Navigating Competition, Apathy, and Individualism in Academia

• In Event: Dreaming of Solidarities Through Collaborative Learning

Abstract

Recent research about the social relations of Academia reveals that individualism and competitiveness within academia can have damaging effects. For example, the mantra of “publish or perish” may lead academics to downplay the importance of pedagogy in favor of publishing papers, improving scientific rankings, or acquiring grants (Fox, 1992; Guraya et al., 2016; Bloch et al., 2014), damage their social relationships (Bloch, 2002), or even plagiarized and “cut corners” (ibid, 2016). Moreover, academics report being anxious about their academic status (Eftekhari et al., 2021), often reinforce their status privileges (Stirling & Burgman, 2020), and even “hide” knowledge and research findings (Hernaus et al., 2018) due to mistrust and competition. At the same, many of the most groundbreaking works in academia have been done in collaboration with others, including in the schools of sociocultural and cultural-historical frameworks.

Thus, the third part of this workshop will focus on how to develop solidarity across academia rather than getting stuck in competition and individualism. Participants will discuss the harms of academic individualism, including its toxicity, isolation, and reflect on ways in which they might engage differently in the academic context. Through a series of reflective written exercises, participants will individually work on and reflect on how they might be reproducing competition and individualism in their work and/or how they navigate academia. Later, participants will be invited to “brainstorm” with the group possible ways and strategies to foster collaboration and solidarity in academic spaces instead of competition.

Author

• Jennifer C. Cruz-Marulanda, Hudson County Community College