Academy of the Oppressed

This chapter acts as an introduction to the book, where it sits in the current literature, why it contributes something new and why that contribution is important to the field. In some respects, the introduction acts as a literature review which allows the book to both build on and augment current thinking. The primary function of the introduction will be to highlight that this book removes itself from ideological aspirations of returning to a university governed by and for scholars and instead highlights the dangers of managerialism, how Freire helps highlight those dangers and subsequently what a realistic path forward might be to minimise the damage of several decades of the neoliberal university.

This chapter highlights Freire's history and ideologies allow the text to act as in introduction work for those interested in looking at education from a Freireian perspective, and as such it also helps pull together the many aspects of Freire's life and ideas. These points are important because a lot of existing texts and journal articles tend to view Freire from very distinctive perspectives. For example, far and away his most popular text is Pedagogy of the Oppressed, but this chapter explores what he wrote about in the 20 other books and dozens of journal articles he wrote. Freire wrote about oppression in education, but also in government, by race and language, and throughout these explorations is a myriad idea about how oppression works, and why the oppressed let themselves be controlled by a minority. Highlighting these facts is a key starting point to the book.

This chapter provides an overview of Freire's primary approach to how governments control people, why governments dictate what is being taught and why they seek out control over educators. This chapter investigates the similarities Freire found between the most oppressive governments and dictatorships that rules by violence, to how our educational institutions are controlled. The stakes might be entirely different in these scenarios, but he knew the ultimate objective in all these situations was to remove power from the people, give it to a powerful few and ensure the people would never be able to regain control once more. These ideas and suggestions are key moving forward because it provides a baseline to understand how Freire thought about manipulative behaviours, and why tactics used in extremely violent situations can essentially be watered down and used to control people in universities in much the same way.

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight how universities got into the predicament in which they currently find themselves in, or somewhat planned to be in, in the 2020s. The historical account outlines the purpose of higher education and who it was for throughout the last few centuries, before a more in-depth analysis of the last few decades will highlight how, and why, neoliberal and subsequently managerial aspects of leadership and performance metrics crept into universities before an analysis of the last 5–10 years, including the onset and consequences of COVID, will demonstrate that many ‘COVID recovery plans’ around staff cuts and course reforms were already in place before COVID, but it was COVID that allowed these plans in most cases to be escalated.

This chapter is focused on what we can learn from oppressive governance, in this case specifically relating to university governance in terms of vice chancellors and presidents, to the deputy vice chancellor and deputy president and down the ever-growing university hierarchy to deans and heads of schools and their deputies, from a Freirean perspective. Freire wrote at length about how leaders ‘controlled’ education and why they did so, but he also wrote at length about how governments control populations – himself being both a political prisoner and a person in exile to escape persecution. This chapter subsequently examines Freire's ideas around what techniques people employ to control populations and applies them to a higher education setting because the similarities are numerous and the tactics familiar.

This chapter analyses the other aspect of an oppressor/oppressed relationship by looking at what happens to the oppressed, in this case, the academics and staff not in leadership roles. This chapter looks at why the tactics leaders employ work, and why people do not retaliate, and what systems have been put in place to prevent the people from having any consequential power. This chapter thus looks at how the power of the majority in the academy has been slowly eroded by managerial promises of empowerment, self-governance or having an opinion on the institution's direction when in reality, they have no opinion, and the only decisions they can make are inconsequential. This is why time and time again, we see universities restructure, remove non-profitable courses and increase targets to unrealistic levels to maintain power over the majority.

The final chapter examines Freire's numerous views on why people do not free themselves from the ruling majority, or at least, why they cannot free themselves. This chapter subsequently examines the problem with people taking stands and fighting for their rights, even when they are morally and ethically in the correct position. Freire knew no victory came without consequences and risks, and for many, the threat of these consequences is what prevents them from taking a stand. However, this chapter also examines how universities built their power over several decades, while at the same time making sure the opportunities to face consequences for these actions were also being diminished by placing the wider academy in difficult positions, they would be unlikely to ever get out of, without the academy knowing they were being maneuvered into an untenable position.

This chapter pulls the book together with two primary functions which are (a) to highlight what the book has provided that others have not by applying Freire's ideas around education and governance to a higher education setting and (b) to reiterate what we, as the academy, can do moving forward. The university is no longer an entity separate from society and business; it is part of society and business and will for the foreseeable future be held to metric and financial accountabilities. These scenarios have shaped leadership in a clear and predictable way, and in the conclusion, readers will be reminded of what options they have available to them to change the academy because we cannot change it; we have to work within it in new ways if we are to regain some power.