Gender and Sociology University Audit Cultures Feminist Praxis

Drawing on an unprecedented institutional ethnography of UK universities, this book uses feminist and gender lenses to critique the power, culture and structure of Higher Education institutions. Challenging the myths of how academia is governed by audit processes, it provides an opportunity to re-read and re-write these institutions from within. Being ‘REF-able’. The impact agenda. The student experience. University audit culture has infiltrated academic life, but how should we respond? Drawing on a five-year Institutional Ethnography of UK universities, the author provides a feminist take on the neoliberal university and abolitionist reflections on audit culture. For feminist and other critical academics, the interpretative power involved in audit processes provides an opportunity to collectively challenge and subvert, re-read and re-write institutions. This book challenges the myths and misinterpretations around how academic audit processes work, arguing that if we are complicit then we have agency to do them differently.