Academic un-freedom in the new knowledge economy

Abstract

This chapter considers the impact on research of the neoliberal turn, a world-wide phenomenon. Instead of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, research is now expected to have use value in the market. What is privileged is its status and income-generating capacity, together with its value to end users. Drawing on the notion of governmentality, the chapter shows how the market ideology came to be quickly accepted through mechanisms of control that emerged at the supranational, the national, the university and the individual levels. The chapter considers how public goods, such as academic freedom, are being eroded as a result of the commodification and privatisation of knowledge