The dispossessed: gendered challenges of postcolonial and neoliberal academia in Central and Eastern Europe

Purpose This study examines how women academics on business and management faculties in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) narrate their professional experiences of intersecting neoliberal and postcolonial pressures. It focuses on how they make sense of market-driven logics and Western-dominated standards, and how these are narrated as (re)producing gendered marginalisation within their institutions. Rather than mapping the whole of “CEE academia”, the article offers a situated, narrative-based account of how these conditions are experienced and articulated by women on faculties of business and management. Design/methodology/approach The research draws on 53 narrative interviews with women faculty members in business schools and management across several CEE countries. It adopts a feminist, interpretive approach and applies a “writing differently” methodology to foreground situated lived experience rather than to offer statistically generalisable claims. Findings Women academics in CEE describe what I conceptualise as academic dispossession: the material (workload, resources), symbolic (recognition, status) and epistemic (valuation of knowledge) marginalisation of their labour and contributions. Neoliberal performance metrics prioritise narrowly defined research outputs while undervaluing teaching and service. Postcolonial legacies reinforce epistemic hierarchies that devalue local knowledge and non-Anglophone voices. In the narratives, these forces intersect to constrain research possibilities, recognition and career progression. Research limitations/implications This regionally focused and qualitative study contributes conceptual insights that can inform future research across other “peripheral” academic systems. Further comparative or longitudinal studies are recommended to deepen the understanding of systemic inequalities. Social implications The findings emphasise the need for structural reforms that challenge both metric-driven governance and epistemic colonialism. Supporting alternative evaluative systems and feminist academic cultures may foster greater equity and inclusion in CEE higher education. Originality/value This paper develops the concept of academic dispossession as a three-dimensional (material, symbolic and epistemic) framework for capturing the compounded effects of neoliberalism and postcolonialism on women academics in CEE business schools. It contributes to critical organisational studies by theorising how global academic regimes marginalise scholars in “peripheral” regions and by applying a postcolonial and regionally grounded perspective to Acker's (1990) theory of gendered organisations.