By David Glisch-Sanchez

I have often shared with friends and mentees interested in graduate training my personal belief and observation that one of the greatest occupational hazards of a career in academia is the ego.  I am not using ego as a euphemism for arrogance or a vain sense of superiority, although that could very well be a particular manifestation of the ego. Neither am I referring to the psychological understanding of the ego as one of the key structures of the human psyche.  Rather, I am drawing on notions of the ego as described by the philosopher and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle.  His conceptualization of the ego detailed in A New Earth can best be understood as a false sense of self that is created by the mind.  For Tolle, the true self or essence of any human being is formless (some may refer to this as the soul); its value innate and complete from the very start.  What is of relevance to this discussion are not the esoteric arguments or details that Tolle’s writings provide, but rather the practical lens he offers for understanding human behavior and social interactions.

Tolle explains that the process of identification is the primary means through which the ego develops and functions.  He defines identification as the process by which the mind begins to conceptualize and define the self.  As Tolle explains, our minds begin to imbue objects (car, house, clothes, books, etc.), labels/titles (professor, teacher, endowed chairship, parent, child, etc.), and ideas (dissertations, articles, presentations, books, etc.) with a sense of self.  In other words, we accept these objects, labels/titles, and ideas as extensions of ourselves (we identify with them and want to be identified by them); we externalize our selfhood, and ultimately link our sense of self-worth and value to all of the things wherein we place our sense of selfhood.  Therefore, the ego is a false sense of self because it represents identification with things that in reality have nothing to do with who we are essentially.  What does this mean then for sociologists and other academics? And, why is it an occupational hazard?

Sociology, like any other scholarly discipline or field of study, is populated with individuals who love to think and are full of ideas on a range of topics.  We are a profession whose chief commodity is ideas and by extension our greatest resource and tool is always believed to be our intellects or minds, which is the very home and source of the ego.  We treat our own minds with such reverence that we often are not aware of all it does and how we choose to use it.  Ironically, I believe intellectually we all can understand how placing a sense of self or identifying ourselves with external objects or labels/titles is erroneous.  We can understand how, maybe even why, a Wall Street banker draws a strong sense of self via the material objects she/he may possess, or how an elected leader or those in formal positions of power draw their sense of self from their titles and positions.  The problem then becomes any action taken to regulate, constrain, or challenge those things in which people place their senses of self is understood and interpreted as a personal attack that must be defended at all costs.  The Wall Street banker balks at financial regulation because it might or will cause them to earn $350,000 instead of $400,000, and because their sense of self has been placed in their wealth it is felt deeply as a violation.  When a politician’s authority, actions, or policies are questioned and their position potentially in jeopardy, it is often seen by the officeholder as a betrayal and serious threat, which explains why so many elections are fought ferociously.

I am arguing that it is often harder, especially for scholars, to be aware of the many ways we integrate our sense of self with our ideas and intellectual arguments.  This difficulty in being aware on some level is understandable.  Our ideas, arguments, and analysis ostensibly come from our minds, and how could our minds and the products thereof not be who we really are, right? My observations and arguments presented here, is not to say that our ideas have no relationship at all to who we are, but rather to caution against an over-identification with our ideas as representing all, most, or a lot of who and what we are as human beings.  It is this over-identification or over-placement of self into our ideas that structures a vast swath of our professional lives.

We all have experienced this misplacement.  As graduate students, how many of us have felt the need or impulse to enter into our weekly seminars as intellectual gladiators having or wanting to prove that our interpretation and analysis of the assigned readings is not only correct but also the most insightful? How many of us have witnessed tense exchanges at professional meetings between disciplinary colleagues bent on proving the other wrong or misguided and by virtue themselves right and enlightened? How often have any of us felt the pangs of disappointment, no matter how subtle or pronounced, at the news of a colleague’s work being published or receiving an award, recognition, or funding, feeling as though something has been taken from us? Or, how about the endless comparisons and recriminations that can occur when friends or colleagues are on the job market always waiting to see who gets the “best” job at the “best” institution?

