Workplace Restructuring and its Discontents

Abstract

This article analyses the role of fetish—unspoken attachments—within and against the 2020 proposal to restructure the College of Sciences at Massey University.I look at the roles played by three forms of fetish: the commodity fetish, the fetishisation of intellectual labour, and the fetish of knowledge-without-consequences. I analyse the restructuring and its opposition by mapping these fetishes and the deadlocks to which they lead. In addition to highlighting insights that the concept of fetish generates into the politics of the restructuring, I speculate on the role of fetish as a political factor in the contemporary moment.