Activismo na "Academia sem Paredes": (Im)possibilidades de Intervenção Política em Tempos de Performatividade e Precariedade (Activism in the "Academia Without Walls": the (Im)possibilities of Political Intervention in Performative and Precarious Times)

Over the past decade we have witnessed profound transformations of the models of organisation and evaluation of academic work in Portugal and elsewhere. These transformations have included processes of extensification, elasticisation and casualisation of scientific and academic labour, as well as an expanding institutionalisation of regimes of performativity supported by structures of measurement and auditing. These interacting trends are having significant impacts not only on working conditions in academia, but also on our projects and opportunities for social and political intervention outside the academy. In this article, I analyse the possibilities and impossibilities of articulation of activism and academic work which have been generated by these transformations. I argue than in the contemporary “academia without walls” this articulation can be extremely difficult, but I propose that we cease to conceptualise that difficulty as an individual challenge, and instead reframe and denounce it as a structural problem that requires – urgently – a collective response.