The manifestations of the ego, the false self, within academia are countless, as they are with any other profession.  However, I would like us to consider collectively the price we pay for the “luxury” of such false senses of self.  What is the cost in creating an environment where we evaluate our worth and the worth of our colleagues through the lens of whose ideas are “most innovative,” whose ideas add “most” to our knowledge base, who gets the awards and accolades, and what kind of institution or department one is employed at?  The cost is that we create a structure that incentivizes confrontation over cooperation, denigration over constructive feedback, and dismission over consideration.  All of this is made possible, in large part, because of the ego, the process by which we come to define who and what we essentially are.  We must vehemently defend our ideas because they are a part of us; as sure as our arm is a part of who we are.  We must dismiss or qualify someone else’s success so that it does not seemingly diminish our own.  We berate ourselves for not getting five campus visits when we had three.

Perhaps, in my own opinion, the most costly consequence of this occupational hazard is the zero-sum, all-or-nothing norm that has infiltrated our scholarly-enterprise.  This is especially true within graduate student culture, where we often dismiss the entire work of an author because we find one, two, or even three disagreements with what they have presented.  Often these disagreements are seen through the prism of our very own work, and thus have a vested interest because of our ego in the debunking of someone else’s scholarship.  Many things are evaluated through the lens that either all information presented is right or none of it at all.  We throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.  As a result, we miss out on the opportunity to honestly and thoughtfully learn from our colleagues and peers, and vice versa.  Additionally, we hold ourselves hostage to the impossible standard of always being right in every detail as it concerns our research.  We might likely find it hard to admit errors and mistakes because of how our entire body of work will be evaluated, but especially of our fears of what it says about who we are as people if one or more of our ideas may not be correct or capture the full complexity of a particular phenomenon.  The ego does not allow for a humble self-reflexive analysis of our or anyone else’s work.

Contrary to the tone at times of this piece, I am an optimist.  I do not believe that sociology (or any discipline) or our profession as scholars is always mired in this dynamic; however, it all too often is.  I have experienced classes, colleagues, and mentors who have been very generous in their simultaneous support and constructive feedback.  The question becomes: how do we more consistently interact and treat one another with consideration, cooperation, and constructive feedback?  In my observation, it often starts with an awareness of where and how we place our sense of self, where we draw our worth and value from, and an acknowledgement and sincere acceptance that our essence as individual human beings lays outside the scope of scientific measurement and evaluation.  I have by no means perfected, or even come close, to fully embodying this shift in awareness; however, I do have a vision for how sociology and sociologists in our everyday activities can fulfill the very potential and promise of our discipline and profession.  It is this potential and promise that inspired me to begin the long journey of becoming a trained sociologist.

So now begins the conversation, the real work of becoming a more perfect union, a better beloved community.  What is your vision for our discipline and profession? How might we improve collectively?

David Glisch-Sánchez is a queer Latin@ scholar originally from the midwest (Milwaukee, WI to be exact!). Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.  His dissertation project is tentatlively titled “‘Listen to what your jotería is saying’: Queer Latin@s Confronting Violence, Seeking Justice.”  In this project, he is investigating how transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer Latin@s have experienced social harm/violence during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, what is the socio-historical context for their experiences, and how have ideologies of Latin@ gender and sexuality shaped these experiences.

Every year The University of Texas at Austin hosts a conference on activist scholarship known as Abriendo Brecha (Opening a Path).  Abriendo Brecha brings together activistas, mujeristas, artistas, Nepantleras, scholars, and community members whose work is directed toward social justice and social change.  Celebrating the conference’s 10^th anniversary, this year’s Abriendo Brecha’s focused on showcasing different approaches to activist scholarship, and the experiences of those who are involved in such efforts across disciplines, throughout the Americas, both inside and outside the (whitestream) academy.  We invited graduate student Erika Grajada to share some of her reflections attending the conference:

