Para-Academic Handbook

Frustrated by the lack of opportunities to research, create learning experiences or make a basic living within the university on our own terms, para-academics don't seek out alternative careers in the face of an evaporated future; we just continue to do what we've always done: write, research, learn, think and facilitate that process for others. As the para-academic community grows, there is a real need to build supportive networks, share knowledge, ideas and strategies that can allow these types of interventions to become sustainable and flourish. There is a very real need to create spaces of solace, action and creativity.Para-academics mimic academic practices so they are liberated from the confines of the university. Our work, and our lives, reflect how the idea of a university as a place for knowledge production, discussion and learning, has become distorted by neo-liberal market forces.We create alternative, genuinely open access, learning-thinking-making-acting spaces on the internet, in publications, in exhibitions, discussion groups or through other mediums that seem appropriate to the situation. We don t sit back and worry about our career developments paths. We write for the love of it; we think because we have to; we do it because we care.