“Be In But Not Of” the University

Collective Refusal as Resistance to Isolation and Precarity

Auteurs-es

  • Athena Co-Learning Collective University of Georgia, Department of Geography
  • Maya Henderson University of Georgia, Department of Geography
  • Sayantika Mandal University of Georgia, Department of English
  • Ben Prostine University of Georgia, Department of History
  • Jennifer Rice University of Georgia, Department of Geography
  • Kayleigh Taillefer Independent Scholar
  • Amy Trauger University of Georgia, Department of Geography
  • Constanza Urresty-Vargas Independent Scholar
  • Elizabeth Wayson University of Georgia, Department of English

DOI :

https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.t3m0cl-2507

Mots-clés :

neoliberal university, higher education, solidarity, inclusion, exclusion

Résumé

Many of us in academia navigate a visceral tension: our role as learners, teachers, and employees allows us the refuge to do meaningful work and deep thinking on issues of importance, yet, this privilege comes amid long-standing and ongoing racialized exclusions and neoliberal rationalities of productivity in the academy. We explore, here, the role that collective refusal can play in this navigation. We describe ways that we can come together, even if our positionalities are different and our benefits uneven, to refuse the most oppressive aspects of higher education. We draw on various notions of refusal, largely rooted in Black and Indigenous scholarship, to identify both the harms of higher education and how “to be in but not of” (Harney and Moten 2013, 26) the university. This requires collective support of one another through acts of refusal in learning, knowledge production, and employment that allow us to have a shared stake in the reform of academic life.

Références

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Digital portrait by Jen White-Johnson featuring a photo of Asian American woman with honey blonde hair. She is in a wheelchair and there is a tracheostomy at her neck connected to a ventilator. She is wearing a silky multicolored shirt and a bold red lip color. She is looking intently at the camera with the heat of a thousand suns. Behind her are red and purple flowers with a red circle in the background framing her face like a warm sun. The background of the portrait is purple.

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Publié-e

2025-12-28

Comment citer

Co-Learning Collective, A., Henderson, M., Mandal, S., Prostine, B., Rice, J., Taillefer, K., … Wayson, E. (2025). “Be In But Not Of” the University: Collective Refusal as Resistance to Isolation and Precarity. ACME: E-Revue Internationale De géographies Critiques, 24(5), 584–594. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.t3m0cl-2507

Numéro

Vol. 24 No. 5 (2025): Research Articles, Intervention, and Translation

Rubrique

Interventions

Licence

© Athena Co-Learning Collective, Maya Henderson, Sayantika Mandal, Ben Prostine, Jennifer Rice, Kayleigh Taillefer, Amy Trauger, Constanza Urresty-Vargas, Elizabeth WAyson 2025

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