Las instituciones elemento fundamental el desarrollo capitalista

When looking at the respec8ve trajectories of our newly hired par8cipants and amemp8ng to dis8nguish a pamern among them, one eventually comes to the conclusion that what dis8nguishes this group from our postdocs and movers/leavers is that they all have vastly different trajectories that do not appear to have a specific feature (e.g. gender, field of study, etc.) in common. Two par8cipants had graduated with their PhD in a field different from the one they had been hired into. Three did not even have a PhD, but had been hired by their departments because their field of study was so new when they were hired that no Icelanders had a PhD in those par8cular fields or simply because they had enough publica8ons. One had a decade long professional background in the private sector. Half were foreign researchers, others had studied abroad while s8ll others were home grown University of Iceland researchers. Two had done a series of postdocs before becoming assistant professors.

Among our movers/leavers and even in our very small postdoc sample, having some sort of interna8onal mobility or background at a university abroad seemed to be a dis8nguishing feature. One of our newly hired assistant professors, Ásgeir, even pointed out that “they really want … that you've been in other places before you come back. It’s sort of an unwrimen rule.” As such, one would suspect this to be a pamern across the board, but interes8ngly, it did not reflect the sample of newly hired assistant professors. When grasping the current situa8on of the sample, there are some points of similarity. Five par8cipants had a very similar life situa8on: Living in Reykjavík with their partners and children while struggling to keep up with workloads and teaching responsibili8es at the university. One was a single parent, one was childless and lived with her partner and one was both single and childless. Regardless of family situa8on, however, all par8cipants from this sample lived in close proximity to the university.

Taken together one might argue that this par8cular group has a very diverse trajectory experience. But as with our postdocs however, some trajectories were marked by a sense of par8cipants “winning” the race to their tenure track job because they already knew someone at the university with whom they had a good rela8onship. As such, Ásgeir explains why he believe he was eventually hired:

“I am guessing that my supervisor for my PhD studies here probably was on my side in the whole process, even though I guess he did not “officially”. But there’s also a good reason for that, I mean, it’s not only because we are friends or something like that, I mean, we work in the same field and he believes the field will be strengthened if I come in because we have worked together before with success, so — it’s not only because of some personal reasons — but it will play a role always, it’s difficult to distance yourself from that.”

Even though Ásgeir insists that he did not get the job because he and his former supervisor are friends, he also admits that one cannot distance oneself from the personal rela8onships one might have inside the academy.

Knútur is another example of someone who did not land his job through the official channels. Having finished his PhD, he was doing occasional teaching at the University of Iceland when a department leader from a different field saw one of his lectures and subsequently offered him a job. Faíma had occupied an adjunct posi8on before she became an assistant professor, and as such she also had contacts within the department when she applied for her tenure track job. This was also true for other par8cipants. Finally, one par8cipant, Atli, explained how his trajectory, in this way, was marked by a clear sense of academic “inbreeding”; that he simply fimed well into the research group. As he said, he was a “good strategic choice.”

However, it is also important to point out that many par8cipants did not have prior strong 8es to the University of Iceland before gevng their tenure track posi8on. As such it does not appear as if there is a very specific “winning” trajectory that helps this group obtain their first tenure track posi8on. However, even though there does not appear to be a specific winning trajectory, there are strong indicators in the interview categories that would suggest that candidates for tenure track posi8ons have some amributes in common that give them dis8nct advantages regardless of their educa8onal or career trajectories.

Firstly, accep8ng the tremendous work effort and the long-hours in academia seems to be a winning avtude. Knútur, a newly hired foreign researcher, explained how he comes from a working class family with a strong work ethic. By his own account he does not know how to work any differently than puvng in all his best effort at all 8mes. He even works through his lunch break:

“I do sort of eat my lunch at my computer and I work – so when people are like ‘you wanna have lunch?’ [and I say no], they know I’m not being anQsocial, it’s just — during the semester it’s just 24/7.”

Knútur has a family and his work ethic oVen gets in the way of his familial responsibili8es. As he says, “I do make 8me for my kids and stuff like that, but I do have no choice but to work in the evenings.” For par8cipants with younger children, keeping up with the academic workload was a challenge. It was less so for those with older children and the par8cipants with no children seemed to be the one’s who got on easiest with academic life. For one childless assistant professor, Adda, academic life was enough of a breeze that she even found space to cri8cize those who did not put in the effort to achieve good results in both research and teaching (i.e. oVen parents):

“I know there are people who prefer to do research and they don’t take the teaching part seriously and they don’t make good classes, but I try to make good classes, because that is the way I can avract students —- to do work with me — and they can actually do part of the work I’m supposed to do [giggles].”

