Counter-Conduct in the University Factory: Locating the Occupy Sussex Campaign

Abstract

Abstract:Deploying the Foucauldian concepts of 'conduct' and 'counter-conduct', this article provides an analysis of 'Occupy Sussex' -a two-month long student occupation launched in opposition to the outsourcing of service staff at the University of Sussex. Situated in the context of a post-Fordist political economy, we argue that the British university constitutes an especial site of conduct formation -a University Factory -wherein individuals are sorted and socialised as immaterial labourers. We argue that Occupy Sussex was a reaction to such conduct formation. As such counter-conduct is deployed as concept that can effectively map the tactics and strategies undertaken by Occupy Sussex against the university management. Moreover, counter-conduct is used in order to trace prefigurative attempts to redefine the university within the space of the occupation -away from the University Factory, toward collective self-management, alternative understandings of the 'university experience', and an emergent notion of 'community'. Finally, the use of counter-conduct serves to highlight the dangers of appropriation and co-optation; how university management attempted to co-opt and thus defuse the counter-conduct of Occupy Sussex.Key Words: Counter-conduct; Foucault; Occupy Sussex; post-Fordism; University IntroductionThis article analyses the recent struggle at the University of Sussex over management proposals to outsource 235 service staff members, culminating in a two month long student occupation of 1 We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and guest editors for their precious comments. In addition, we are particularly thankful to the organisers Louiza Odysseos, Carl Death and Helle Malmvig, and participants of the workshop 'Counter-Conduct in Global Politics' held at the University of Sussex in September 2013, where this paper was first presented. Finally, our most special thanks go to members of the occupation and campaign against the outsourcing of the 235, in particular to our respondents and to those who agreed to share their views and concerns with us. Any errors remain entirely our own. 2 As such, the study of Occupy Sussex has the potential to provide insights into how we theorise both HE reform and the resistance to it, as well as developing a wider understanding of contemporary social movements.In order to tease out the significance of Occupy Sussex, we deploy the concepts of 'conduct'and 'counter-conduct' as a framework through which some overlooked elements of resistance to HE reform can be disclosed. By capturing the 'messiness and complexity of contemporary politics', 3 a 'counter-conducts approach' 4 helps to serve a strategic function. Insofar as conduct and counter-conduct are mutually constitutive, these concepts may help identify ways in which attempts at conducting might therefore inadvertently generate conditions and subjectivities that make counter-conduct a possibility. Conversely, it also helps us trace how resistance might, ironically, be subsumed or appropriated in ways that reproduce t...

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“…As a commentator notes in a foreword to the pamphlet: "Quite untypical for a classic youth revolt, in the Occupation Cookbook one talks time and again of control, meaning first of all self-control: order, discipline, punctuality, systematicity, coordination, cleanliness" (Buden 2009, 14). Counter-conduct, we argue, captures the complex and messy relationships between governed and self-directed subjects, terms now possibly more accurate than the older perceptions of "dominating" and "dominated" subjects (Nişancıoğlu and Pal 2016). For example, there are notable coherences between student protest and management strategy, as both compete for the privilege of defining the form, content and purpose of higher education in ethical terms.…”

“…From 2012 onwards, as Parliament approved the fees' rise and the movement faced a sobering defeat, several more localized protests and direct actions irrupted, targeting their local colleges, universities and research institutions regarding local issues, while linking these to broader systemic neoliberal processes symbolized by the rise in fees. For example, and as we have argued elsewhere, "Occupy Sussex" was a particularly long and well supported occupation, which attracted global and mainstream media attention for over two months (Nişancıoğlu and Pal 2016). As part of a campaign against the University's senior management decision to outsource 235 members of service/professional staff, it was linked to a broader national wave of protests and occupations against privatization and other restructurings of the neoliberal university, influenced by academic and student critiques of the "University Factory" (The Edu- Counter-conduct offers a particularly compelling framework to understand the form of these protests as refusals of subjectivities and as acts of disobedience against being conducted as "consumer-students".…”

“…In other words, 4 Post-Fordist employment refers to the development of 'immaterial labour', a concept developed by autonomist Marxists in the 1970s (Virno and Hardt 1996) to note the shifts in late capitalist economies taking workers away from the industrial sector and more towards those of information, communication, culture, administration, education as well as affective and social care work. For a discussion of immaterial labour and counter-conduct in the context of higher education, see (Nişancıoğlu and Pal 2016). 5 See for example, the special issue Giving notice to employability (Chertkovskaya et al 2013 we must explore how students are trained to think as worker-citizens, for whom less successful workers --such as migrants, asylum seekers and people with disabilities --can thereby in turn be easily disqualified as subjects (not) worth caring for.…”

“…The specificity of counter-conduct as a concept illuminates the ways in which subjects are both incited by, and themselves the "vehicles" of, power (Foucault 1980). Moreover, counter-conduct need not entail a rejection of conduct but may emerge as critical reflections and attempts to co-govern, in the sense of remaking and redirecting the objectives, rationalities and techniques of governing, and this too is an important element of critical pedagogy (Odysseos 2016;Nişancıoğlu and Pal 2016). Counter-conducts are not necessarily oppositional to conduct in a dichotomous and unchanging sense; rather, Foucault illustrates how "pastoral conduct evolved, transformed and intensified in the midst of, and in response to, anxieties, concerns and resistances about its evolving operations and functions"; indeed, its continued development "emerges in a coconstitutive and circular fashion as both a response to, and resulting in, distinct counterconducts" (Odysseos 2016, 184).…”

“…In other words, student occupations and protests can be illuminated analytically as instances of counter-conduct (Nişancıoğlu and Pal 2016 (Bergfeld 2016;Ibrahim 2014). In the UK the rise of tuition fees from £3,000 to £9,000 saw a focused "cut tuition fees" national student movement in 2010-2011.…”