealised vision in the context of their daily work activities encapsulating the potential for freedom of inquiry and decent working conditions surrounding their practice (research and/or teaching). In doing so, they represented freedom as open landscapes, colourful and sunny gardens, and blossoming flowers, often depicting a positive and idealised view. Freedom was mostly about having the autonomy to choose, organise, and have the flexibility to conduct academic duties. As P1 described (Image 1): “This is the freedom, and I think I drew this to represent the freedom just because I love to walk. And I love to be in nature. It’s like when you’re in nature, you know, you’re not in a car, you’re not constrained to anything, you’ve got these big open spaces, and you can walk where you like, so that’s how it feels” (P1)
Academic freedom as roaming in nature.
P1 used the metaphor of an open and natural space to describe her understanding of academic freedom as something related to research possibilities but also to how she organises her work as an autonomous academic. To her, academic freedom was about the capacity to choose the subjects of one’s research and teaching, and the capacity to make decisions.
“I think for me, it would be freedom to choose to make the decisions about my work. Obviously, I’m given a remit of work, but within that, to choose how I go about it, what I do, what I prioritise.” (P1)
As participants remarked, academic freedom was the very definition “of doing the job” (P16), something enacted at the micro and individual level, happening when setting topics for research and teaching, deciding what students will read, how they will be assessed, and so on. Academic freedom meant the capacity to organise your work without managerial influences or the constant constraints of university administrators and funding bodies “poking their nose” in (P16). This included conducting independent research and designing and delivering curricula based on one’s expertise.
“What I understand as academic freedom is related to the things that you want to teach or research about” (P4) “I understood academic freedom in that sense, so allowing the experts in the field to be experts in the field . . .You know, if the supposed expert in the field can’t plan the course, who’s qualified to?” (P16)
Academic freedom was about the flexibility to do your job according to one’s own judgement. From this perspective, it entailed various academic activities, such as “[focussing] on reading something that I would like to work on in the future” (P5) or “the flexibility in terms of how I do my job . . . it’s nice to have the time to do your research” (P4). Flexibility also extended beyond academic duties, such as shifting workspaces or adjusting your working hours.
“I have the chance to go in and out, work from home, come to the office” (P5) “Having the flexibility, I would say, I mean, the flexibility of work, like, I can allocate my own time on my own” (P10).
From the perspective of our participants, academic freedom was intimately related to their professional freedom, it was about having freedom of inquiry that could not be dissociated from the opportunity to have flexibility and autonomy in their work. However, as participants explored freedom, their drawings began to reveal a less colourful picture, depicting academic freedom as something that often remained in the virtual realm, un/actualised and locked away, due to the very nature of their working conditions (Image 2). As P17 explained: “In this room next to me, which I cannot enter, is a cupboard with more things that are locked away from me, which includes the job that I want to do full time, securing housing, money, and free time” (P17).
Academic freedom locked in the cupboard.
When taking the virtual idea of freedom together with its actualised forms and putting them into perspective, the contrast between the two conveyed the idea of freedom as a decaying process. The actualisation trajectories of freedom followed that of a blossoming flower to a wilting one (Image 3). As P13 described: “So, this is 2024, it’s wilting away. And then, this was 2019, when I started, this is blossoming, because I thought I had so much more hope for academia, and ideas, and it was much more idealistic. And I think it’s a good thing to be idealistic as an academic. But I don’t think the structure exists to support someone like me in academia. So, I think that’s me now [the wilted flower]” (P13).
Freedom as both blossomed and wilted.
Through the wilted flower metaphor, P13 expressed how her virtual, idealistic understanding of academic freedom faded away during its actualisation trajectory, when she had to face lack of support, lack of training, insufficient compensation, and overall non-decent working conditions. Notably, there was no notion of being completely free to “do anything I want in the world” (P19). Instead, academic freedom was understood within the boundaries of institutional rules and duties, with no expectation of experiencing a fully actualised form of freedom. However, as the next section shows, participants did not come even close to their idealised, virtual form of freedom. Instead, much of it remained in the virtual, and its actualisation paths turned out to be darker and oppressive.
