Academic life in the fast lane: The experience of time and speed in British academia

Abstract

It is relatively uncontroversial to say that increasing workload, speed of change and the feeling that life is getting faster negatively impact on the academic profession. Drawing from primary data and secondary analyses, this article, nonetheless, highlights the specific ambivalence that emerges from investigations of time experience in contemporary academia. The argument presented here distinguishes between dominant oppressive acceleration with adverse implications and subtle, yet non-negligible, energizing accelerative moments. In the first instance, I explore how the increasing inability to determine one’s own temporal rhythm results in increasingly reported feelings of guilt. These feelings are, moreover, exacerbated by the currently ubiquitous doctrine of ‘excellence’, which has specific temporal connotations. Second, reflecting on phenomenological aspects of research conduct – a constitutive academic activity – I track the positive attributes of enabling acceleration as integral components of academic lifeworld. In this, I differ from the existing accounts analysing academic life in the fast lane, which unreservedly define acceleration in unfavourable terms, and yet in no way do I underestimate the seriousness of the negative consequences of rush, hurry and intensified workload for the scholarly profession. Broaching acceleration as a variegated experience, I conclude by outlining the inclusive conception of unhasty time and stress the need for its political enactment in higher education policy.