Abstract
Scholars face a paradox: How to engage in critical community building when the nature of academic engagement in neoliberal times encourages academic entrepreneurship? Competition is encouraged among scholars as they vie for citations, resources, and recognition. This article considers how qualitative researchers might build and sustain critical community through engaging in research, teaching, and service in ways that inculcate humility and a spirit of generosity toward others’ work to build coalitions among scholars who may not agree. This work is imperative for qualitative scholars as they engage in collective action to address the inequities brought about by global crises.
This article addresses the possibilities for building and sustaining critical community within the neoliberal institution. Readers will recognize the neoliberal institution. The institutions in which readers of this journal work rank themselves competitively against one another to position themselves as drivers and global leaders of innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic development (Dakka, 2020; Naidoo, 2016).
As David Harvey (2005) has argued, neoliberalism advances the idea that the success of the individual entrepreneur is supported when institutions compete in a free marketplace. For institutions of higher education, this means that academic entrepreneurship in the marketplace of ideas will be enhanced through competition even when state support has been withdrawn. The framing of academic work as entrepreneurial works alongside and within a capitalist approach to knowledge production (Giroux, 2014). Neoliberalism has transformed the academic laborer into human capital and promotes competition and short-termism with the goal of increasing productivity and profit (Berg et al., 2016). Berg et al. (2016) asserted that these transformations have contributed to the growth of anxiety among people working in the academy.
At the same time, the rapid developments in technology and communication networks over the last several decades have made possible instantaneous global connections. Yet people across the world have experienced a growing sense of what Harvey called “time-space compression” in which the “speed-up in the pace of life” contributes to a sense of the world collapsing “inwards upon us” (p. 240). Although Harvey wrote the following in the late 1980s, his words were prescient: “The experience of time-space compression is challenging, exciting, stressful, and sometimes deeply troubling, capable of sparking, therefore, a diversity of social, cultural, and political responses” (p. 240).
In 2020, academic workers faced an array of challenges, some of which were magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic. These included conducting research to advance knowledge about the social world in the context of chronic underfunding by the state, with threats of more budget cuts to come. Academic staff’s workloads increased when teaching moved online at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and when universities’ administrations opened campuses for face-to-face instruction that involved online and hybrid pedagogies. Critical theories and approaches to research and pedagogy were challenged by accusations from the federal administration that these were “un-American” (Vought, 2020). Researchers faced continued challenges to sharing research findings in cultural contexts in which fake news, propaganda, and conspiracy theories proliferated and the role of expertise was denigrated.
Like Marc Spooner (2020), I believe that it is naïve to conclude that the “pre-neoliberal university” provided a “golden time” for all (p. 744). Yet, I join with Spooner (2020) and other scholars who have envisioned the university in “all its aspirational ideas,” who wish to “collectively respond to the dream and promise of a post-neoliberal university” (p. 744). In this article, I sketch ideas for how scholars might engage in critical community building despite the forces that the neoliberal institution exerts to encourage the competition that results in either “fame” or “shame” (Dakka, 2020), and at a time when social distancing has become a part of everyday life for the foreseeable future. But first, how has the neoliberal university manifested in the lives of faculty and students in the first decades of the 21st century?
University Work in the Neoliberal Institution
What are the signs of the neoliberal institution?
Messages from administrators: notifications to faculty about upcoming budget cuts and furloughs, the need to recruit new students, increase class sizes and to press advisees toward faster degree completion, instructions to log into recently installed applications that store and share data about scholars’ work, and reminders to attend workshops on how to use new tools for research, admissions, teaching, personnel, and annual reporting among other things. And of course, emails concerning what must be done to revive and sustain the institution for the next academic year through a pandemic.
Notations in calendars: deadlines for the submission of reports to account for program outcomes, appointments to meet with other researchers about proposals for seeking funding to demonstrate entrepreneurship, planning meetings to discuss funded research opportunities. All accompanied by Zoom links.
Emblems of productivity: explanations of how one’s research is innovative, significant and cutting-edge in nominations for awards and promotion and tenure dossiers; documentation of independent accomplishments in research, teaching, and service in annual reports.
Physical reminders in bodies: aches in the neck, shoulders, and wrists when too many hours have been spent seated, typing at the computer; dark shadows underlining eyes from the hours of wakefulness in the early morning when to-do lists for the day that’s yet to dawn are re-written; the pressing anxiety of an upset stomach accompanying attempts to refrain from opening email for another hour to write; and the exhaustion at the end of the week recognizing that each day’s work is never sufficient to staunch the in-flow of upcoming tasks.
