Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 11:06:26 +0100
From: Carsten Sestoft <sestoft-AT-hum.ku.dk>
Subject: Re: Crucial Questions on Life..Little at stake? eating?


Kent Strock wrote:

>Thom,
>While I ideally agree with you and wish it were more possible, but there is
>much at stake. At the risk of sounding melodramatic or stating the obvious,
>the political economy of academic production and its abuse of grad students
>does bring stakes into play. As universities accept more and more cheap
>labor (grad students) to teach classes for profs and also must given the
>growth of the productivity of the mode of production (computers) fewer jobs
>are availaible for new Phds.  As of 4 years ago only 1 of 4 new Phds in
>Anthropology were able to find positions capable of sustaining a life. The
>accumulation of 3 of 4 grad students every year does make it neccessary that
>we try to accumulate sympolic capital, which in an increasingly capitalized
>univerisity system,less concerned with the Soc sciences or liberalarts,
>requires more extreme interchanges and systems of distinction-independent of
>the intentions or desires of the players.  I know far too many very
>intelligent, cutting edge phd students have given up looking for a job
>because their thought has pushed their thought beyond the traditional
>academic structure still controlled by older white males with the power to
>determine discourse.

This is an interesting issue which concerns many of the list members, I
presume (at least me!): what happens to the surplus production of Ph.D.s,
seen from a collective and from an individual perspective? In Denmark
(where there are only state universities) the policy in the nineties has
been to produce many more Ph.D.s than before, in order to have a number of
applicants for tenure and tenure track positions to choose between. Which
means that a number of these Ph.D.s must be superfluous, and, since they
are often in their thirties due to the difficulties getting a Ph.D. grant,
they also most often too old to enter the extra-university job market.
Comparable problems exist in France (see an article in Bourdieu's Actes de
la recherche en sciences sociales, in the issue on "Nouvelles formes de
domination dans le travail" a few years ago) and in Germany where they are
sometimes even worse because of the extraordinary length of the career
neccessary to get a tenured position. -- Does any list members have ideas
on what to do in this situation, other than getting depressed to a smaller
or greater extent?
hopes for the future!
Carsten Sestoft
University of Copenhagen


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