Breaking Step: Silence, Resonance, and Everyday Precariousness 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.

Citation

Pruit, J.C., Rambo, C. and Pruit, A.G. (2024), "Breaking Step: Silence, Resonance, and Everyday Precariousness in Academic Settings", Denzin, N.K. and Chen, S.-L.S. (Ed.) Symbolic Interaction and Inequality (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 58), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 83-108. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-239620240000058005