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Paper short abstract

This paper offers (auto)ethnographic reflections on the growing impact of project culture on work in academia, activism and psychotherapy. It claims that under the guise of training and voluntarism, a Big Society regime subsumes certain type of labour under a coercive cyclical funding logic.

Paper long abstract

This paper offers reflection of the growing impact of project culture on work in academia and two adjacent fields that social scientists often consider as ‘escape routes’ from university labour. Bringing (auto)ethnographic examples of my own work in and research on academic, left-wing activism, and psychotherapy workplaces, I discuss the processes, mechanisms and technologies enabling the formal and real subsumption of such forms of work under capital. I suggest the emergence of what I call a ‘Big Society’ labour regime. Pioneered by UK’s conservative government of David Cameron, this regime uses the carrot of ‘training’, ’capacity building’ and ‘altruistic’ voluntary labour while disciplining the workforce into ever more extensive coercive un(der)paid voluntarism, sustained by precarious cyclical funding. In the last part of the paper, I discuss some emerging initiatives and other possible ways ahead for academic and other communities subjected to the Big Society regime to expose, confront, and – ideally – transform the institutional logics and locations that perpetuate this regime.