Blockades, Barricades, and Barriers: Accessing and Navigating Academia from a Multi-Marginalized Positionality

Abstract

This article is an autoethnographic account of a gender-queer, working-class, woman of color scholar’s venture into academia. Through an analysis of race and class violence compounded by gender and first-generation college student status, the author recounts the impact of intersectional identities on both their entry into higher education and their progression through graduate school. The author grapples with the isolation derived from engaging graduate students of color from economically privileged backgrounds. Similarly, they delve into finding community among white working-class academics and having to contend with whiteness and unexamined racial privilege. Further, definitions of work and productivity on the academic landscape are thoroughly examined as well as how a class-based consciousness shaped their professional trajectory.