Becoming-academic in the neoliberal academy: A collective biography

ABSTRACT

As evidenced by the collection of articles in Gender and Education’s July 2015 issue and various articles that have circulated recently on social media [American Council on Education. 2016. “New report looks at the status of women in higher education.” January 15. http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/New-Report-Looks-at-the-Status-of-Women-in-Higher-Education.aspx; Donald, A. 2016. “Women are too often actively sidelined against their will.” Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/women-are-too-often-actively-sidelined-against-their-will; Higher Education Network. 2016. “How should we cope with sexism? That’s the wrong question.” The Guardian. April 15. https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/apr/15/how-should-we-cope-with-sexism-thats-the-wrong-question], the topic of gender in higher education is of concern to many in both academic and non-academic thought-spaces. In this collective biography, we explore entrance into the fraught and contested space of the neoliberal academy by considering our experiences as women graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. We use various digital collaborative tools to adapt the collective biography method to our needs, making the project accessible across distance and time and inside the financial constraints of graduate school. Here we describe the project, excerpt two of the entangled data-stories we produced, and use Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of smooth and striated space and Braidotti’s concept of nomadic subjectivity to help us think through our becoming-academic.

KEYWORDS:

• Post-structural theory
• women
• narratives
• higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Spirit Brooks, Ph.D., is a professional faculty member at Oregon State University in Academic Success and Student Transitions. Her research interests include culturally responsive teaching in higher education, Indigenous education, college students in poverty, inequity in schools, higher education access, social justice education, and gender and teaching.

Allyson Dean is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Education Studies at the University of Oregon with over ten years of education experience spanning K-12 public school teaching, academic advising, university teaching, and educational consulting. Allyson's research interests are the school-to-prison pipeline, gender in education, performing drag as inquiry, and supporting queer students.

Asilia Franklin-Phipps is a Ph.D Candidate in Critical Sociocultural Studies in Education in the Department of Education Studies at the University of Oregon. Asilia teaches Education Foundations undergraduate courses and is interested in feminist theory, teacher education, and the pedagogical and theoretical implications of literature, film, pop culture, hip-hop, and socio-political contexts. More specifically, her work explores race education for preservice and in-service teachers drawing on philosophy, art, creative writing, digital media, and literary texts.

Emily Mathis is a Ph.D. candidate in Critical and Sociocultural Studies in Education at the University of Oregon. Prior to entering her Ph.D. program, she taught English as a Second Language to both international undergraduate students and adult English language learners. Her research interests include post-humanist inquiry as a way to push the boundaries of sociolinguistics, internationalization of higher education, and disrupting deficit models of linguistically and culturally diverse students.

Courtney L. Rath, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Education Studies at the University of Oregon, where her teaching and research focus on teacher education and preparing future teachers to teach towards social justice. Her research examines the complexities of teaching practice and the use of experimental narrative forms to communicate these to novice practitioners. Before coming to the University of Oregon as a doctoral student, Courtney taught high school English for many years.

Nadia Khalid Raza is a Ph.D. candidate in Critical and Sociocultural Studies in Education at the University of Oregon. Her dissertation considers how incarcerated non-traditional community college students reconcile the tensions between precarity and aspiration. She is an instructor of sociology at Lane Community College, co-founder of the DisOrient film festival in Eugene Oregon, and founder of Solidarity786: a feminist inspired card project that promotes letter writing to people who are incarcerated.

Laura Elizabeth Smithers is a Ph.D. candidate in Critical and Sociocultural Studies in Education within the Department of Education Studies at the University of Oregon. She is interested in postqualitative reconceptualizations of measurement, assessment, and student development theory within higher education. More specifically, her work examines the futures that initiatives focused on constructs such as student success, high-impact practices, and continuing academic eligibility make possible within undergraduate education.

Krystal Sundstrom is a Ph.D. candidate in the Critical and Sociocultural Studies in Education program, in the Education Studies department at the University of Oregon. Her previous work as an elementary school teacher and test developer has influenced her current research interests, which include assessment, education policy, and teacher education. Her dissertation research explores teacher activism and participation in the opt-out movement, as related to standardized testing.

ORCID

Courtney L. Rath http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2578-6914

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of Oregon, Department of Education Studies [Departmental Writing Retreat Grant].