Emotional distance, detachment, compassion and care: The affective milieu of academic management in the neoliberal university

Based on interviews with Finnish deans, this study examines the affective milieu of academia. The neoliberalisation process in universities has strengthened centralised leadership and increased power managers. Simultaneously, market-driven competitive ethos deepened binary between ‘winners’ ‘losers’ at all levels academia, giving rise to an affectively tense atmosphere. Due their power, managers play a key role shaping By using affective-discursive approach, I analyse what kind emotions deans rely while constructing relation employees. This traces three management discourses: strong, paternalistic collegial. Together, these discourses orientations construct polarised milieu. On one hand, deans’ relationships employees embody gentleness, care compassion; other manifest inducement guilt, sternness, conventionality, distance detachment argue that current neoliberal academia leaves little space for demonstrate compassionate collegial management.