The actuality of academic freedom
When looking at the actualised forms and trajectories of freedom, participants often mentioned how their working conditions got in the way of actualising the potential for their freedom of inquiry and practice, revealing tensions between the ideal (virtual) and the concrete (actual). Participants vividly described poor employment arrangements, isolation, and conflicting work demands. The virtual notion of academic freedom often clashed with participants’ actual working conditions. These conditions reflected participants’ deep sense of captivity, often drawing themselves chained or locked. As P13 reflected, “my academic freedom is stuck in a box . . . I’m stuck in a box, this is the space where I can, my academic freedom can be exercised,” drawing herself trapped and sad inside a little square (Image 4).
P13’s academic freedom and herself stuck in a box.
Likewise, P6 described his contractual situation as being trapped inside a cage (Image 5), explaining that his freedom was constrained by his fixed-term role, working extra hours on someone else’s project, preventing him from pursuing his own line of research. As he remarked,
P6 trapped inside the “Iron Cage.”
“It felt increasingly like being in that cage . . . I call it the iron cage . . . Even though I had economic security, I didn’t have academic freedom, or my academic freedom only went to a certain extent.” (P6)
Participants pointed out that they had to research popular topics that would be viewed favourably by managers, journals, and funding bodies. Pursuing other strands of research, such as critical studies, could be seen as undesirable, where “the manager knows, sees, [but] doesn’t like it” (P3). This created submissive relationships driven by the pursuit of publication excellence. As P10 lamented, “I would prefer [researching] something more heterodox. But obviously, I’m not doing it because if I do, I won’t get any job,” while having a publication record was “always top of mind” (P19). Rather than roaming free in vast “natural” landscapes (P1), participants felt their freedom constrained or chained to loops of “shitty, temporary contracts” (P17), defining their employment and working conditions as “empty and bullshit place” (P10). As P17 illustrated, she felt chained (Image 6), unable to progress in her career or move elsewhere.
P17 chained from the ankle by a crappy contract.
These “shitty” contracts highlighted not only entrapment but also feelings of uncertainty and insecurity. Participants often expressed frustration about having an “expiration date” (P5), pushing them to constantly look for their next contract, having to accept temporary positions for which they were not necessarily equipped because they “needed that money, basically needed the work” (P18) for living expenses.
As participants undertook activities outside of their expertise, they typically filled gaps, like P17 “[taking] the module while the lecturer was on leave” or P9 getting “the last piece of the pie” in teaching allocation. Participants were left with little space or opportunity to create new modules, develop curriculum, or have a say in their teaching practices, limiting their capacities to act independently, choose and become autonomous academics; critical components in their virtual ideas of academic freedom. Participants felt at the bottom of the academic hierarchy, obliged to do “grunt work” and becoming a “utility person” where “you become a kind of person that can play in all positions” (P2), leading participants to feel obliged to conform to teaching and research demands or “get out” (P9). For example, P20 pointed out that due to his department’s rules and regulations, he often felt constrained, and unable to develop his teaching as intended (Image 7).
P20 with his hands tied down.
“I’m not smiling at all. . . I feel that my hands are tied. I can’t use them. I’m tied with the process. . . Without having any freedom, I can’t move my hands; I can’t use them to work in an innovative way.” (P20)
Interviewees felt diminished and powerless. As many interviewees pointed out, when you are in precarious positions, you have to “suck up [tolerate] some stuff” and become “very people pleasing” (P1). In practice, this meant always being open to additional work (often unpaid) and stepping outside one’s expertise. P3 reflected somewhat pessimistically, “I think as an early-career researcher, it’s quite impossible to directly say no.” Participants felt pressured to present themselves as nice and dedicated employees, trading off their freedom to secure their next job. As P5 argued, “I needed to make sure that they liked me, in order for me to, if I ever get the opportunity, to apply for a permanent job.” This notion was clearly presented in his drawing (Image 8), depicting himself wearing a fake smile (on the mask) and representing the need to behave, to be a “good boy.” He explained, “you don’t have to be a c**k-s***er but you need to be very careful of what you say, and how you say it” (P5) to portray yourself as an asset for your department.
Being a good boy.
As participants expressed their struggles, they revealed that without a secured job, the question of freedom became a secondary issue. Attempts to break this cycle was met with refusals, leaving participants stuck, as P14 illustrated (Image 9):
P14 banned from progressing.
