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Presentation short abstract:

'Internationalisation' and 'globalisation' have been buzzwords in the neoliberal restructuring of the academe. This contribution discusses ways of employing scholars' new connectedness to overcome the strangling impacts of hierarchization, austerity and atomisation.

Presentation long abstract:

Hierarchisation, austerity and atomisation have turned out to be key features of the neoliberal restructuring of academia across the globe, enlarging the powers of few individuals and structural levels, normalising the large-scale reallocation of budgets from everyday teaching and research to university managements and research foundations, and enforcing scholarly atomisation in the permanent competition for 'excellence' in terms of publication and the acquisition of funds. Results are a widespread monetization of degrees and publishing, mounting cases of power abuse, infringements of academic freedom on different levels, and the production of an increasingly exhausted academic precariat.

Precisely because the academic restructuring has partly been driven on the buzzwords of 'internationalisation' and 'globalization', however, the past 30 years have also generated an unprecedented level of connectedness among scholars. We know each other more and better in terms of relatable experiences and problems, lifestyles, references and expectations than probably ever before in history. And we are more than ever before in numbers.

Based on my work in an academic advocacy network in Germany, as a co-organiser of the Academic Freedom Space (IIAS, Netherlands) and long-term exchanges as an anthropologist with colleagues especially in India and Turkey, this contribution will discuss ways of realizing and applying this strength in terms of practices of solidarity and forms of collaboration but also active challenges of the structures.