Tra passione e sopravvivenza. Prospettive, condizioni e aspettative dei lavoratori della conoscenza negli atenei italiani

In the past fifteen years, radical normative changes (Laws 230/2005 and 240/2010) and cuts to university and research budgets have generated a reduction of the already limited “entrance gates” to academic careers. These difficulties in the path towards stabilisation have produced a high number of precarious researchers and academics, who fight to have a remunerated position in the academia, despite bad working conditions and the constant treat of expulsion from the academic system. Notwithstanding such difficulties, precarious researchers have kept attending to their jobs with devotion and continued to build up strategies and practices of resistance. Starting from the data collected during the survey “Ricercarsi” the aim of this paper is to focus on the life and working conditions of these heterogeneous aggregation of academic and knowledge workers. The main part of the present work will be strictly analytical; a section will be devoted to analyse the methodology, focusing on the participation and activation aspects related to the survey, that was meant to go beyond strictly “sampling” criteria, concentrating more on the reflexivity of the subjects.