Multiple binds and forbidden pleasures: Writing as poaching at French universities

Abstract

Our contribution aims at providing a return on experience by describing and theorizing the tactics we developed to poach time, space, and resources in order to write. A series of neoliberal measures in French higher education during the last 20 years shape the context, and have consequences for the political and material economies of scholarly writing. We use de Certeau's concept of poaching, because the strategies that our institutions deploy exert immense pressure on our ordinary scholarly life. Consequently, writing economies have to resort to poaching tactics. We present some of the devices and fixes we have developed in this regard in terms of our teaching, supervision, and research activities.