Abstract

Over the last four decades, Chilean higher education reforms have impacted universities administrative and financial organization, with obvious repercussions for the academic workforce. Working conditions have become more precarious and the pressure for competition and productivity has intensified, according to research. The purpose of this article is to understand precariousness as an organizing axis of the academic work experience and its relationship with labor subjectivity. Based on the discursive analysis of 60 interviews with male and female academics in different working conditions, we describe academic staff dispositions concerning the uncertainty and instability of work in higher education. The main findings of this work point out that precariousness grids uncomfortable complicities with academic culture central aspects, such as vocation, meritocracy and excellence. At the same time, the analysis shows subjective dispositions and informal collective practices to manage uncertainty and generate stability in work teams. Through this work, we hope to contribute to understand the way higher education policies have transformed university, as well as the effects on the labor subjectivity of academics.