Building a community of enquiry
Charivari Institute is a learning community where ideas are explored collectively and knowledge is developed through discussion and debate. To support our vision of learning as a lifelong collective practice, we are building a learning community of scholars committed to nurturing critical social inquiry outside the academy, as well as networking, collaboration, mentoring and scholarship support.
The devaluation of the humanities and social sciences in Australian universities, combined with the rise of precarious academic employment, has weakened the institutional communities that once supported intellectual exchange, collaboration and mentorship. Early-career scholars have been particularly frustrated in their vocational and intellectual development, as universities deprive them of both research support and the vocational fulfillment that comes from enduring collaborations with colleagues. Instead, the teaching is increasingly restricted and ‘shadow KPIs’ (or metrics) dominate the work.
Precarious employment has become part of the corporate university’s business model. Casual workers, who perform most of the teaching, but lack job protection, are usually the first to ‘walk the plank’ during the cyclical downturns and restructures. In more recent times, even those academics with ongoing contracts have lost their jobs and incomes. Regular restructures and redundancies shrink our faculties and make entire programs of research and teaching disappear. Overall, there is less scope for social scientists to teach and research for a better world, let alone build secure vocations. The academic freedom of those who remain in universities is often sacrificed at the altar of utilitarianism: the pressure to demonstrate the economic and vocational relevance of our work erodes critical scholarship. See more in Our Mission.
Charivari aims to be a hub to counter this corporate takeover of our disciplines. It provides a space for academics and thinkers to maintain an institutional anchorage for their work. It aims to be an intellectual home where emerging and established scholars can build relationships, collaborate, receive mentorship and share ideas beyond the constraints of the university. It nurtures independent scholarship while creating opportunities for scholarly ideas to reach people beyond the academy, circulating through public education and cultural life.
Join Us
We aim to build this community through an annual subscription membership model. Membership is open to academics from all career stages, as well as students and general public who are curious to explore big ideas in our events and courses. See more about membership options.
