TY - JOUR
T1 - The Secondary Gains of Neoliberal Pain
T2 - The Limits of Consolation as a Response to Academic Anguish
AU - Kurowska, Xymena
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - The contemporary global academic is an exemplary neoliberal subject. This condition is, of course, not unreflected upon, even if those communities of scholars dubbed 'critical' and 'problem-solving' might address it in different ways. The critical crowd is, however, caught in a particular predicament: We enact and embody neoliberal discourse in our daily practice, all the while raging about the psychosocial harm it inflicts. Indeed, though working within an industry ever more industrialised in conformity with the violent economic technologies of precarity, competition, quantification, standardisation, and individualism, considerable professional rewards remain on offer for those who master 'the game.' We become academic subjects in and by 'making deals' at the juncture of productive and coercive power-that is, by reproducing hierarchies. The discourse of personal triumph against neoliberal adversity-performed, if in different ways, by critical and mainstream scholars alike-is part and parcel of becoming a good player, of generating affective and socio-economic payoffs, and, ultimately, of re-entrenching the neoliberal condition. This essay does not argue for a second-order responsibilisation of this already tormented subject-to radicalise not-yet-brutal-enough self-Appraisals. Rather, it is concerned with a certain disavowal of responsibility which derives from the implication in our own and each other's suffering, as formulated in Lynne Layton's work. Instead of offering consolation in response to the neoliberal suffering, and thus deepen the collusion, I suggest a re-Thinking of responsibility in response to the concreteness of the neoliberal pain. Expressed and theorised from within the lived experienced of academic anguish, this is as much an autobiographical as a sociological tale.
AB - The contemporary global academic is an exemplary neoliberal subject. This condition is, of course, not unreflected upon, even if those communities of scholars dubbed 'critical' and 'problem-solving' might address it in different ways. The critical crowd is, however, caught in a particular predicament: We enact and embody neoliberal discourse in our daily practice, all the while raging about the psychosocial harm it inflicts. Indeed, though working within an industry ever more industrialised in conformity with the violent economic technologies of precarity, competition, quantification, standardisation, and individualism, considerable professional rewards remain on offer for those who master 'the game.' We become academic subjects in and by 'making deals' at the juncture of productive and coercive power-that is, by reproducing hierarchies. The discourse of personal triumph against neoliberal adversity-performed, if in different ways, by critical and mainstream scholars alike-is part and parcel of becoming a good player, of generating affective and socio-economic payoffs, and, ultimately, of re-entrenching the neoliberal condition. This essay does not argue for a second-order responsibilisation of this already tormented subject-to radicalise not-yet-brutal-enough self-Appraisals. Rather, it is concerned with a certain disavowal of responsibility which derives from the implication in our own and each other's suffering, as formulated in Lynne Layton's work. Instead of offering consolation in response to the neoliberal suffering, and thus deepen the collusion, I suggest a re-Thinking of responsibility in response to the concreteness of the neoliberal pain. Expressed and theorised from within the lived experienced of academic anguish, this is as much an autobiographical as a sociological tale.
KW - Twitter
KW - ethics of academic practice
KW - neoliberalism
KW - relationality
KW - responsibility
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85125478655&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1163/25903276-bja10002
DO - 10.1163/25903276-bja10002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85125478655
SN - 2590-3284
VL - 1
SP - 117
EP - 136
JO - Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences
JF - Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences
IS - 1
ER -