In the context of living the academic life, this is a clear example that having no children is both an advantage and a privilege. During the interview process, no other par8cipants with family and children faulted other academics for not paying enough amen8on to teaching. Moreover, Adda seems to have “mastered” or “played” the system. By paying amen8on to teaching she is able to amract students, and if she amracts students she can informally employ them to work for her, thus lessening her own academic workload. A pamern among newly hired assistant professors seemed to be a desire and a willingness to live up to high demands for performa8vity, regardless of whether it interfered with their work/life balance. As Geiri put it, “as a new academic … you have to prove that you’re worth something”; an avtude that for him ul8mately resulted in many days a month away from his family. Par8cipants Dóra and Elísa both reported occasionally feeling that they did not belong in the university; that they suffered from the “imposter syndrome”, resul8ng in them trying even harder to live up the expecta8ons set by the academic environment. This beginners’ willingness, so to speak, to put in the work required was expressed by Faíma as such:

“There’s that feeling that when you're new … you want to try everything, so when people say ‘Faàma, do you wanna do this?’, you go ‘Yeah, yeah yeah!’ like a puppy. And there’s sQll … that livle ego that goes ‘I am so grateful they chose me’, you know. So I’m all excited and I end up over working myself.”

Having a lot of publica8ons under one’s belt was also an amribute of many of our newly hired par8cipants. Some were very adamant about enumera8ng their most pres8gious publica8ons, underlining that their ability to publish in ISI journals is what had secured them the job. For example, as Bergþóra says: “I have been very successful [and] this has opened the eyes of others and this is helping me now … I have published 5 ISI papers … Those are the best journals.” As such, the much cri8cized point evalua8on system at the

University of Iceland (e.g. D5.2, p. 132-144) here becomes a subject of praise because it is what ul8mately has secured Bergþóra her current posi8on. Throughout our interview she appeared to be in a constant state of compe88on with herself and her colleagues, making sure to enumerate the papers she had published and in which pres8gious journals. Rather than being cri8cal towards the point incen8ve system as many of our interviewees were, Bergþóra seemed to accept this system as an unques8onable condi8on of being an academic. Her spirit of compe88on was further highlighted when she spoke about the publica8on process and said that “if you are publishing with other people, they might be very demanding about what order the authors are on the paper, and even though you might have contributed most ... so some8mes you just have to stand your ground.”

Oppositely, some of our movers/leavers were very cri8cal towards the point evalua8on system, indica8ng perhaps that people who just made assistant professor are more likely to be thankful rather than cri8cal of the system into which they have just been accepted. Finally, some par8cipants also men8oned na8onality as a dis8nct advantage to obtaining a tenure track posi8on. As such, Atli men8oned that part of the reason why he got the job was because “They needed someone to teach the big courses in Icelandic” and Ásgeir concurs when saying:

“The one thing that probably works for me is that I am an Icelander … Even though, sort of, the policy is to adverQse internaQonally and so on; if they get a good candidate who is also Icelandic, then that works as an advantage.”

Faíma, who is not a na8ve Icelander, also experienced that not being able to speak Icelandic could be a hindrance in the form of student prejudice:

“I’ve had a couple of issues with students that I was surprised about — ehm — when they were frustrated about something, instead of coming directly to me they [the students] sort of avacked my Icelandic [in class] which I thought was very odd.”

Taken together, trajectory experiences among newly hired assistant professors vary greatly and there does not appear to be a specific winning trajectory. However, when examining our interview categories it becomes clear that newly hired assistant professors tend to not only accept the high workloads in academia, but tended to accept condi8ons in general that our movers/leavers tended to more cri8cal of. There are also indica8ons that prior connec8ons to the university as well as being a na8ve Icelander might work somewhat to one’s advantage.

6. TRANSVERSAL DISCUSSION

In light of the previous, there is limle doubt that modern academia puts great demands on those who wish to make a living from it. We might understand these demands as part of a larger discursive web of a masculine habitus in the scien8fic field, here to be understood in the Bourdieuan sense of gendered disposi8ons that “result from social condi8oning related to one’s posi8on within social space” (Mover, 2001: 349). As such, academia favours a heroic masculine figure that puts his work and the pursuit of knowledge above all else. In turn, this creates dis8nct advantages for those academics that are able to embody this figure.