“I felt constrained . . . I wanted to take more responsibilities, like being a module leader. In the beginning, they said no, because I did not have a permanent position. So, at the very bottom of these stairs, it’s me, and there is like a ’banned’ symbol . . . the university saying no to me, because right now I’m not at the level, according to them, to go up in this level of responsibility.” (P14)
Pressured to comply with their managers’ demands, participants struggled to voice their concerns, expressing frustration particularly when their work went unrecognised or claimed by senior team members.
“You have all this responsibility, but you’re still not really in charge, a more senior academic can come along and say, ‘do it this way, do it that way’, they can also come and take the credits . . . I’m not happy with this, or this is not okay.” (P1)
Even though participants had the capacities and competencies to take responsibility for their academic duties (e.g. P14 for teaching and P1 for research), they were not given the actual opportunity to do so due to their fixed-term positions. As they described, they were dispossessed of their autonomy to freely exercise their work. Moreover, participants experienced high levels of burden from their academic duties. As they described their daily work practices, many drew themselves sitting at desks surrounded by books and papers, with calendars and clocks, illustrating their excessive work beyond regular hours, hindering their opportunities to freely pursue their research agendas, teaching plans, and so on (Image 10).
P17 at her desk late at night with a weight over her head.
“This is me, at a desk with a lamp on to show that I often worked late into the night, piles of books, pages of work all around me, because I was just trying to work as hard as possible to not fail to, you know, do the research, do the teaching, do all of it . . . This is a determined face. It is the look of someone who is really trying hard to make it work but is feeling a lot of pressure . . . It felt like there was weight hovering over my head at all times. And it felt like I was constantly on edge.” (P17)
Additional and often menial labour reduced participants’ freedom to conduct meaningful academic work. Several expressed that they had “too many other things to do that didn’t allow me to pursue any sort of research interests” (P18) and ultimately “don’t find enough time to do research during term time” (P10). As illustrated by P1, who drew herself squashed by various work demands (Image 11).
Being squashed by multiple pressures.
“I can have different arrows to point to the fact that it’s different things. Sometimes it might be my line managers, sometimes it might be university policy, sometimes it might be the funder, actually, all these different things can come in, or it can be the precarity . . . it can be concept, not a thing, to kind of come in and constrain you and your decisions, your time, what you do.” (P1)
Even though our findings reveal the sombre trajectories that freedom often took in the actual experience of participants, the virtuality of freedom was the place where participants wanted to be. This virtuality – the garden, the nature, and the blossomed flower as the capacity to freely choose and organise your work to become an autonomous academic – acted as a productive force that potentially could create new paths for actualisation. Recognising themselves in the darker side of freedom, participants hoped to walk into the “sunny” side, the side where they could exercise their work independently under decent working conditions. As P10 illustrated (Image 12),
Academic freedom as the blossomed and sunny garden.
“So, in order to pass through that door and be in the nice environment, you’re trying to leave that empty and bullshit place that we have . . . what I’m trying to do is to have the security.” (P10)
However, reaching the “sunny” side of freedom, the side where you find “the security,” meant a constant flux, where you try leaving “the cage” (P6); however, the cage could pull you back in at any time, revealing a constant, dynamic process. As P6 reflected (Image 13):
P6 going back into the “Iron Cage.”
“You’re fighting structural barriers that keep you in the cage for a significant amount of time. You can break out from time to time . . . So, I was breaking out of that [cage] temporarily. But obviously, I’m finding myself going back.” (P6)
For our participants, academic freedom lay in between the virtual and the actual, it did not mean being in one side or the other – the sunny place versus the bullshit place, inside the iron cage versus outside the iron cage – it was about the virtual potentials of freedom and its rather oppressive actualisation paths. Academic freedom was not necessarily limited to one direction or the other, it was an ongoing tension between two unequal halves, a process of constant becoming.
