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Book part
Publication date: 30 April 2024

John C. Pruit, Carol Rambo and Amanda G. Pruit

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…

Abstract

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.

Details

Symbolic Interaction and Inequality
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-689-8

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 July 2023

Jerome Carson

This paper aims to provide a living tribute to the leading autoethnographer, Alec Grant.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to provide a living tribute to the leading autoethnographer, Alec Grant.

Design/methodology/approach

Alec provided Jerome with a list of names of people he might approach to write a tribute on his behalf.

Findings

The accounts describe the influence that Alec has had both as an educator and as a trusted colleague for the people approached.

Research limitations/implications

While this is a living tribute, it is about one man and could, therefore, be described as a case study. Some people wonder what can be learned from a single case study. Read on and find out.

Practical implications

Alec has carved out a path for himself. In many senses, he chose “The Road Less Travelled”. He has never shied away from challenging “The System” and defending the rights of the marginalized and socially excluded. It is not a road for the faint-hearted.

Social implications

For systems to change, radical thinkers need to show the way. “Change keeps us safe” (Stuart Bell).

Originality/value

Alec was a well-known and highly respected cognitive behavioural academic practitioner and the author of key textbooks in the field. He then decided to reinvent himself as an autoethnographer. This has brought him into contact with a much more diverse group of people. It has also brought him home to himself.

Details

Mental Health and Social Inclusion, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-8308

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Article
Publication date: 3 January 2024

Cydney Y. Caradonna

It is critical for those who are engaged in the work of resisting the movement of academically restrictive policy to understand that it is a deliberate act on the part of…

Abstract

Purpose

It is critical for those who are engaged in the work of resisting the movement of academically restrictive policy to understand that it is a deliberate act on the part of conservatives to outlaw critical race theory (CRT) specifically, because it is a theoretical mechanism for discrediting the rhetorical foundations of their policy movement. The knee-jerk institutional courses of action to now defund initiatives and curriculum related equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) represent what has always been a deeply rooted investment in white supremacy on the part of the institutions (Baldwin, 2021; Patel, 2021; Squire, 2021).

Design/methodology/approach

The author explores and defines the CRT tenets of interest convergence (Bell, 1980) and whiteness as property (Harris, 1993) in relation to EI (Fricker, 2007; Dotson, 2011) as frameworks for examining three EGOs in the region where these policies have become most dominant. All three are critical tools of analysis for understanding the stake the White conservative political elite have in EGOs, and the magnitude of EI these policies represent, and stand endorse in their rhetoric. Definitions of EI often rely on the work of Amanda Fricker’s (2013) text on the subject, but this paper is invested in the expansions of this theorization for speaking to the nature of the injustice that EGOs represent as a matter of historical trend, with grave implications for futures marked by continued oppression. Whiteness as property and interest convergence are points for explicating the dialectic and material aspects of issues of race and equity in this country; namely, how knowledge processes inherent to higher education sound even more alarms as EGOs become commonplace for college campuses.

Findings

To support the arguments laid out, the author provides a historical review of the settler-colonial foundations of higher education as an american institution. This is meant to provide contour to the image of postsecondary education that exists today. In accordance with this paper’s allegiance to CRT, many of the texts would be considered revisionist history (Delgado and Stefancic, 2023), which stray from dominant narratives of american comfort and speak more accurately to the experiences of minoritized populations. The author then applies the same analysis to the sociopolitical contexts of EGOs, and to policy language itself. Each section is closed with an explanation of its connection to tenets of CRT and EI so as to provide a thread to follow into the subsequent discussion section.

Research limitations/implications

In the first presentation of the early writings of this work, the author was lucky enough to be in community with Barbara Applebaum at the annual meeting for the American Educational Studies Association and engage in discourse surrounding EI and CRT applications to EGOs. In conversations surrounding the will in the willful ignorance that is exemplified in the movement of EGOs, the author had shared with Dr Applebaum the early thinking on how that will was the same force that brought together converging interests, which have continually forecasted interest divergence. This is commonly referred to as “political backlash.” The author had said something along the lines of: “if we follow the interest convergence, we can get in front of the subsequent political moves to turn the clocks on what was once celebrates progress.” This conversation planted the seed for what is the thesis of this paper. Interest convergence and divergence happen at the will of white populations because of the american truth of whiteness as property. In the context of higher education, this means that because educational pursuit has largely been white property, it has served as an arena for white populations to converge and diverge their interests with those of the minoritized. For example, the policies that drained federal funding for higher education in the 1970s were passed on the tails of a Civil Rights Movement that shook the very foundation of this country and expanded access to postsecondary education for racially minoritized groups (Berret, 2015).

