Finding ways (and words) to move: Mad student politics and practices of loneliness

Abstract

By blending the conceptual frameworks of epistemic injustice and ethical loneliness and applying them to campus-based practices of ‘risk’ identification and ‘referral’, this article describes how Mad students come to be abandoned as knowers and learners. I then dwell in and politicize the condition of (ethical) loneliness these harms produce by seeking to ‘practise’ it as a form of Mad knowing, and as a framework for visioning justice. Framing Mad student experiences in this way opens up several possibilities for epistemic justice. First, it offers additional language and interpretive resources for naming and protesting our experiences of violence. Second, it compels us to understand and attend to Mad student experiences of epistemic harm and to recognize how Mad knowledges are routinely generated in their wake. Third, it invites new ways of understanding and responding to these harms, and imagining redress.

Keywords:

• Mad studies
• ethical loneliness
• epistemic injustice
• abandonment
• higher education

Acknowledgements

The author's thinking and moving with loneliness has been intimately tied to the loss of friends and neighbours with proximity to campus life: Michaela Schmidt, Wendy Babcock, Robin Pittis, Olga Figura, Lisa Watt. It is in mourning and remembrance that the author urges us to tell different stories about who we are and what we owe each other, especially at the university.

The author's work with loneliness (and with grief) has been made possible and bearable by good company over the last decade. In the context of this specific writing, the author wishes to thank those who helped make this a stronger article through thoughtful feedback on earlier drafts: the author's PhD supervisory committee Christina Sinding, Amber Dean, and Elizabeth Marquis; colleagues Tina Wilson, Jennifer Poole, and Rachel Cooper; and two encouraging reviewers. Thanks also to the kind attendees of conferences where versions of this material have been presented: Lonely Café participants at the 2018 Reclaiming Our Bodies and Minds Conference in Toronto and researchers at the 2018 Lancaster Disability Studies Conference.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.