One of the most important things I took away from the conference is that challenging cultural (and academic) eugenics, as one of the panelists noted, requires that activist researchers think about new and creative ways of knowing (conocimiento), theorizing, and doing. It also requires that we ask new questions: How does a White middle-class researcher engage with and mobilize Chicana feminism and borderlands epistemologies without it resulting in a clumsy reappropriation and recolonization?  As feminist scholars, how can we privilege what Chela Sandoval calls differential consciousness in order to challenge stereotypical representations of women of color?  Should the engaged researcher relinquish “control” over the research project in an effort to discover new, perhaps more ethical ways of conducting research and engaging with underprivileged communities? As Mexican anthropologist Claudia Chávez Argüelles —who is currently conducting research on the massacre of forty-five Tzotzil children, women, and men in Acteal, Chiapas by paramilitary group members—pointed out: “community as another human being, not as an investigadora, which meant I had to learn to accompany them in their ongoing caminar.”

In the words of Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa, “doing work that matters” often entails supporting and aligning ourselves with social movements and organizaciones de base that seek radical social change. What that engagement and relationship will look like will inevitably differ depending on one’s own sense of ethical obligation to the communities we work with. Today, while some of the conference attendees expressed feeling skeptical, critical, and thus constantly grappling with the idea of being an activist or engaged researcher, I left feeling reassured and hopeful by the words of Community and Regional Planning doctoral student Andrea R. Roberts: “silence is also a form of violence.”

Erika Denisse Grajeda is a Sociology doctoral student. Her research interests include informal economies and gender. She is currently doing research on women day laborers in New York City. When not bombarded with graduate school stuff, she likes to drink beer and cook.    

Last week, UT-Austin had the honor of hosting Dr. Michael Omi, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California Berkeley. Organized by the Department of Asian American Studies and co-sponsored by a number of other departments and center, Dr. Omi’s visit included a roundtable discussion with five UT faculty members from American Studies, Anthropology, History; an evening talk; and an informal lunch with graduate students. During these events, discussion not only returned to the significance of racial formation theory in the U.S.-based scholarship of race and ethnicity, but also examined the potential for these theories to examine both the durability and flexibility of “race” within global contexts.  We invited sociology graduate students Vivian Shaw, Amina Zarrugh, and Christine Wheatley to share their reflections on these stimulating talks.

Vivian Shaw:

In his evening talk, Dr. Omi focused specific attention on how Asian Americans, as a socially constructed “group,” are located within a number of racial paradoxes. He unseated several ideological myths around “Asianness” and emphasized how Asian Americans have been stratified simultaneously within a white-black racial binary and relationally to other minority groups. Of particular interest to Omi was the “whitening hypothesis,” a sociological theory suggesting that high achievements around education and income and high rates of “outmarriage” experienced by many East Asian Americans might suggest a socioeconomic integration with white Americans. In asking what it means to suggest that Asian Americans are now being “whitened,” Omi argued that we interrogate what it means to develop a framework of racial analysis that assumes the stability of the category of whiteness and equates progress with the expansion of “more others” into the folds of white respectability. To what extent does such a paradigm demonstrate an investment in the privileges of whiteness?

Throughout his visit, Omi drew connections between the complex political meanings of Asians Americans in the U.S. and the production of knowledge about race within the politicized spaces of academia. He seemed to favor an anecdote dating from the publication of “Racial Formation in the United States”: he and Howard Winant (the book’s co-author) were both surprised and disappointed when they found the book had barely made a ripple within the social sciences, but was instead taken more seriously within the humanities and legal studies. Admittedly, Omi’s criticism of the marginalization of race and ethnic studies within intellectual institutions found some coaxing from his anxious audience. Many faculty and graduate students attending the talks expressed concerns about an undeniable slashing of resources for ethnic studies not only within academia at large, but quite acutely at UT-Austin. Among a variety of measures, targeted cuts have occurred in the form of low rates of tenure for faculty of color and eliminated funding for program support staff. Over sandwiches, Omi offered advice to an intent room of graduate students worried about the implications of such cuts on critical research and their own futures within universities.