And with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the few face-to-face meetings with colleagues that occurred became fewer still. The move to universal online teaching and meetings in March 2020 completed the dispersal of faculty to work from home that began a decade ago as academic entrepreneurs offered programs in varied formats to meet the perceived student needs of anytime, anywhere learning.
In this article I envision possibilities for creating and sustaining critical relational community with our colleagues and students—our neighbors at the institutions in which we work and other scholars whose work we learn from at conferences and in print. Neoliberal institutions have emphasized individualism and competition, and the pandemic of 2020 has distanced and dispersed members of the global qualitative inquiry community. In working for the neoliberal institution these past 20 years, the efforts to keep up in a competitive context and to do more with less have been wearing. Looking to an uncertain future, I recognize that resources will be scarce and challenges great. Yet despite that, I’m hopeful. Why? Because my experiences of the freeing potential that comes from working with others—faculty and students—indicate that it is possible and beneficial to build critical communities in higher education across distance and difference, and despite disagreements.
Challenges in Higher Education
Scholars in higher education face challenges that are unlikely to disappear any time soon. These include the need for external funding, the pressure to publish, intensification of teaching, and the growing “precariat” (Castel, 2016) of part-time and contract workers within institutions.
The Need to Obtain External Funding
There is the sentence in appointment letters for new faculty that refers to the need to establish a record of external funding. There are the researchers funded by soft money whose positions have been lost when funding was not renewed. There are the contracts lost with political changes that mean less support for graduate students and income for the institution.
And now, there is the impending decreased state support from the state due to the pandemic-induced economic downturn that has yet to trickle down.
The Pressure to Publish
There is the recognition among graduate students that one must have multiple publications in top-tier, peer-reviewed journals to be competitive in the job market. There are the accountability systems set in place around the world to ensure that scholars are productive and rewarded for publishing “good” work (Newman & McNamara, 2016; Spooner, 2018; Torrance, 2020).
Teaching Intensified
Faculty members must now teach and advise effectively in face-to-face and online contexts. With the pandemic, the move to online instruction occurred virtually overnight. Faculty must continually engage in reflective practice to improve their teaching (Servage, 2009), all while guiding their students to timely completions (Manathunga, 2019). And of course, the institutional responses to the demands of performance-based funding can result in unanticipated outcomes on a spectrum from restriction of admissions to lowering completion standards (Natow & Dougherty, 2019).
The Precariat
Rosi Braidotti (2019) used the term “precariat”—a combination of “precarious” and “proletariat” to describe the growing workforce that keeps higher education going. For those who do not demonstrate the mobility to move across the country, if not the world, to obtain the decreasing number of prized tenure-track positions, there are a range of low-paid jobs in colleges across the country in which academic staff cobble together several jobs for unfair compensation (Castel, 2016; Connell, 2015; Kezar & Maxey, 2014).
Capitalism and the Work of Higher Education Faculty
These challenges reflect what Brian Massumi (2018) noted is characteristic of the capitalistic system: the “relentless drive for growth in the service of accumulation” (p. 15). Massumi (2018) asserted that the “individual human being figures as human capital”: that is, the individual’s job is to “surf the movements of capital: to make itself competitive across the successive waves of the rapidly changing job market, or as an independent entrepreneur” (pp. 31–32). The work of faculty members in the neoliberal institution formulates them as entrepreneurs responsible for their own success. To keep their positions, faculty members must conform. And they instruct their students to do similarly.
For those of a critical bent, Massumi (2018) argued that “Critique practiced as if it were a primary resistance is self-defeating. This does not mean that it has no role, just that its role is not the sovereign role it too often arrogates for itself” (italics in original) (p. 69). As an academic staff member who works to conform to the enactment of a “good” neoliberal subject, Massumi’s (2018) assertion provides me with some comfort: Complicity is an ontological condition under neoliberalism. It cannot be avoided, but it is not all-defining. It should not just be critiqued. It should be practiced strategically, in ways aimed at always upping the ration of escape over capture. (p. 68) (italics in original)
I find the idea of “upping the ration of escape over capture” appealing. How might this be done? Massumi (2018) wrote, “Don’t bemoan complicity—game it” (p. 69). He continued, “Don’t critically lord it over others with your doctrinal prowess—get creatively down and dirty in the field of play” (Massumi, 2018, p. 69). What is needed to develop and sustain a critical community of scholars who engage in qualitative inquiry creatively? How might we increase the “ration of escape over capture”? (Massumi, 2018, p. 68)
For Massumi (2018), “a qualitative life value is something that is lived for its own sake; something that is a value in and of itself, in the unexchangeable ‘currency’ of experience” (p. 25, italics in original). Lived experience refuses the currency of exchange that is central to capitalism. That is, no persons can exchange lived experiences: the colors, sensations, scents, sounds, thoughts, and dreams of a life lived. Each moment of lived experience can never be borrowed or exchanged. Massumi (2018) reminded us that a “life-value” has “the qualitative character of its own occurrence” (p. 25, italics in original). Living is relational—with human and nonhuman others, within environments. And in late September 2020, the million lives lost globally to COVID-19—more than 200,000 of whom lived in the United States—were a stark reminder that our lives are finite.
