The risks of precarity: How employment insecurity impacts on early career researchers in Australia

This chapter explores how precarious academics experience and conceive of risks in and to their research, drawing on fieldwork at three Australian universities. Focusing on humanities, arts, and social sciences scholars, I examine the practical and methodological limitations that employment precarity places on early career researchers in these fields, encouraging short-term research that is then often critiqued for failing to meet disciplinary ideals. Moreover, the rise of postdoctoral positions on large, applied projects means that researchers frequently work beyond their interests and expertise. I further point to issues with undertaking “risky” research as a precarious academic, as interviewees talked of being advised to avoid certain kinds of projects. The increasing number of precarious researchers, and lengthening period during which researchers remain precarious, means this has a profound impact on research. Overall, this chapter examines precarity in relation to both emerging risks to early career researchers’ careers and to research itself.