Cripping The Exhaustion Economy
Radically Reimagining the Neoliberal Academy from the Sick Bed
Cripping The Exhaustion Economy
Radically Reimagining the Neoliberal Academy from the Sick Bed
About The Project
Researchers
The project is led by Prof. Bethan Evans of the University of Liverpool, as part of an ISRF Political Economy Fellowship, working with Dr Anna Ruddock and Dr Alison Allam.
Advisory Group
The research is guided by an advisory group, including Catherine Hale (founder of Chronic Illness Inclusion) and Leonora Gunn from Chronic Illness Inclusion; Jenny Ceolta-Smith who was a Long Covid Support Advisor on Employment; Gayle Brewer and Lykara Ryder from the National Association of Disabled Staff Networks; Emma Sheppard from the University and College Union (UCU) Disabled Members Committee; and Alex Lancaster, UCU Health and Safety officer.
Project Aims
The project aims to:
Extend work in Crip Theory on the ways in which neoliberal capitalism produces debilitated bodies and ableist cultures, through a focus on energy and exhaustion;
Suggest ways to address ableism and burnout in the neoliberal academy beyond a focus on employing institutions (Felsinger and Byford, 2010; Price, 2021), through considering the broader academic political economy (funders, publishers, etc);
Expand work on Crip Time in US academia (Cepeda, 2021; Price, 2021), exploring the UK specific political and economic structures (e.g. REF, NSS, etc) that contribute to the exhaustion economy;
Explore how attention to everyday energy budgeting by people with ELCI may reveal overlooked practices through which neoliberal academia operates as an exhaustion economy (Ruddock, 2017);
Further develop methodologies for exhausted bodies (Hale and Allam, 2021), adapting pace and format in accordance with the fluctuating symptoms of ELCI.
