May the Subaltern Speak?

Vicki Trowler

To Follow:

• Subalternity in HE• Speaking and Silencing in HE• Studying the Subaltern: Challenges and

Choices– The Perception of the Researcher– The Reception of the Researcher– The Serendipity of Rupture

• Is the Subaltern eternally mute?

Subalternity: bell hooks

No need to hear your voice when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself. No need to hear your voice. Only tell me about your pain. I want to know your story. And then I will tell it back to you in a new way. Tell it back to you in such a way that it has become mine, my own. Re-writing you I write myself anew. I am still author, authority. I am still colonizer the speaking subject and you are now at the center of my talk.

hooks, bell. Marginality as a site of resistance, in R. Ferguson et al. (eds), Out There: Marginalization and contemporary Cultures. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1990: pp. 241-43

Who is the Subaltern in HE?

Lowest paid / lowest status:More likely to be black than whiteMore likely to be women than menMore likely to have LSE background than higher

• Colour is moving out of the equation, but the "baas-klaas“[boss-servant] relation remains.

• - Senior Technical Officer, p/c 9

Speaking and Silencing in HE• The Organizational Climate survey was just a beginning into a

discussion, and the way it was treated…was that the issues raised didn't matter (because the way they got raised didn't meet the standards of the smart people speaking smartly). But if hundreds of people write on a form that they have experienced/witnessed/been told about an instance of racial harassment, how can that get wiped away by discussions on research methodology… People like <snip> and <snip> may be professors, but what do they know of racism, at a personal level? Is their doctorate a reason to dismiss someone who put a mark on a form, saying she had experienced racial harassment? If I had put that mark, and I then heard people say my mark didn't count because it was quantitative not qualitative, I would put down another mark.

• ~ Anonymous, via webform

Challenges and Choices

• A grievance or sense of righteous indignation it seems can get one to the field and keep them there. It may well be just one grievance (or two or three) that lies behind a good deal of our published work in organization studies for without an affront, injustice, complaint, or beef to explore we might well become ciphers-qua-celebrants, happy agreeable sorts who wallow in unmitigated delight within the organizations we study and, in the end, have little to say other than everything is hunky-dory.

• Van Maanen 2010:338

The Perception of the Researcher

• …The difficulty in… knowledge creation lies in convincing others of the reliability and validity of a knowledge worker’s knowledge claims. This suggests that the articulation of tacit knowledge may not only be made difficult by the individual’s inability to articulate it, but also by the constraints that others in the social community impose on the articulation,. These constraints include the format that knowledge needs to take in order to be acceptable to others, the language or symbol system within which it must operate, and the evidence that knowledge workers must provide to support their new knowledge claims. – Schultze 2000:7

The Reception of the Researcher

• Ethnographers… are… confronted with potentially conflicting demands. In their role as instrument they rely on their personal experience and subjective engagement with phenomena in the field to generate insights, whereas in their role as scientist they need to convince the scientific community of the trans-situational… and reliable nature of these very phenomena. – Schultze (2000: 8)

The Serendipity of Rupture

• Discussion was opened by a succession of senior white male academics decrying the value of the survey, and arguing against its utility and thus the Faculty’s ability to act on the issues it raised. A resounding silence thudded to the ground in the wake of these arguments. Some attempt at balance was attempted by the Chair, trying to elicit other perspectives, which was largely unsuccessful. In the latter half of the meeting, a couple of white women HoDs spoke up about the silence from non-academic voices, which was met with vigorous nods and murmurs of approval from non-academic staff – but no one rose to the occasion and ventured a contribution… Not a single black staff member spoke throughout.

Is the Subaltern eternally mute?

• Sectoral change– Split in sector • Knowledge work vs generic labour

• Individual voice– Subalterns who acquire the discourse speak

dialect / with persistent “accent”

Speaking and Silencing in HE• The Organizational Climate survey was just a beginning into a

discussion, and the way it was treated…was that the issues raised didn't matter (because the way they got raised didn't meet the standards of the smart people speaking smartly). But if hundreds of people write on a form that they have experienced/witnessed/been told about an instance of racial harassment, how can that get wiped away by discussions on research methodology… People like <snip> and <snip> may be professors, but what do they know of racism, at a personal level? Is their doctorate a reason to dismiss someone who put a mark on a form, saying she had experienced racial harassment? If I had put that mark, and I then heard people say my mark didn't count because it was quantitative not qualitative, I would put down another mark.

• ~ Anonymous, via webform

In their own words: subalternity…the bottom line is that all the racism and sexism

discrimination stuff is, in fact, mixed into the discrimination between academics and administrative workers. I do not say this lightly. I wish that survey has asked us (non-acad. staff) how we experienced academics, and how they create stress for us. (I'm not saying we don't also cause stress). But there is a class divide here that matters... We can't talk about what the survey says until we can talk about being [non-acad] and being academics, and what happens between us, to create a culture of stress, and silencing, every day. There are some departments which are different, but mine isn't one of them.

- anonymous feedback via webform

In their own words – accent I

• I thought sharp! I will be able to pick up some tricks and make some connections while I am working here, but to [the academics in the department of study] I am just a skippie that takes notes in meetings they are sometimes at. They do not see me as becoming them one day; they see me as becoming the Registrar.

• - Clerical staff member, p/c 7

In their own words: accent IIJust because I took a part-time job as a secretary in the Department to

help me financially while I was finishing my PhD, I will forever be <name>-the-secretary, and never just <name> again. It’s as though a year capturing undergraduate essay marks has forever erased all of my seminar papers, my conference presentations and my undergraduate tutoring, and shown up the true colours they suspected all along – that I wasn’t really serious in my academic aspirations and was just using my studies as some kind of husband-hunting technique. Every time a vacancy for a junior [academic] post opens in the department, [academic] colleagues start avoiding me out of embarrassment that I might dare to apply again and shame them into having to turn me down once more, and ads for administrative posts get slipped discreetly into my pigeon-hole as if to show me the error of my ways.

