Phenomenalities of insecurity in academia

While the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed uncertainty into a near existential condition, this is not the first time that sociology has had to come to terms with phenomena that span the global and the local and threaten taken for granted ways of life. Sociological approaches to risk and uncertainty developed over the last four decades are generally oriented toward the future, and examine responses to risk and strategies of risk containment. This presentation engages with this literature and argues for including insecurity as an experiential category brought about by risks and conditions of uncertainty. It centers the diversity of non-tenure track academic workers‘ experiences as a case study to illustrate insecurity as a condition entrenched within the global logic of academic work and as a category of experience that marks incumbents’ everyday lives. Uncertainty itself is embedded within this logic, from submitting grant proposals to manuscripts for publication, concerns over promotion or the feasibility and outcomes of fieldwork and other types of research. Yet for non-tenure-track workers in academia, these uncertainties are further compounded by insecurities which render the flexibility, creativity and mobility usually associated with academic work into instability, fierce competition and pressures toward uprooting. The paper will conclude with a discussion on the potential impact of insecurity as an experiential category on contemporary discourses on health and wellbeing.