Precarity in Higher Education? Strategies to avoid perceiving it as a crisis

We think of crises as objectively defined events. However, the interests of the power holders incline them to define some situations and not others as crises. In this chapter, we suggest that crises are socially constructed, focusing on precarity in the higher education system in Ireland and Portugal. The concepts of uberisation, probationary/transitional academic citizenship and academic non-citizenship are used to explore variation in the forms of precarity while the gendering of HEIs is also explored. These two countries have many similarities although their career structure varies. Based on analysis of legal documents and official statistics relating to higher education, the chapter identifies strategies HEIs use to avoid defining precarity as a crisis: Statistical Vagueness; Strategic Obfuscation; Deviant Practices; Normalisation; and Individual Responsibilisation. The reasons for the reluctance to identify precarity as a crisis are explored as well as its gendered consequences.