Abstract
Like business executives and politicians, academics form part of the super-mobile population of the global north. Their freedom to travel, which entails a freedom from certain local obligations, is not always voluntary but part and parcel of professional expectations and is subject to peer and managerial evaluation. In this article, we argue that there are a lot of structural and institutional constraints built into academic mobility. The original notion of intellectual detachment and academic freedom has developed into a demand for social and moral detachment by the ever-growing circuit of international ‘visibility’ as celebrated at international conferences. It excludes all those whose attachment to persons or causes requires bodily presence, and such an exclusion transforms the contents and values of academic knowledge – not for the better, we believe.
Highlights
‘There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.’ Cyril Connolly Enemies of Promise (1938)
Some are pretty indistinguishable from the business elite and a host of networked professionals, moving through airports with Blackberries and 4G laptops, rolling luggage confidently through customs in light and scrumple free travel clothing. Even though they might be employed in one place, they seem to work in many different places
Few scholars before WWII travelled much, and even fewer moved permanently to different places. They often travelled for political reasons, such as Jewish academics fleeing Nazi Germany or British scholars leaving their impression on academic life in the colonies
Summary
‘There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.’ Cyril Connolly Enemies of Promise (1938). With relatively cheap and efficient global transport systems, the rise of the conference circuit and research travel budgets, the sense of ‘freedom from’ appears to have become a ‘freedom to’ pursue careers and academic capital from one international congress or top ranked institution to another. If such movement is expected, and lack of movement treated with suspicion, there is some coercion here too. Does knowing become detached and made into a commodity that is displayed by its very mobility? Does lack of connection to the ground, to any ground, become precisely the characteristic that defines this academic habitus and its products?
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