Originality/value

Ensuring that this social construction is a matter of status quo has largely been the work of postsecondary institutions, and EGOs represent the most recent attempt at epistemically imposed inferiority. Explicit attention to the fact of higher education’s complicity and overall investment in the socialization of oppression is necessary to engage in transformative practice that resists anachronism. If higher education researchers and practitioners do not recognize the stake in both the presence and resistance to EGOs, there would likely be acts of resistance that will belie an act of interest convergence – and later divergence – on the part of the state.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 43 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

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Article
Publication date: 16 December 2022

Danelle Adeniji and Marquita Foster

The purpose of this study is to describe the authors’ experiences as Black feminist graduate assistants assigned to teach diversity courses led by white professors.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to describe the authors’ experiences as Black feminist graduate assistants assigned to teach diversity courses led by white professors.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors draw from Black feminist approach to provide authentic, liberatory anti-racist pedagogy, ensuring that the identities and cultural knowledge of Black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) pre-service teachers (PSTs) are given space in anti-racist education and social studies courses.

Findings

The study’s findings show that creating systems for (re)constructing performative anti-racist courses disrupt whiteness and whitewashed pedagogy in teacher preparation programs.

Originality/value

The implications of the authors’ experiences reflect that centering abolitionist teaching methods can bolster BIPOC PSTs anti-racist identities and future practices in diverse classrooms.

Details

Social Studies Research and Practice, vol. 18 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1933-5415

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Article
Publication date: 11 April 2023

Ana Cruz García and María Villares-Varela

To critically analyse how Latin American migrant women entrepreneurs living in Ireland and the UK negotiate their entrepreneurial and motherhood identities in transnational…

Abstract

Purpose

To critically analyse how Latin American migrant women entrepreneurs living in Ireland and the UK negotiate their entrepreneurial and motherhood identities in transnational settings. The paper explores (1) how motherhood influences the choices of becoming entrepreneurs; (2) how women reconcile the social imaginaries of motherhood from their country of origin in the new contexts of settlement; and (3) the impact of these transformations on their businesses.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper draws on six biographical case studies (three in Ireland and three in the UK) and employs the theoretical lens of translocational positionality to analyse entrepreneurship as context-specific and relational processes that bring together a multiplicity of social and geographical locales.

Findings

Latin American women entrepreneurs navigate their roles as “good mothers” and “good businesswomen” by simultaneously (1) complying with core values of marianismo that confine them to traditional gender roles and (2) renegotiating these values in ways that empower them through entrepreneurship. Finally, juxtaposing these two contexts (Ireland and the UK), this study (3) illuminates the similarities of the ever-continuing gender power struggles of egalitarianism for Latin American migrant women in both contexts.

Originality/value

Despite the agreed need for exploring motherhood as one of the critical aspects shaping family and business cycles, this area needs to be sufficiently analysed in its intersection with ethnicity or migratory status, particularly with participants from the global South. This article aims at bridging that gap.

Details

International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-6266

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 January 2023

Teresa Maria Linda Scholz and Judith Flores Carmona

Replicating colonization at Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) must be addressed from the root, structurally. At New Mexico State University (NMSU) the authors are aimed to…

Abstract

Purpose

Replicating colonization at Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) must be addressed from the root, structurally. At New Mexico State University (NMSU) the authors are aimed to commit to going beyond counting and enrolling, to center servingness.

Design/methodology/approach

HSIs will continue to struggle in fulfilling their mission, especially given the fast-growing Latina/e/o/x populations in the United States (US). A major challenge all HSIs face is the contrasting demographics between the student population, the faculty and staff and the administration – with HSI administrations consistently being predominantly White.

Findings

Hence, in this piece the authors shed light on the important work the authors have done these last two years through collaborative efforts to transform the institution and center servingness. Judith as the Interim Director of Chicano Programs, and Linda as the inaugural Vice President for equity, inclusion and diversity.

Originality/value

Herein, the authors now share about the genre of testimonio as a decolonial methodology and about the experiences in our work as we attempt to decolonize the praxis at an HSI.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 23 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

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