How can we Engage in Conditions of Precarity?. Issue 1 (14th July 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Brock, Maria
• Is Part Of: Modern languages open. Issue 1(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-07-14
• Subjects: Languages, Modern -- Periodicals; Comparative linguistics -- Periodicals; Philology -- Periodicals; 405
• DOI: 10.3828/mlo.v0i0.351
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2052-5397

Abstract

I want to encourage academics to conceptualize our work as a series of social relationships. This involves envisioning a model that goes beyond the idea of academic "impact" as a series of mutually beneficial and, crucially, measurable transactions and towards a new definition of the term as the transformative effect of personal encounters. This is a good time to ask these questions: the role of scholarly work is changing and there is renewed interest in the meanings of impact beyond citation indices, but the pressure to publish is still growing and more temporary forms of employment and fragmented relationships with institutions remain a widespread reality. In the words of Mohira Suyarkulova: "How can we engage in a more responsible intellectual labour under the conditions of permanent crises and precarity?"