- part-time secretarial staff member, p/c 6,

In their own words: accent III

• These old white men! They think that a black man will never be able to do what it is they are doing, to stand up and speak with authority and have a whole class listen with attention, to publish a paper that makes headlines or to discover something new. They think we are just there to clean the boards after lectures and to carry out the rubbish!

• - Human Resource Assistant, p/c 7

In their own words: job boundaries

• I know it’s supposed to be [the HOD]’s job, but he’s made it clear that this “management” stuff isn’t what he signed up to do, and I’m the one that gets shouted at if it doesn’t get done.

• - Admin Assistant, p/c 7

• Every time I wanted to learn something on the computer, they pointed me at the [reception] window and said, “There, that’s your job!”

• - Secretary, p/c 5

In their own words: job changeHow much extra stuff has been devolved onto us all in the last

few years, think about it!! Think about how the technology has evolved, too. And most of us rise to the occasion splendidly. Personally, I find it quite invigorating. I'm not bored yet. My job IS my PDP!!! I think we're just being hoodwinked. I haven't yet got plans to enroll in Registrar101 classes - I might find it not as exciting (but definitely better paid).

An assessment of how jobs have changed, and a re-evaluation of job descriptions, would be an eye-opening exercise - to my mind.

Administrative Assistant, p/c 7

In their own words: job titles…the archaic receptionist / secretary / senior secretary /

Administrative Assistant nomenclature HAS TO GO! Lawks! These are course administrators / undergraduate administrators / postgrad administrators / departmental managers / mini-accountants / HR-jack-of-trades / shoulders-to-cry-on / technological mini-experts-and-first-port-of-callers-when-your-PC-isn't-working people we're talking about! The current titles are too steeped in a history of "female", "nurturer", and by extrapolation "sub-ordinate" - not to slate the first two qualities but, face it, connecting the dots from there have historically very seldom lead to "high remuneration".

- Administrative Assistant, p/c 7

In their own words: discretionThis kind of thing [a mistake] shouldn’t be happening – the

[SAP] System doesn’t allow it anymore… It’s good because it makes it the same for everyone, no favours for friends, but it means I’m becoming just a clerk entering data, just pushing buttons on a computer.

- Human Resource Officer, p/c 8

Of course, if your step-daughter studied here, she’d get a discount… I know the website says only direct dependents and she’s not actually living with you, but ultimately I’m the one who makes the call who does and doesn’t qualify, and I think it would be fair! [shrugs]

- Human Resource Advisor, p/c 11

In their own words: CofE I

• A couple of years ago, they didn’t know what to do with us, we were facing outsourcing and retrenchment. Then they discovered that we have skills that can be used to teach the students, and we’re much cheaper than academics, so suddenly we find ourselves in demand.

• - Chief Technical Officer, p/c 10

In their own words: CofE 2

• We can’t appoint [researchers] on academic conditions, because they won’t meet all the Rate for Job requirements – they don’t teach the required number of hours, or sit on the right number of committees… They just really do research. So we have to appoint them on [non-academic] conditions.

• - Human Resource Advisor, p/c 11

In their own words: qualifications I

• I am having a problem about salary grade system of University staffs. There are people who have qualifications here such as diplomas, degrees, Matrics and Secondary standards. In terms of the salary, we are equal. Do you think is that the promotion of education at the university. Why do these people have the same salary. You are educated and you end up being exploited.

• - Clerical staff member, p/c 7

In their own words: qualifications II

• Of course I could do this job without a degree – I could probably do it without even going to school! But I think my studies have helped me understand the context, not just of the job but of the whole system, so that I can think of better ways of doing it and different ways we can work as a team to be more effective and more efficient. But the University is not interested in that – they want you to act dumb & be grateful for the peanuts they toss your way each month.

• - Administrative Assistant, p/c 7

In their own words: education II

• For me, it is very frustrating. I can see how things can be done better, but when I suggest these things I am told by my manager that it is this way for a reason, and I must just accept it. I think she is threatened because she does not have a degree and she makes remarks about “the real world” as if what we study is about Mars.

• - Senior secretary, p/c 6

In their own words: education II

• For undergraduates, they can agree with their manager that third lecture they will go to class, and work in the time in their lunch break, but for us [post-graduates] we don’t have lectures, and when there is a seminar you have to go ask for that time and you get told, “but I want that done before my meeting,” never mind that it is a Nobel prizewinner coming to speak.

• - Human Resource Administrator, p/c 7

In their own words: initiative

• I have applied for another position in a higher payclass, and I asked my manager to be a referee. She said how could she recommend me for that post when she has not seen evidence of me having initiative – but when I take initiative I get told I am acting outside of my job description and that I must simply do what she tells me and nothing else.

• - Human Resource officer, p/c 8

The StudyHow class is changing among non-academic knowledge workers

at a SA universityParticipant observation – 40 staffEndogenous research – role contamination3 bodies of literature – different discoursesVirgin concept operationalisation:

3fold nature of “class”Indicators & proxiesDialogic relationship of data and theory

Invasion of the excluded:Impact of raceImpact of gender

Changing nature of HE work

“Only those involved in ‘core business’ should run it”

BUT:Changing nature of work

“Knowledge economy”Castells – self-programmable vs generic labourZuboff – IT can automate or “informate”

University as a “knowledge business”Many “non-academics” do knowledge work:

Librarians, e-learning staff, contract researchers, planning staff, technical staff, etc.

Whitchurch “Blended Professionals”