Critical Storytelling: Experiences of Power Abuse in Academia

Abstract

Storytelling is seen by many as a universal human impulse, a way for individuals and groups to communicate experiences and make sense of life. It is also a social and cultural activity in which not everyone has an equal voice. As the Czech dissident and later president Václav Havel argued, "an examination of the potential of the 'powerless' […] can only begin with an examination of the nature of power in the circumstances in which these powerless people operate" (Havel, 1985, p. 23). For those with a chance to make themselves heard, storytelling can be an empowering act that exposes injustice. Storytelling can forge a path toward better endings. By daring to tell our stories, we enter into a process that is larger than ourselves.This volume of essays arose out of the courage of scholars and students to share stories of the academic workplace that are often only spoken of in hushed tones, if at all. The essays explore individual experiences as well as underlying institutional structures, providing original perspectives on bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination and other forms of power abuse in academic workplaces. Topics include the risks of unequal power relations for graduate students and junior faculty, the roles of gender and ethnicity, the negative effects of the tenure system and limited mobility, and the implications of new public management for academia. This is not a reckoning with any particular institution, department or individual, but an examination of collective problems. Narratives like these comprise a necessary first step toward change. The culture of silence surrounding harassment and power abuse in the academic world needs to be broken, so that it will not always be the same old story, but a better narrative that we can call our own.The academic world presents many obstacles to sharing such experiences. As some of the contributors observe, it can be difficult to overcome the misplaced sense of shame that victims of power abuse and harassment often feel, despite the fact that they have done nothing wrong.1 The nefarious phenomenon of victim-blaming can be effectively mobilized to protect perpetrators by discrediting their victims. Shame and victim-blaming in connection with

Contextualizing capitalism in academia: How capitalist and feudalist organizing principles reinforce each other at Polish universities

“…At the same time, it is striking how competitively ruthless and uncaring toward "underperforming" others our respondents are. Such views are not uncommon; in many parts of the world, these are prominent and natural features of any modern, capitalist society (Berardi, 2019;Fisher, 2009), and more specific research on academia has discussed this tension (Hall, 2021;Hansen and Nilsson, 2022;Lund, 2020).…”