Hope in Finnish Academia

This article scrutinises how hope becomes expressed and felt in the online encounters of researchers in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in Finnish universities. Universities are currently driven by a neoliberal ideology that promotes competitiveness, individualism and economies of scale. Academic work is audited in a way that makes academics work more and yet feel unfit for academia. What kinds of changes are scholars hoping for in the current climate of Higher Education, and is hope a way to achieve change? This article shows that hope in academia is attached to sense of community and to broadening the image of the ideal researcher. Hope is in small, good deeds, in accepting mediocrity and all kinds of emotions and in challenging the neoliberal idea of winners and losers. The change is possible, and this article is written for all of us to continue a collective resistance towards the corporate influence upon scholarship.