In his critique of the racial politics pervasive within academic institutions, Omi offered some alternatives. He talked of his collaborative work with anti-racist community-based organizations and their efforts to “translate” academic ideas into policy-friendly language. Moreover, Omi celebrated the creative applications of racial formation theory that he has witnessed since the book’s publication and the innovative ways in which research on race and ethnicities continue to grow. Dr. Omi’s visit served as a powerful reminder of both what is politically, socially, and intellectually at stake when institutions of whiteness go unchallenged and the creative potentials for anti-racist scholarship.

Amina Zarrugh & Christine Wheatley:

In his evening lecture, Michael Omi discussed the relationship of Asian Americans to whiteness, the instability of which is nevertheless symptomatic of a persistent racial hierarchy. Asian Americans are often exalted as the “model minority” given their disproportionately high education and income levels relative to other ethnic minorities and to whites more generally. Historically, Asian Americans have always been situated against a landscape of U.S. black/white relations but are assigned to different sides of the color line at particular moments. Omi underlined the ways by which, compared to other racial and ethnic groups, Asian Americans are especially vulnerable to a racial repositioning during hostile and tense political climates. From the Chinese Exclusion Act in the early 1880s to internment camps for the Japanese during World War II and contemporary virulent discourse regarding economic threats to the U.S. posed by China, examples of the contingent position of the group in the American racial hierarchy abound. This ambivalence is further underscored by recent examples that illustrate an enduring but increasingly politicized perception that Asian Americans are threatening to whites given the U.S. public’s collective anxieties regarding job outsourcing to South Asia, unemployment, and American performance in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields; this is exemplified further in debates about college admissions such as that of recent U.S. Supreme Court case Fisher v. University of Texas.

Of paramount significance to sociologists, particularly those studying race and ethnicity from a quantitative perspective, was Omi’s discussion of whiteness as a category. Omi proposed that the measures typically regarded by social scientists as signs of inclusion and assimilation – such as intermarriage rates – ought to be more critically regarded as an expression of the continued salience of a racial hierarchy and racialized discourse. The high levels of intermarriage between Asian American women and white men, he argued, cannot be understood solely as the transcendence of racial stereotypes or cultural difference but, rather, as their very affirmation. Cultural stereotypes about Asian American women as objects of exoticized sexual desire suggest that the gender gap in Asian American out-marriage may be intimately connected to such pernicious and problematic discourses. In this way, sociologists ought to consider more critically and creatively categories of racial and ethnic identification as well as the contested meanings associated with “indicators” of social experience, such as assimilation.

The implications of Omi and Winant’s work on racial formation and the specific case of Asian Americans are multifold. In particular, Omi places important emphasis on how moments of political tension inaugurate attendant uncertainties and processes of “Othering,” which connects to the experience of other groups seldom considered in literature on race and ethnicity in the U.S.: that of “Middle Eastern Americans.” In the

context of a post-9/11 political atmosphere, the “ArabMuslimSouthAsian” body has been racialized in specific ways (which are invariably gender-specific). Like Asian Americans, many members of these groups were historically regarded as “white.” Furthermore, and unlike Asian Americans, individuals from North Africa and the Middle East continue to officially be regarded as “white” according to the definition of the “white” category in the U.S. Census. The case of Arab and Iranian Americans parallel in many ways to that of Asian Americans yet introduces another series of questions with a different valence. A question often posed is “What does it mean to be categorized as ‘non-white’?” This case, instead, turns the question on its head to ask:  “What does it mean to not be disaggregated from the category of ‘white’?” These queries and perplexities require that we interrogate not only what it means to be Asian American, Arab American, or Iranian American, but what “whiteness” means, historically and presently, in the United States.

Amina Zarrugh is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology.  Her research focuses on gender, religion and nationalism in Libya.

Vivian Shaw is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology. Her research focuses on race, gender, and technology in Japan and globally.

Christine Wheatley is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology. Her research centers on processes of deportation, both as a form of exclusion and of forced return migration.