Academia as an Incubator of Oppression and Violence: A Closer Look at Academic Mobbing and Bullying Offline and Online

  • Constance Iloh Azusa Pacific University, USA
Keywords: academia, institutional culture, academic mobbing, academic bullying, organizational culture, abuse, aggression, harassment, humiliation, smear campaign, cyberbullying, toxicity, social murder, harm, suicide, violence, health risk

Abstract

Academic mobbing, bullying, and cyberbullying are pervasive and interconnected harms in academe with scarce conversation and intervention devoted to them. The author discusses what these phenomena are and asserts academia and its institutions are incubators of oppression and violence as well as protectors of these abuses. The text illustrates some of the destructive consequences for targets of these attacks, refuting other conceptualizations that downplay the severity of academic mobbing and bullying. The author also contends that understanding of academic mobbing and bullying must be multimodal and extend to cyberspace. The text concludes with how both gross negligence and the illusion of the academy as a just exemplar sustains these harms.

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Published
2021-11-05
Section
Articles