Reckoning Up: Sexual Harassment and Violence in the Neoliberal University

Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

Y

17

Sexual Harassment; Rape; Universities; Neoliberalism; Ethnography; School Policy; Gender Differences; Disclosure; Intervention; Power Structure; Reputation; College Students; College Faculty; Mass Media; Victims; Foreign Countries

10.1080/09540253.2018.1482413

0954-0253

This paper situates sexual harassment and violence in the neoliberal university. Using data from a 'composite ethnography' representing twelve years of research, I argue that institutional inaction on these issues reflects how they are 'reckoned up' in the context of gender and other structures. The impact of disclosure is projected in market terms: this produces "institutional airbrushing" which protects both the institution and those (usually privileged men) whose welfare is bound up with its success. Staff and students are differentiated by "power/value" relations, which interact with gender and intersecting categories. Survivors are often left with few alternatives to speaking out in the 'outrage economy' of the corporate media: however, this can support institutional airbrushing and bolster punitive technologies. I propose the method of Grounded Action Inquiry, implemented with attention to Lorde's work on anger, as a parrhesiastic practice of 'speaking in' to the neoliberal institution.

As Provided

2020

EJ1243913