Alterity: The passion, politics, and ethics of self and scholarship

Abstract

I propose that the choices we make about the type of work we do as scholars are not just intellectual ones, they are intricately interwoven with who we are, made in poetic moments, in relation to others, and have political consequences in terms of our identities and career. This is particularly so for critical and reflexive scholars struggling with their sense of self in relation to the wider academy. This struggle is both personal and ethical in the sense of requiring us to be respons-able for ourselves and others. Drawing from hermeneutic phenomenology and utilizing narrative ethnography, I explore my experience of alterity and how it helped shape me, my research, and my career. My aim is to encourage scholars engaged in work that is different to mainstream “norms,” and who may be grappling with similar issues, to persevere and find a way forward.

The Other side of ‘us’: Alterity construction and identification work in the context of planned change

“…However, it is not presence in and of itself that matters. Rather, doing ethnography is about connecting with people in a specific field of activity through an engaged and emotional experience of their social space (Cunliffe, 2018), which in turn develops the fieldworker's sensibility to the particularities and complexities of social life (Hastrup, 2005). This further involves being assigned a particular position and playing the 'part' allocated to the fieldworker (Hastrup, 2004).…”

“…Our starting point is the proposition that alterity is rooted in everyday face-to-face interaction (Cunliffe, 2018) and that identification processes involve developing an ongoing sense of both self and others (Ybema et al, 2009). Furthermore, identity formation involves being 'placed' or discursively constructed by others, and how people in turn respond by reinforcing, refining or rejecting such constructions (Beech, 2008).…”

Is age just a number? Credibility and identity of younger academics in UK business schools

“…At the time of data collection in 2014/15, we were ourselves 'young academics' and mindful of our motivations for investigating this topic as a function of our own experience (Cunliffe, 2018).…”

“…This article is borne from our own experiences as young academics, which ignited our interest in exploring identity construction and consequences. To encourage critical scholarship, the notion of reflexivity is referenced in the quest to align and extrapolate ourselves from the data (Cunliffe, 2018). We are therefore cognisant of the constructions of meaning in our writing as a function of and intertwined with our own identity (Cunliffe, 2018).…”

Alterethnography: Reading and writing otherness in organizations

“…Being an approach to the social based on the combined urge to understand and to change for the better, and with an underpinning characteristic rooted in a feminist approach to knowledge, it is small wonder that ethnography has failed to attract hegemony and, instead, been deemed attractive by epistemological dissenters such as feminists, from Margaret Mead (2001) to Richelle Schrock (2013), and a multitude of other researchers dedicated to alterity (Cunliffe, 2018). Most often, these researchers unite in epistemological concerns about the problem of representation (as reflected, e.g., in the much celebrated work of Van Maanen, 2011b), and their strivings are of no less importance today than at the time when John Van Maanen wrote his much cited book (Cunliffe, 2010).…”