Massumi’s (2018) ideas inspire me to live intentionally and engage with others in the activities of research, teaching, and service in ways that are energizing, fulfilling, mutually beneficial, minimize harm to others and to the environment, and work to collaborate, rather than compete with others. While conforming to the neoliberal institution in which I work, I can practice creative duplicity, which Massumi (2018) offers as “emergent ways of strategically playing the ontological condition of complicity, to tendentially postcapitalist effect” (p. 69). We can embrace the idea that in working collaboratively with others and attending to the spaces and places in which we live and work, the subsequent relations “are real, here and now, but what they can do is unknowable in advance, must continuously be invented” (Manning, 2016, p. 191). The relation, in Manning’s view (2016), “is always more-than human” (p. 191). It is through these more-than human relations that do not limit thinking to the human that creativity and imagination can be inspired, and through which critical relational scholarly community can be created and sustained. These critical relational scholarly communities can operate as “temporary autonomous zones that might release postcapitalist potential into the wild, to proliferate” as seeds to germinate the postcapitalist future (Massumi, 2018, p. 87, italics in original). Massumi (2018) indicated that the resistance to “capital and power” can function as a “prefigurative politics” that characterizes the “postcapitalist future” (p. 87, italics in original). Critical relational scholarly communities provide sites for resistance (Spooner, 2018).
Developing Critical Relational Scholarly Communities
Massumi (2018) advocated “zest, beauty, wonder, and adventure” as the “aesthetic categories that might pave the way for the revaluation of values to go beyond normative criteria and judgment” (p. 95). In his view, these aesthetic categories “cannot be understood as ‘merely’ subjective (as individual and personal). They must be recognized as transindividual: as indexing the more-than-humanness of the process’s self-driving” (p. 95). Here Massumi referred to the more-than-human qualities of the process of becoming.
In the remainder of this article, I remind readers of practical ways to create “escape hatches,” to use Massumi’s (2018) term, into “temporary autonomous zones” (T. 74, p. 87). None are new. The neoliberal institution, however, has encouraged us to forget these strategies as we press forward to meet the ever-increasing demands of each new day. I encourage you to continue to (a) recognize and value interconnections with others, (b) practice invitational strategies, and (c) participate in a sharing economy. And please—share your strategies to build a critical relational scholarly community.
Recognize and Value Interconnections With Others
Various scholars have discussed the value of embracing the diversity of all manner of life on earth. As one example, drawing on Buddhist philosophy and writing in the field of religion, Ng and Walsh (2019, p. 11) reminded us that “self-care is impossible outside of our relationship to others. We need others to gift trust, safety, and dignity, to feel value as agential selves, and to live and die well together” (p. 11). These scholars proposed the idea of “making refuge” as an approach to responding to the multiple crises facing the world. In the same vein, Drawing on the work of Gloria Anzaldúa, AnaLouise Keating (2013) asserted that we can avoid either/or thinking with respect to identifying with our individual identity groups—whether ethnic, racial, gender, or ideological, to embrace a “transhuman planetary citizenship” (p. 105). Here, Keating is referring to Anzaldúa’s idea of “mestizaje” or “new tribalism,” in which one chooses views and “cultures with transformational potential . . . . your strategy of resistance to both acculturating and inculturating pressures” (Anzaldúa cited by Keating, 2013, p. 105).
As human beings, we face social challenges brought about by all manner of complex interactions: of authoritarian leaders and governments, mass migration, technological revolutions, social injustice and inequities, and ecological crises. Like Ng and Walsh (2019), who asserted that making refuge entails taking response-ability for “co-inhabitants of diverse communities and habitats” (p. 1), Keating (2013) asserted that “planetary citizenship is not human-centered but embraces all forms of life” (p. 176). These scholars, in contrast to the idea of the independent, entrepreneurial neoliberal subject, support Keating’s idea of “we-consciousness.”
