The Future of Academic Mobility and Labour in Europe

Petkovska, Sanja (2024) The Future of Academic Mobility and Labour in Europe. In: Historical Materialism Istanbul Conference 2024: Rethinking Rationalities and Irrationalities within the Times of Crisis and Radical Transformations - Book of Abstracts. Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey, pp. 59-60. ISBN 978-975-6245-02-6

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Abstract

The introduction of EHEA (European Higher Education Area) and ERA (European Research Area), represented more an international initiative rather than a designed policy reform. Still, it aimed to facilitate academic mobility by equalising academic titles and degrees in the continent. Within the enormous investments and legislative efforts of the EU and neighbouring countries, the entire legislative composition of higher education structures has been modified to comply with the principles. Two decades later, it is time to reexamine the entire process and question the given state and its broader meaning taking into account the centre-periphery relations in the knowledge production system. Therefore, the task of this reexamination is twofold. Firstly, the Bologna treaty's main goal has been to facilitate mobility and knowledge production. Except noticing that this goal follows the general principle of free market implied in the EU policy, we can also notice that changing the legislation cannot bring any dynamic itself, especially when none of the surrounding mechanisms supports it. Therefore, in the final instance, the international legislative initiative could be understood as an irrational and free-floating mechanism whose meaning and real consequences are yet to be understood. Secondly, based on the essay to be published soon in the Journal of Praxis in Higher Education, I aim to examine whether the concept of academic citizenship as a recognised status could be useful in solving some of the contradictions academics who move across the continent for academic training or labour are facing because of this incomplete reform of higher education and research. Despite being a problematic concept with challenging implications and histories, citizenship here is understood as a geopolitically situated status of academics necessary for mutual recognition, formation of the professional community and self-consciousness needed for a meaningful agency and engagement in initiating more rational solutions within the political economy of higher education and research.

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