Power, Patrimony and the Precariat in Academic Archaeology: A Case Study from Ireland

Contribution to Session #392. The Anti-HABI Toolkit: Practical Solutions and Measures for Preventing and Addressing Harassment, Assault, Bullying and Intimidation in Archaeology [AGE]

This paper examines the impact of precarious employment on academic archaeology. It is argued that early (and some not so early) career academic archaeologists are especially vulnerable to discrimination and exploitation due to the huge power differentials that casualisation reinforces and maintains between colleagues. The wider archaeological profession is beset by low-pay and insecure employment, which may leave academic archaeologists more accepting of exploitative working conditions. Archaeology is a small and typically conservative discipline. Healthy academic debate and pluralistic research cannot flourish where a two-tier system leaves so many junior academics beholden to the patronage of the small cohort of tenured colleagues.
Remuneration in the academic ‘gig’ economy is often by the hour, and rarely recognises time spent preparing teaching materials or administrative and pastoral work, let alone training and career development. Women are disproportionately affected. The lack of women in senior academic roles inevitably restricts the availability of female role models and mentors. The predominantly male gatekeepers to the few secure junior academic positions are more likely to have followed a traditional career trajectory, and expect the same of junior colleagues. Caring responsibilities that typically coincide with career stages from post-doctoral work to tenure limit many women’s (and some men’s) capacity to follow uninterrupted career paths. Women that successfully navigate these obstacles, alongside colleagues that submit to precarious employment conditions, are likely to shoulder a disproportionate load of ‘women’s work’—teaching, pastoral and administrative duties. In either case, the volume of research outputs (the crucial metric in the male success model) will be compromised. How have such practises been contested, and what has been the outcome?' Limited, though well-publicised, initiatives to increase the proportion of senior female academics perhaps offer some hope for the future. But what else can be done to stem the tide of casualisation?