Last day
It is my last day at the Finnish university. My resignation is an act of activism, of non-compliance with violence in academia. I hope that the organisational culture will change eventually, but I believe that it will take a collective action. Some principles of organising that I found detrimental are: an impossibility to change one's line manager, harassment contact persons refusing to get involved, powerful hierarchies, decisions made behind closed doors, silencing, seeing violent language as appropriate and highly questionable behaviour as acceptable. I received many supportive messages from my former colleagues, and this gives me hope that change may manifest itself. In Finland, one doesn't need to give a reason for their resignation. In fact, "voluntary resignation" is the only option that was appropriate in the system. I feel that it conceals the story behind the unfolding of events. Sometimes humans feel obliged or forced to resign for political and moral reasons. My reason is that I will not work in a violent space where my research interests are not facilitated (I was not part of any project and thus should have had the freedom to do my own research) and where I feel exploited and disempowered. It goes without saying that no one should work in a violent space. But oftentimes humans do due to various circumstances such as a residence permit or financial obligations. Like most of my fellow humans, I have financial obligations too, but my mental health is more important to me than money. UBI is a policy I support, as it would give humans in similar positions power to resign and a real possibility to preserve their mental health. I will lose my Finnish residence permit (I am a British citizen), but now I have a Danish one. Getting a Danish residence permit required much planning and help and was expensive.
I was very fortunate to receive invitations from universities in my area to visit them. This means I would still have access to university IT systems, library and exchange with my fellow humans in academia. With UBI, this would perhaps be an ideal setting, to research and teach freely in the spaces that are safe and nurturing. Within the context of formal employment, much depends on one's manager and organisational policies. For example, in Sweden, my manager was a kind, caring and empathetic human being.
From my experience at the Finnish university I learned many things about the system and myself. For a while, for some reason I was hesitating to apply my own research to the organisations I was working for. Perhaps this is because they are very different. I work for large, public organisations, while the businesses I research are small and privately owned. But essentially the same insights apply. I believe that humans want to feel autonomy, fairness. They want to be in a safe space, not be subjected to harassment and exploitation. Many small business owners value their independence and the possibility to pursue their passion. I learned that I will never work in an unsafe environment. Though this decision came at a large financial and psychological cost, I believe this is the right decision. Whenever I talk to my fellow humans in academia in the departments I would consider working for or hope to work with, my main question to them is what it feels like to work there.