We do not need to break the world into rigid categories and hide behind masks of sameness that demand we define ourselves in direct opposition to others. We can trust that, despite the many differences among us, we are all interconnected. This trust opens us up, frees our attention, enabling us to look at each other to form additional, connectionist perspectives. (Keating, 2013, p. 179)
What are paths to move there? Keating offered the idea of “interconnectivity” to her students. We can extend this relational approach beyond our fields of expertise (e.g., Newman & McNamara, 2016) to how we work with others in our professional and personal lives. For example,
Take the time to engage with others. 1 In a pre-pandemic world, this might have involved taking the time to have lunch with a colleague. In the current socially distant world in which we find ourselves, it could involve reaching out via telephone or email or arranging a synchronous meeting with someone we have not spoken with in a while.
Talk to strangers. One of the unintended consequences of sheltering-in-place has been seeing neighbors more frequently while out walking. Strike up conversations. Send words of encouragement to scholars whose work has touched you.
Volunteer. Another consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic has been volunteerism—people have volunteered to make masks for health care workers, friends, and neighbors; helped out at foodbanks; or leant a hand to a community group that needs expertise in moving online.
Appreciate and thank others for their contributions.
Extend grace to others through moments of hardship. In times of stress, we don’t always rise to the occasion. However, when we encounter the stressed response of others, we can extend grace and forgiveness.
Practice Invitational Pedagogies
Keating (2013) offered the idea of “pedagogies of invitation,” which entails that we be “nonoppositional,” practicing “intellectual humility, flexibility, and open-minded willingness to shift” (p. 182). According to Keating (2013), invitational pedagogies are “tentative, performative, and visionary (but not naïve)” and employ “relationalist, connectionist thinking” (pp. 182–183). Here Keating used the idea of invitational pedagogies to focus on teacher–student relationships. However, invitational pedagogies can also characterize the general ways in which we work with others: with colleagues, administrators, research participants, and audience members. This is what Ron Pelias (2011) discussed when he urged readers to “lean in”: Tell me your stories. Share with me the poetry that makes your life speak. Do not be afraid. I will do my best to honor what you say. We are all flawed, human. Show me how we might connect. (p. 228)
To lean in involves recognizing that we don’t know it all, and that there are valuable things to learn from others if we take the time to do so: what psychologists call “intellectual humility” (DeWall, 2017). DeWall (2017) asserted that embracing limitations on their knowledge spurs intellectually humble people to explore new ideas even if their ideas conflict with those that others hold, intellectually humble people know that their notions represent one way of looking at a topic, question, or problem. (p. 235)
Whether we are writing together (Pelias, 2019), teaching, conducting research, or contributing to the service roles of the academy, intellectual humility is crucial to engaging in invitational pedagogies. For example, we might
read a book with colleagues that we would not ordinarily choose;
schedule joint writing time with others—students or fellow scholars;
provide kind and constructive feedback to others on their in-process writing, or when reviewing scholarly manuscripts for publication;
co-author articles with students and colleagues;
be open to learning about and developing understanding of the viewpoints of others with whom we disagree.
Participate in a Sharing Economy
Massumi (2018) discussed the idea of the “sharing economy” in which “time itself becomes the informal currency” (p. 24). A sharing economy, in Massumi’s view, subverts the idea of “time = money,” and “actually attempts to make it more honest and live up to its own word by sidelining the exploitative element of profit” (p. 24). Here, “time is not money. It is life.” (Massumi, 2018, p. 114). An escape hatch into a “temporary autonomous zone” (Massumi, 2018) involves engaging in sharing time with others to sketch, improvise, and play with others (p. 87, italics in original). Doing this enables us to recognize the incommensurability of labor-time (Massumi, 2018, p. 114). Rather, the outcome expresses itself in “emergent collectivity” that elides the entrepreneurial neoliberal subject (p. 115).
