The ‘Work-Work Balance’ in higher education: between over-work, falling short and the pleasures of multiplicity
基于2017-2018年对北欧三国数字人文从业者的访谈，提出“工作-工作平衡”概念，指学者在多重工作需求间的冲突与失衡，揭示高等教育工作者难以满足所有要求，呼吁高校和资助机构关注此问题。
The neoliberalization of higher education in western countries has led to work intensification, projectification, and work-life balance issues for academics. This article draws on interviews with Digital Humanities practitioners in higher education conducted in 2017-2018 in three Nordic countries to introduce the concept of the 'work-work balance', an under-researched phenomenon in contemporary academe. The term 'work-work balance' refers to the ways in which workers in higher education seek to balance conflicting concurrent work demands made on them. Four such work scenarios emerged from the data: the 50/50 split across different jobs; working across multiple projects simultaneously; occupying multiple functional roles; and conflicting demands within one job. The article argues that work-work balance, or rather imbalance, issues result in the inability of higher education workers to meet the demands put upon them. This raises questions regarding the role of HEIs and research funding regimes in the generation and maintenance of work-work balance scenarios and suggests that work-work balance issues need to be researched further as well as requiring urgent attention from HEIs and research funders.