A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W - Affirming humanity - Ann Lawless

Oct 15, 2026

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General/professional staff are portrayed as activists within Australian universities, occupying a distinct yet often undervalued place in higher education labour. The study presents a case study of activism undertaken by “Rosemary,” identifying features of activism in the academy. It addresses how scholarship and activism research have rarely examined this group, despite their diverse roles, limited career mobility, and overlapping professional practices. The paper frames activism through political orientation toward progressive social justice and change.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Roles and status of general/professional staff

Scholarship gaps and literature overview

Defining activism and progressive social justice

Purpose and scope of the article

A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W Affirming humanity A case study of the activism of general/professional staff in the academy Ann Lawless General/professional staff are activists in Australian universities. Their activism has seldom been researched in scholarly approaches in higher education studies nor in activism studies. General/professional staff occupy a unique place in the labour force of higher education, and may work in a wide range of professions and trades. A case study of activism undertaken by ‘Rosemary’ is presented. A number of features of activism in the academy are revealed in the case study. Keywords: general/professional staff, activism, case study, Habermas, critical theory Introduction General/professional staff in universities perform a very wide range of functions, roles and duties in the academy and are accorded different, usually lower, status in the university workforce to that of academics. They may work as gardeners, security staff, cleaners, catering staff and as semi-skilled and unskilled labourers. They are often women and have career mobility limited by the industrial conditions in which they work e.g. promotion is not available to them as it is to academics. They are also known as non-academics although some act in roles that have overlap with research, teaching and community engagement and thus with academic labour but without its status. In this space, they are sometimes referred to as ‘third-space professionals’(Whitchurch 2013) in the academy. They may be librarians, lawyers, laboratory technicians, counsellors, information technologists, architects or accountants. They may be members of professions,subscribe to professional codes of practice,be published in eminent academic journals,hold postgraduate qualifications and engaged with careers, not just jobs in the academy. In practice, the dualism in the university workforce – between academics and non-academics – is disintegrating because of professional practice overlapsand other nuances, as noted by Macfarlane (2015) but 50 Affirming humanity Ann Lawless the rhetoric of a binary division among the workforce persists in scholarly literature. Macfarlane has described it as ‘one of the most disrespectful of othering dualisms’(Macfarlane 2015, p. 107), warning higher education researchers of the dangers in this and other dualisms such as obscuring the complexities of the situations studied, missing nuances, neglecting the political agenda that drives dualisms, and masking a continuum of experiences. The terms used to describe their role differs in national settings, showing a persistence of local and national effects in higher education: for example, in New Zealand they are often referred to as allied staff (Wohlmuther, 2008).What little scholarly literature there is, is dominated by a small number of authors such as Maree Conway, Ian Dobson, Judy Szekeres, Joan Eveline and Michael Booth in Australia, Sue Wohlmuther in New Zealand and Celia Whitchurch in the United Kingdom. The focus of these researchers has largely been on senior administrators, managers and other senior level functions:those with high status (by virtue of higher salaries and influence) in the university workforce. However, Eveline and Booth (2004) conducted a feminist poststructural analysis of juniorlevel staff who work in the ‘ivory basement’(occupying lower level positions in an Australian university) where‘administrative, emotional and relationship work’ (2004, p. 244) is performed; and Crawford and Tonkinson (1988, vol. 59, no. 2, 2017 A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W 35) interviewed a university cleaner as part of a study of the history of women at the University of Western Australia. Non-scholarly literature, grey literature, on general/professional staff can be found in Australian trade union publications and websites but it can be regarded as further evidence of a different class of work allott

FAQs

What is the focus of the case study in this article?

The article presents a case study of activism undertaken by “Rosemary” and uses it to reveal features of activism in the academy.

How does the article describe the position of general/professional staff in universities?

It emphasizes that general/professional staff perform wide-ranging functions but are usually accorded lower status than academics, with career mobility constrained by industrial conditions.

How does the article define activism for its purposes?

Activism is described as a political orientation favouring progressive understandings of social justice and social change, positioned as emancipatory and oppositional to conservative and reactionary perspectives.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Ben