Discussion
This study set out to explore academic freedom from the emic perspective of fixed-term academics employed in UK-based universities. The aim of the study was to understand how these academics experience academic freedom in light of their working conditions. We drew on Deleuze’s (1994) virtual/actual couplet to investigate the trajectories that freedom took in the lives of our participants. Our findings revealed the tensions between participants’ idealised view of academic freedom emerging from their employment as academics, and the precarious working conditions constraining it. These tensions, we argue, highlight both virtual and actual dimensions of academic freedom (see Figure 1).
Academic freedom as virtual/actual circuit.
Our findings revealed the two “odd” and “unequal” halves (Deleuze, 1994) of academic freedom: the virtual and the actual. The virtual half uncovered three key and ideal components of freedom including: (1) choosing, (2) organising and (3) flexibility. For our participants, academic freedom was intimately linked to decent working conditions and having the opportunity to enact their professional autonomy to decide for themselves as “experts” in the field. These elements were illustrated in participants’ drawings in the form of gardens, flowers, and open natural spaces. These were the basic and necessary conditions that participants felt would enable them to exercise their freedom of inquiry and practice. On the other hand, the actual half revealed three darker components of freedom including: (1) captivity, (2) submission, and (3) burden. For our participants, academic freedom was tightly connected to their precarious working conditions, often describing how their practice was limited, contained, and restrained. These three elements were illustrated in participants’ drawings in the form of entrapment inside boxes, cages, chains, and other “squashing” forces.
Our findings depict the ongoing tensions emerging from the virtual and the actual halves of academic freedom due to the dissonant trajectories that freedom can take. Following Deleuze (1994: p. 185), the genesis of academic freedom can be “understood as the actualisation of an essence, in accordance with reasons and at speeds determined by the environment.” From this perspective, environmental barriers emerging from precarious working conditions impede the actualisation of the virtual “sunny” side of freedom. To actualise academic freedom, one had to leave behind what was termed as the “empty bullshit place” and “crappy contracts” that kept you captive. Thus, we argue that academic freedom not only encapsulates virtual images surrounding decent, emancipatory, and rather positive working conditions but also its opposite, the more negative and precarious trajectories that such conditions take. As such, academic freedom emerges and flows amid these two-halves (Figure 1). We theorise academic freedom as an ongoing tension that “denounces simultaneously” (Deleuze, 1994) freedom and non-freedom, not either/or but both/and; that is, both the garden (freedom) and the cage (non-freedom). Both halves belong to academic freedom, its productive and emancipatory potential, as well as its less “ideal” and rather restricting actualisations.
It is important to note that academic freedom does not necessarily unfold as a mono-directional process from virtuals to actuals; rather, it is “the productive relation of the two” (Smith, 2010: 108). Our findings not only showed the actual trajectories of freedom but also the virtual potentials that freedom animated. The objective, as participants mentioned, was to reach the “good” side of freedom, the garden, the nature, to leave the cage behind despite the cage pulling you back repeatedly. These virtual images of academic freedom are not abstract, for they have a reality (Deleuze, 1994) “[serving] as the genetic or productive condition of real experience” (Smith, 2009: 34). Thus, we locate academic freedom in a “zone of ambivalence” (Clegg et al., 2005), as a field of tensions and perpetual exchanges between actual and virtual (Deleuze and Parnet, 2007). We suggest that academic freedom is neither virtual nor actual, but a middle that folds and unfolds within a virtual/actual circuit as “continuity, threshold, oscillation, and variation” (Peters, 2020: 83). The virtual images offered a glimpse of the manifold potentials and trajectories that the actual could take, even when the actualisation trajectories did not necessarily “resemble the virtuality that it embodies” (Deleuze, 1991: 97). Overall, we conceptualise academic freedom as emerging from virtual images of freedom and the various and sometimes dissonant actual trajectories it can take, as an evolving and constant flux.
Our novel conceptualisation of academic freedom enables us to re-imagine and re-evaluate academic freedom in relation to the existing literature, particularly to the de-universalisation and de-heroisation of the concept. Academic freedom has traditionally been explored in the context of political, governmental, and institutional forces, often depicted as greater-than-the-individual (e.g. Finkin and Post, 2009; Karran, 2009). A theory of academic freedom encompassing both virtual freedom and actual non-freedom elements enables us to investigate the often-ignored local and contextualised individual experiences of academics, which are usually obscured by heroic and grand narratives. As Vatansever and Kölemen (2022: p. 2) argues, “the threats against academic freedom involve subtler and more varied mechanisms than the obvious political ones.” We show how among many forms of academic freedom, one is tied to decent work conditions for fixed-term academics, seeking far more mundane forms of freedom through job security, stability, and decency, for “precarisation is one major tool for curtailing academic freedom” (Stoica et al., 2019: 85).
