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First-generation college students in the United States are a unique demographic that is often characterized by the institutions that serve them with a risk-laden and deficit-based model. However, our analysis of the transcripts of open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 22 “first-gen” respondents suggests they are actively deft, agentic, self-determining parties to processes of identity construction that are both externally imposed and potentially stigmatizing, as well as exemplars of survivance and determination. We deploy a grounded theory approach to an open-coding process, modeled after the extended case method, while viewing our data through a novel synthesis of the dual theoretical lenses of structural and radical/structural symbolic interactionism and intersectional/standpoint feminist traditions, in order to reveal the complex, unfolding, active strategies students used to make sense of their obstacles, successes, co-created identities, and distinctive institutional encounters. We find that contrary to the dictates of prevailing paradigms, identity-building among first-gens is an incremental and bidirectional process through which students actively perceive and engage existing power structures to persist and even thrive amid incredibly trying, challenging, distressing, and even traumatic circumstances. Our findings suggest that successful institutional interventional strategies designed to serve this functionally unique student population (and particularly those tailored to the COVID-moment) would do well to listen deeply to their voices, consider the secondary consequences of “protectionary” policies as potentially more harmful than helpful, and fundamentally, to reexamine the presumption that such students present just institutional risk and vulnerability, but also present a valuable addition to university environments, due to the unique perspective and broader scale of vision their experiences afford them.

This performance autoethnography may or may not be interpreted as a continuation of a conversation regarding the experiences of those with devalued statuses in academic settings. The authors rely on “strange accounting” to consider their experiences in the academy from various standpoints: before and after promotion, before and after leaving academia. While reflecting on our past experiences, we introduce the concept of “everyday precariousness” as a way of explaining the normalization of instability, insecurity, and negative affect that is part of everyday life for those with devalued statuses in academic settings and beyond. Everyday precariousness is an embodied experience for those in vulnerable positions. Normalized exposure to risks, such as discrimination, harassment, bullying, or structural instability, produces an undercurrent of threat that permeates academic culture. Our stories of everyday precariousness span race, ethnicity, class, academic roles, and gender boundaries (among many others). Analyzing these experiences furthers previous work on the uses of strange accounting as well as the dynamics of status silencing. In the final analysis, unresisted and unabated, everyday precariousness and status silencing can lead to institutional failure and resonance disasters.

The experiences and challenges encountered by Travellers especially in education is something that I am truly passionate about and want to give others a better insight into. Irish Travellers are defined by the Irish Traveller Movement as a historically recognised minority within Irish society. The group is distinct because of a strong history of sharing an identity, a language and a set of values (Irish Traveller Movement, 2019). In Ireland, there are approximately 31,000 Travellers (Central Statistics Office, 2023). Irish Travellers are a minority ethnic group that experiences discrimination and marginalisation in society (Boyle et al., 2020). According to a large body of evidence, Travellers stand out as a population that is disproportionately disadvantaged in terms of work, housing, health and education (Baker, 2021). One aspect of Irish Travellers' inequality is their educational disadvantage. The hope is for this chapter to make others more knowledgeable on these types of areas so that it can lead to more positive outcomes for Travellers.

In writing this article,¹ I have been guided by the questions of by what means the Xambioá deal with commerce and how it makes sense, and what part it plays in their attribution of meaning to the world. I attempt to demonstrate that the use of money, and internal commerce, among the Xambioá are not historical accidents. Money and merchandise are the objects of tireless experiences by the Xambioá. They appropriate meaningfully these allogenic elements and make them circulate in their own way. I suggest that the appropriation of a signifying element like money occurred not only because of its utility but because it is a highly meaningful element. People and things are introduced and are signified according to native logic.