Activism and the academy: assembling knowledge for social justice Authors: Callum McGregor and Jeremy Knox Abstract In the if the UK, if Higher Education institutions were to operate ‘as world mattered’ they must pay closer attention to the relationship between contemporary social movement activism and academia. Despite the inadequacy of reified generalities such as such and the they continue to ‘grassroots knowledge’ ‘ivory tower’, enjoy widespread currency. Moving beyond a naïve ontological critique of linguistically, we argue that what is at stake is the obfuscation of the ways in which the practice of social justice is materially constrained and mediated by power relations. Combining insights from the socio-material turn in educational and social movement theory, we suggest that the concept of assemblage provides a rich resource from which a purposeful humility and concept of larval subjects (Deleuze creativity might flourish. Creatively drawing on Deleuze’s 2004), we propose larval thought as a way of thinking through the difficulties of relationship with social HE’s movements. Introduction to think of another time when there has been such a gulf between It’s hard intellectuals and activists; between theorists of revolution and its practitioners. (Graeber 2002: 61). In the UK, if Higher Education institutions were to if the world they operate ‘as mattered’, must pay closer attention to the dysfunctional relationship between contemporary social movement activism and academia. However, we also need to ask in what ways HE institutions matter to social movements. Contemporary movements have arguably overcome their (collective) identity crisis through negation of the very concept. (see Fomiyana (2010). Meanwhile, academics struggle to address social justice concerns within institutions increasingly encroached upon by a neoliberal culture of marketization, performance indicators, and the of fast-time’ between social ‘tyranny (Erikson 2001). Tensions movements and the academy are compounded by discourses that obscure material reality. In what follows, we explain why we think such discourse is problematic, before suggesting an alternative, drawing on assemblage theory. Grassroots knowledge | Ivory tower Movement and academic discourses habitually make use of reified binary opposites such as such grassroots knowledge|ivory tower, knowledge from below| knowledge from above, or
Activism and the academy: assembling knowledge for social justice Authors: Callum McGregor and Jeremy Knox Abstract In the UK, if Higher Education institutions were to operate ‘as if the world mattered’ they must pay closer attention to the relationship between contemporary social movement activism and academia. Despite the inadequacy of reified generalities such as such ‘grassroots knowledge’ and the ‘ivory tower’, they continue to enjoy widespread currency. Moving beyond a naïve ontological critique of linguistically, we argue that what is at stake is the obfuscation of the ways in which the practice of social justice is materially constrained and mediated by power relations. Combining insights from the socio-material turn in educational and social movement theory, we suggest that the concept of assemblage provides a rich resource from which a purposeful humility and creativity might flourish. Creatively drawing on Deleuze’s concept of larval subjects (Deleuze 2004), we propose larval thought as a way of thinking through the difficulties of HE’s relationship with social movements. Introduction It’s hard to think of another time when there has been such a gulf between intellectuals and activists; between theorists of revolution and its practitioners. (Graeber 2002: 61). In the UK, if Higher Education institutions were to operate ‘as if the world mattered’, they must pay closer attention to the dysfunctional relationship between contemporary social movement activism and academia. However, we also need to ask in what ways HE institutions matter to social movements. Contemporary movements have arguably overcome their (collective) identity crisis through negation of the very concept. (see Fomiyana (2010). Meanwhile, academics struggle to address social justice concerns within institutions increasingly encroached upon by a neoliberal culture of marketization, performance indicators, and the ‘tyranny of fast-time’ (Erikson 2001). Tensions between social movements and the academy are compounded by discourses that obscure material reality. In what follows, we explain why we think such discourse is problematic, before suggesting an alternative, drawing on assemblage theory. Grassroots knowledge | Ivory tower Movement and academic discourses habitually make use of reified binary opposites such as such grassroots knowledge|ivory tower, knowledge from below| knowledge from above, or
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