Railroading the Imposter Phenomenon by Resisting Inner Implantation

• In Event: Transgressing the Academy of Apathy: The Inner Plantation, Possibilities for the Public Good

Abstract

This analytical work builds on Lavia’s work with the “inner plantation” to ask how the inner plantation is perpetuated and how faculty resist it by attempting to collaborate. Additional organizational metaphors are identified and introduced to support decolonial abolitionist resistance to colonial othering and cross-institutional collaborations between the US and Caribbean systems of higher education. Grants and committee work are discussed as two different types of work in academia - along a continuum of value. We examine related institutional documents and strategies for resisting the implantation of internalized oppression through analogous structures and metaphors (inner plantation, imposter syndrome).

Authors

• Deirdre Cobb-Roberts, University of South Florida

• Vonzell Agosto, University of South Florida