Scholars of higher education already participate in a sharing economy, since the academy is founded on such tasks as scholarly peer review. The service work of the academy can be viewed as work of lesser value and given scant attention; it can be offered in the spirit of competition rather than the gift. Scholars share ideas for others to build on through presenting and publishing. People share their time when they agree to participate in research studies; colleagues and friends share their expertise when they provide feedback on in-progress abstracts and manuscripts. Scholars share teaching resources, books, and ideas. The organization and enactment of conferences are premised on numerous individuals participating in the sharing economy. And for that we thank them. How might we continue to share our knowledge and expertise? We might
serve on a committee or nonprofit in our local community;
write an op-ed or blogpost concerning our areas of research interest;
share our best ideas related to teaching with colleagues;
accept an invitation to present to a colleague’s class;
be purposefully pedagogical in our review of manuscripts submitted for publication;
agree to review manuscripts for journals more often than not;
donate our time by serving on a committee for a professional association;
mentor an early-career scholar.
Some Cautions
Does valuing relational connections with others, practicing invitational pedagogies, and participating in a sharing economy lead to poor-quality work? If one practices these strategies with a view to getting ahead, forming cliques, and excluding others, they could. They need not. Developing and sustaining critical relational community means providing the kind of feedback that will enhance others’ growth. There are times that we need to provide feedback that is not positive. We critique the work of others in ways that help them to sharpen their arguments, improve their work, and grow as knowledgeable scholars. This entails being both respectful and ethical. We do not take advantage of others, nor do we promote ourselves in ways that diminish others.
And this work—in research collaborations, teaching, and service work—entails that we too listen to others’ critique of our own work. We attend to the critiques of others in ways that don’t seek to maintain our rightness, nor exact revenge when we are wronged. To be able to truly hear the critiques of others, we must exhibit intellectual humility. DeWall (2017) asserts that “Many perspectives exist, and intellectual progress is hindered when people feel attacked or otherwise affronted. When critics question their ideas, intellectually humble people communicate their gratitude for the remarks rather than lashing out” (p 235) as we see all too frequently in contemporary public life.
Finally, for those of us who are privileged to have tenured positions in higher education, we have great responsibility to be supportive to others—particularly early-career scholars and members of the precariat. While I argue that the strategies of valuing interconnections with others, practicing invitational pedagogies, and participating in a sharing economy can and should be practiced liberally, the “cycles of birth, growth, peak, then decline and end” are characteristics of the life course (Lefebvre, 1992/2013, p. 25). At times, we need others’ support. There are also times when we are able to support others. For example, Sheridan et al. (2019) discussed how the writing group they formed two decades ago transformed into a space for peer mentoring as the contexts in which the women worked reflected the changes wrought by neoliberalism. The group also functioned to support the women through personal and professional hardships. These authors argue that the feminist approach that they took in the group “can be seen as a site of resistance, especially to the individualism implicit in the research audit culture” (p. 903). This provides a concrete example of how critical relational community building can be used as a mechanism of support.
Conclusion
To sum up, I’ve drawn on the work of Brian Massumi (2018) and AnaLouise Keating (2013) to argue that although we work in neoliberal institutions and cannot escape complicity, there is still hope. Through practicing creative duplicity, we can carve out escape hatches to occupy temporary autonomous zones in which we can experience the aesthetic qualities of zest, beauty, wonder, and adventure (Massumi, 2018). We can do this by valuing interconnections with others, practicing invitational pedagogies, and participating in a sharing economy (Keating, 2013). By exhibiting intellectual humility, we can both critique others’ work in respectful ways that involve “gate-opening,” rather than “gate-keeping” strategies for others, 2 and respond to others’ critiques of our own work in ways that seek to understand and learn, rather than repudiate and retaliate. This differs from the entrepreneurial neoliberal subject who seeks only to compete with others in the market place of ideas in an effort to “win.”
Will others necessarily share this vision of postneoliberal subjectivity? That’s doubtful. I argue nevertheless that by attending to the rhythms of the body as we interconnect with others in space and place, we can practice the self-care necessary to live a life that contributes to critical relational communities. Manathunga (2019) draws on Lapping (2017) to offer the idea of “suspended time” in which “time seems to stand still as you immerse yourself in a thought, in the archives, in the data” (p. 8). Ulmer (2017) proposes the idea of “slow ontology” as a way of doing academic work that matters. Critical relational community building can provide spaces for zest, beauty, wonder, and adventure to infiltrate the everyday. And perhaps we can make more moments to appreciate the gifts entailed in the sharing economy (Oakley, 2016), in which time, experience and ideas are “offered in the spirit of a gift, without the obligation of payback: the gift freed from the dialectic of the countergift” (Massumi, 2018, p. 120).
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Amy Stich, Melissa Freeman, Donna Smith, Brigette Herron, Kakali Bhattacharya and Ameya Sawadkar for feedback and conversations on these ideas and earlier drafts of this manuscript.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
