Care-full academia: From autoethnographic narratives to political manifestos for collective action
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Published Version
Date
2024
Authors
MagShamhráin, Rachel
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education, the Pathways and Academic Learning Support Centre at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and the Centre for Education Research on Identities and Inequalities at Anglia Ruskin University, UK.
Published Version
Abstract
Building on sociolinguistic analyses of the speech-act of coming out in relation to sexual or gender identity (for example, Livia & Hall 1997) which explored the identity-declaring and identity-making aspects and the consequences of such an utterance, this paper examines the speech act of ‘coming out as a carer’ within the academy, whereby workers declare to their professional community that those acts of care which are generally relegated to the private sphere have a bearing on their professional performances. This illocutionary act of self-definition, which radically and problematically breaches the fourth wall of the private-public divide at work, has several important consequences both negative and positive, for the individual carer but also potentially for the institution and its practices. As in the case of coming out in terms of sexuality or gender, this paper takes the position that such illocutionary acts ‘have the potential force of altering reality for both the speaker and the listener’ (Chirrey 2003). In other words, they have perlocutionary effect.
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Keywords
Care , Academy , Professional , Private-public divide at work , Carer
Citation
MagShamhráin, R. (2024) 'Care-full academia: From autoethnographic narratives to political manifestos for collective action', Access: Critical explorations of equity in higher education, 12(1), pp. 29-47. Available at: https://novaojs.newcastle.edu.au/ceehe/index.php/iswp/article/view/218 (Accessed: 2 December 2024)