Our study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of academic freedom. We develop a theory of freedom emerging from the tensions that fold and unfold in the relationality of virtual potential and the multiple actualisation trajectories and tensions that these relations create. We show one of the many trajectories that academic freedom can take when viewed from the perspective of fixed-term academics. Our theorisation invites scholars to explore and discover what virtualities and actualities make up the “site” of academic freedom among more experienced academics and other types of employment (e.g. “permanent” contracts), such as lecturers, senior lecturers, readers, and professors. As Deleuze and Parnet (2007: p. 152) argue, “the relationship of the actual and the virtual . . . needs to be determined case by case.” Thus, our theory provides a map to understand and identify those manifold trajectories on a case-by-case basis, highlighting not only one academic freedom but many unfolding, evolving, and emerging simultaneously. As Smith (2009: p. 40) argues, “what is actualised, here and now, are only certain relations, certain values of relations . . . others are actualised elsewhere and at other times.” There may be not such a thing as a pure, unique and defined form of academic freedom but rather many freedoms adopting multiple trajectories and qualities along different career stages, for “[p]urely actual objects do not exist” (Deleuze and Parnet, 2007: 148). The virtual/actual circuit of freedom provides us with a map to trace these trajectories and discover the many forms that freedom can take.
Conclusion
Traditional and heroic views of academic freedom often make invisible individual struggles and tensions, particularly among fixed-term academics. By adopting a Deleuzean lens, our findings suggest that freedom emerges and unfolds in the interpenetration of virtual images and actual trajectories of freedom. Our findings not only highlight the positive aspects of freedom, but also the less productive and negative conditions that constrain it. We argue for a conceptualisation of academic freedom that includes one and many types of freedom unfolding simultaneously. We invite scholars to explore what role specific virtual/actual elements play in shaping academic freedom across institutional contexts, working conditions, and personal subjective experiences of work. In the case of our participants, we connect academic freedom to decent working conditions operating in the virtual and precarious work unfolding in the actual. Following Lévy’s (1998) example, the academic freedom “seed” of fixed-term academics cannot become an actual freedom “tree” because of the precarious working conditions acting as unfertile “soil.”
Our study is, naturally, not free from limitations. First, from a methodological point of view, participants expressed hesitation in sharing their experiences due to their fear of “getting caught” by their universities. This may have led to self-editing practices that clouded our empirical data. However, the use of drawings provided us with further access to participants’ experiences revealing knowledge that may be difficult to express otherwise. Second, our findings focus on fixed-term academics, predominantly early-career researchers, who are more likely to experience precarity. Senior academics may also experience adverse, deteriorating, and unsafe working conditions (Hartz, 2024; Korica, 2022). Future research can explore how freedom and non-freedom emerges in the mundanity of work practices among senior/tenured academics to surface the particularities of their experiences. This may lead to discovering novel forms of academic freedom that can be analysed through the lens of our virtual/actual circuit theory. Third, our findings show the rather darker trajectories that academic freedom took in our participants’ experiences. Future work can explore how academics actively try to change or resist such trajectories creating new paths for actualisation.
Overall, this study reveals that the actual precarious experiences of academics on fixed-term contracts are inimical to existing and commonly held understandings of academic freedom as grand, heroic, and universal. The ever-growing precarisation of scholars in neo-liberal universities affect their chance to exercise and experience academic freedom, quietly narrowing the scope for their academic autonomy. In a sector where the precarisation of scholars has become an unquestioned habit and a convenient commodity (Nelson, 2015), it is imperative to re-evaluate academic freedom in relation to precarity. If fixed-term academics are to actualise their virtual ideal of academic freedom, regardless of the forms it may take, efforts should be made to provide these academics with security, stability, and decency.
Footnotes
Appendix 1: Participant information sheet (extract) and interview guide
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.