Working to Return to Employment: The Case of UK Social Science Contract Researchers

Contract researchers constitute a marginal occupational group within the UK higher education system, and they manifest a high degree of turnover, in terms of leaving employment and returning to it. This article, which is based on qualitative interviews, examines some of the informal work which social science contract researchers engage in as they attempt to return to employment within academia. First, by examining the vocabularies of motive held by researchers, the article depicts why individuals should make efforts to return to such a marginal occupation. Second, the article then depicts the various kinds of informal work which researchers engage in so as to raise their employment chances. These different kinds of work are portrayed at an interactional level and at the level of individual identity.