Looking at some of the stories from our movers, there is an indica8on that the tone for a life emerged in academia is set long before one sends in the first job applica8on. Some of our movers had dedicated years of their lives to “living the job” while wri8ng their PhDs. Most of them had done so before star8ng a family, leaving them with even more 8me on their hands to emerge themselves in the academic way of life. We may add to this that many of them did so while also having a partner, who was in academia. This could mean that the kind of external resistance from one’s family to the academic way of life that for example Geiri reported (i.e. “Mentally you are not localised here”) might not be a concern for those who share their lives with another academic. In this way there is reason to believe that some academics might set themselves up for a par8cular way of life that spills over into their first professional academic job. As many par8cipants reported, the first years as a new academic are oVen spent trying to show what you are made of, that you can live up to the expecta8ons and high workloads. As such some par8cipants men8oned both feeling eager-to-please (“like a puppy”) or suffering from “imposter syndrome” when first star8ng a professional academic career. One might interpret this 8me in the career of newly hired academic as a kind of socializa8on process into the masculine habitus.

If we compare this trajectory to our postdocs we find that the aforemen8oned situa8on of accustoming oneself to the future masculine habitus of the scien8fic field is not as common. This might be contributed to the small size of the postdoc sample. Diðrik, however, is one example of an academic without children, who has the interna8onal mobility and the 8me to emerge himself in his work. He even has a partner who is also in academia. Even though Diðrik was not the most talka8ve research par8cipant, he did indicate that his career trajectory had been extremely smooth so far, indica8ng that Diðrik fits the profile of the heroic academic figure.

Berglind, the other postdoc without children, on the other hand, did not fit the profile. While she did have opportunity to emerge herself in her work, she simply chose not to because she did not want to set the stage for a life without 8me for friends and family. As she said: “My work[day] is from 8 to 5. I work 100% those 9 hours per day. There is not space for 100% more. Then I have no life! Is that the kind of person you want to hire?” The answer to Berglind’s ques8on might unfortunately be ‘yes’. The scien8fic field appears to generally reward those who priori8ze work over family, friends and free 8me in general over those who seek balance in their lives. As Berglind also men8ons, there is a pressure on her as a postdoc without children to put in the extra hours. This is exemplified by Jarl, who men8oned that he is “en8rely unsympathe8c towards” young academics with no children. As he puts it, “if you’re a young academic … and you don’t have a family … I think it’s absolutely fine just living the job for a few years and doing it 24/7.” The problem with this kind of avtude, of course, is that the scien8fic field does not suddenly change when or if a new academic realizes that they want to spend more 8me with their families, i.e. when they want to nego8ate the level to which they accept the masculine habitus of the field. Academia relentlessly con8nues to favour the embodiment of the young heroic academic with endless 8me and energy on their hands. In this way, the early academic years are “an investment in the future because you sort of build a base” as Jarl puts it.

In rela8on to our newly hired assistant professors, it is clear that they too were struggling with the high workloads of academia and the way in which these interfered with their work/life balance (e.g. D4.2.2.). However, these assistant professors were less vocal than our movers about what they considered the troubles of the scien8fic field. Even when

men8oning things that bothered them, they would trivialize issues or quickly follow up complaints with praise of their jobs. In this way our newly hired academics could perhaps be said to experience a kind of cogni8ve dissonance aVer learning about the reality of long-term academic. On one hand they have spent years educa8ng themselves or perhaps even been dreaming of becoming the venerable and respected academic, only to find that the reality of the masculine habitus of science is much different from what they had expected. No par8cipant who was s8ll in academia ever said this out load, however, perhaps because the consequence of doing so is to some extent to admit to a kind of personal failure. As Geiri, who has leV academia, put it: “I had some expecta8ons about how people would work inside academia, and that was very frustra8ng to try to uphold [these] expecta8ons.”

While the lone heroic masculine figure that is so favoured by the academic system is not necessarily male, it most definitely mirrors an image that is tradi8onally male in the form of the old image of the breadwinner. It is through this masculine social disposi8on that academia chas8ses those men for whom a reasonable balance between family and work is necessary, while rewarding anyone, including academic women, who can live up to the standard set by the masculine habitus.

Jarl and Geiri are examples of men, who do not fit into this ideal image. Even though Jarl