Bearing the Brunt of Structural Inequality: Ontological Labor in the Academy

Ruthanne Crapo,Melissa Jacquart,Ann J Cahill

doi:10.5206/fpq/2020.1.7316

Abstract

Empirical data show that members of underrepresented and historically marginalized groups in academia undertake many forms of undervalued or unnoticed labor. While the data help to identify that this labor exists, they do not provide a thick description of what the experience is like, nor do they offer a framework for understanding the different kinds of invisible labor that are being undertaken. We identify and analyze a distinct, undervalued, and invisible labor that the data have left unnamed and unmeasured: ontological labor, the work required to manage one’s identity and body if either or both do not fit into academic structures, norms, and demands. We argue that ontological labor efforts should be understood as a form of labor. We then provide a characterization of ontological labor, detailing the labor as navigating one’s obligations to give and managing entitlements to take. We also highlight the ontological labor that takes place through instances of resistance, such as through complaint or refusals.

Highlights

In recent years, strong empirical evidence has accumulated showing that the distribution and valuation of labor required of academics in institutes of higherPublished by Scholarship@Western, 2020Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, 2020, Vol 6, Iss. 1, Article 3 education is profoundly influenced by identity markers such as race and gender (Guarino and Borden 2017; Park 1996; Park 2014; Park and Park-Ozee, forthcoming)
The capacity to embody the somatic ideal is, we suggest, an exchangeable commodity on the free market where coaches, professional development organizations, and campus centers train academics to write, speak, present, teach, and meet in ways that reinforce the dominant metaphysical order (Puwar 2004; Thomas and Jackson 2019). It is a bodily or phenomenological labor to discipline and inhabit one’s body so others see it as complying; one must learn to manage time, take space appropriately, and move acceptably. This labor, skill, coercion of compliance, or docility is what we explore as ontological labor, a term that highlights the effort and expertise required for instructors, those from historically marginalized groups, to exist in academia
Thinking alongside Manne, we argue that the different expectations held for differently positioned faculty members is an ontological matter that reveals both the unequal status afforded to instructors who identify as members of historically marginalized groups and the disproportionate labor demands that such unequal status imposes upon those instructors

Summary

Recommended Citation

“Bearing the Brunt of Structural Inequality: Ontological Labor in the Academy.”. Bearing the Brunt of Structural Inequality: Ontological Labor in the Academy Ruthanne Crapo Kim Ann J.

Introduction

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Conclusion