This document summarizes Katherine Quinn's MA thesis on resisting neoliberalism in UK higher education and libraries. The thesis used Gramscian theory to examine processes of neoliberalization in HE and libraries. It analyzed methods of resistance through the Radical Librarians Collective. Ethnographic research included interviews and observation of a RLC gathering. Key findings were the need for activist librarianship to critique neoliberalism in academia, networks like RLC extending pre-existing solidarities, and the importance of counter-hegemonic claims being self-critical and open.

1. Resisting neoliberalism: The challenge of activist
librarianship in the UK HE Context
Katherine Quinn – Sociology department, University of Warwick
MA Librarianship undertaken University of Sheffield, 2014
Supervised by Dr Jo Bates

2. Resisting neoliberalism: The gist
1.Rationale and aim
2.Definitional work
3.Gramsci
4.Ethnography
5.Findings

3. Rationale and aim
• Aim: to assess the possibility of developing a radical democratic
alternative to neoliberalism in LIS research and practice. Within this
broad aim my objectives include:
1. to examine processes of neoliberalisation in HE and LIS
2. to analyse methods of resistance through Radical Librarians
Collective
3. to examine the possibilities for developing radical democratic LIS

4. Resisting neoliberalism: Definitional work
Neoliberalism:
- Big ‘N’ Neoliberalism (Hayek, von Mises etc), ‘processes of
neoliberalisation’ (Peck, 2013), and/or neoliberal subjectivities (Gill,
2010)?
- Wendy Brown (2015) “governing rationality”
- Human capital, competition, markets

5. Analysis: Antonio Gramsci – 1891-1937
• To illuminate instances, disruptions,
nuances of neoliberalism and its
contestations within my empirical
fieldwork
• Hegemony, politics, ‘Common Sense’,
praxis, organic intellectuals
Sebastian Barlyi, Flickr CC 2.0

6. Methodology
• Ethnography, reflexive, poststructural feminist
• Experiences as MA student, participant in Radical Librarians Collective
• Observation of RLC gathering, London, 2014
• Interviews with:
- Library managers – (current or former)
- LIS academics
- Library workers/researchers who identify as ‘radical’/critical
• Thematic analysis with Gramscian framework

7. 1) Do we need activist librarianship?
Critique of the Academic LIS in UK HE
- Competition, ‘the business analogy’ (Collini, 2012)
- Neoliberal common sense ‘words make worlds’
- Spaces for solidarity, existence of counter-hegemonic –
CritLis, academic/public

8. Part 2: Radical Librarian Collective: Alternative
practices of library work
-‘The root’ of RLC
-The gathering: prefigurative action/Praxis
-Practices of radical library work
• Library workers groups as ‘CPD’
• ‘guerrilla collection development’
• Every-day interactions
• Info on software, privacy etc
• Meeting as local and national group

9. Part 3. The future development of activist
Librarianship
• Agonism, critical self-reflection
• Challenge of organisation, facilitation, and horozontilism in practice
(see Freeman, 1971)
• Learning from others – building connections with other groups,
getting training, enhancing network.
• Outward facing work
• Update since 2014

10. Conclusions…
• Need for ‘activist librarianship’ but also uncovering
and extending of pre-existing solidarities
• Networks like RLC can extend this
• Counter-hegemonic claims and action need to be self
critical and open

11. Thanks! Questions?
@katherinebquinn
k.quinn.1@warwick.ac.uk

12. Concise(ish) bibliography
• Brown (2015). Undoing the demos: Neoliberal’s stealth revolution.
Cambridge MA: MIT Press
• Collini, S (2012). What are Universities for? London: Penguin Books
• Freeman, Jo. (1972). “The tyranny of structurelessness”. The Second
Wave (2). retrieved
from:http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm 01/04/2014
• Gill, R. (2010). Breaking the silence: the hidden injuries of the
neoliberal university. In R. Gill & R. Ryan-Flood (Eds.), Secrecy and
silence in the research process: feminist reflections (pp. 228–244).
London: Routledge.
• Peck, J (2013). Constructions of neoliberal reason. Oxford: OUP

13. Cont.
• Forgacs, D. (Ed.). (2000). The Antonio Gramsci Reader. Selected writings 1916-1935. New York:
New York University Press.
• Freeman, Jo. (1972). “The tyranny of structurelessness”. The Second Wave (2). retrieved
from:http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm 01/04/2014
• Gill, R. (2010). Breaking the silence: the hidden injuries of the neoliberal university. In R. Gill & R.
Ryan-Flood (Eds.), Secrecy and silence in the research process: feminist reflections (pp. 228–244).
London: Routledge.
• Hall, S. (2011). The Neo-Liberal Revolution. Cultural Studies, 25(6), 705–728.
doi:10.1080/09502386.2011.619886
• Honig, B & Pearce, N. (2013) The optimistic agonist: An interview with Bonnie Honig. Open
Democracy. Retrieved from: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/nick-pearce-bonnie-
honig/optimistic-agonistinterview-with-bonnie-honig
• Johnson, I. M. (2011). Bibliometrics and the brain dead. Information Development, 27(2), 92–93.
doi:10.1177/0266666911404012
• Massey, D. (2013). Vocabularies of the economy. Soundings, 54(54), 9–22.
doi:10.3898/136266213807299023
• Morrone, M (ed). (2014) Informed Agitation: Library and Instruction Skills in Social Justice
Movements and beyond. Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press