Living on the Edge: Continuous Precarity Undermines Academic Freedom but not Researchers' Identity in Neoliberal Academia

In recent decades, science and higher education sector organizations have been progressively pushed towards the corporate archetype and have witnessed an instrumentalization of knowledge and the establishment of a culture of performativity. In neoliberal academia, the academic labor force has also grown exponentially and precarization has increased, reaching 95% of all post-doctoral researchers in Portugal. This chapter argues that such fragile positioning, characterized by being almost in and almost out of the academic system, pushes researchers, who have built their identities on their highly regarded academic activities and values such as autonomy and critical thinking, towards extreme competition, self-exploitative practices, and decreased academic freedom. Based on the findings of an online survey integrating quantitative and qualitative techniques has been conducted with precarious post-doctoral researchers in Portugal (n = 1,328), the chapter shows that the majority of the post-doctoral researchers tend to build a sensemaking discourse that justifies their chosen occupational path and the consequent urge to maintain competitive distinction. Such narratives do not result in a change in researchers’ actions, but rather serve to create a small space of resistance where neither their academic identity nor the structures of neoliberal academia are threatened.