The political dimension of academic time

between narrating and deviating

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on the political dimension of university teaching time through autoethnographic narratives that challenge established ways of living and organizing time in academic work. It is understood that teaching time is permeated by neoliberal forces that operate through acceleration, the overlap between personal and work life, and individual accountability. The text is based on a path grounded in autoethnography as a methodological choice that allows the production of knowledge through involvement and lived experience. One of the results presented involved how narrating time – and deviating from certain norms – can be a way to resist and reinventing teaching. Moreover, it overlaps with the emergence of temporal gaps that open when one chooses to slow down, to refuse certain imposed urgencies, and to value times of listening, care, and effective presence. Thus, we bet on the political power of narrating and deviating as ethical-political gestures of reconfiguring academic time.