Editorial

This special issue grapples with the complex lived experiences of postdocs in higher education sectors in three countries.Bringing together scholarly work from South Africa, China, and Germany, the articles deal with issues of employment precarity, casualisation, employment insecurity, systemic gender barriers, policy gaps, and the invisible (and invisibilised) role that postdocs play in the academy.The authors build upon and contribute to a growing body of literature that justifiably laments the role that precarity, successive postdoc positions, existential instability, crude forms of exploitation, and lack of recognition play in shaping the postdoc experience in higher education.As scholars in the margins, postdocs' experiences include mental health issues, institutional abuse, academic labour exploitation and extraction, and xenophobic violence against "foreign" postdocs.control, the copyeditor, Unisa Press's project editor, and the editor-in-chief for working with us on this timely special issue that we believe represents a crucial step towards improving the lives of postdocs globally.