What does it mean to be a working-class academic? Does such an identity even exist? What’s the trajectory from council estate to higher education? What is gained, what is lost? And how does this all play out in relation to other aspects of identity? These are all questions asked and explored in this fine collection of autoethnographic essays by Irish working-class academics.
Despite most of these stories starting in Ireland (both urban and rural areas and encompassing the Republic and the North), there is much in this collection that is relatable to my experience as a council estate kid who eventually became an academic. Many of the essays recount the lack of educational opportunities for young working-class people, the journey into higher education ‘beset by detours and dead ends’ (O’Neill), the feelings of inadequacy and imposter syndrome, the everyday classism due to broad working-class accents, the pressure to assimilate into middle-class culture and the constant pull back to working-class origins. These similarities show how class experience can translate across geographical regions, across different eras and circumstances. This is not to discount the specificity of the Irish experience though – some of the authors grew up in the shadow of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, and others were impacted by the legacy of British colonialism both in Ireland and as members of the Irish diaspora in England, but the essays do reveal the commonalities between working-class academics around the world.
The choice of autoethnography as essay style allows for the lived experience of class to be conveyed, and it is within these lived experiences that the nuances of class emerge. As many of the authors note, while the idea of class as a concept, learnt through exposure to education can be transforming, it is through the lived experience that class is truly understood. It is the everyday that shapes us and the personal accounts in this collection build a vivid picture. Some of the essays, such as Vicky Brady’s, point to the alienating effect of higher education on working-class people because the institutions are ‘not built with working-class lives in mind’. This alienating effect also manifests in pressures on working-class academics to distance themselves from their class backgrounds, creating, what Stephen Baker describes as ‘dislocation’. But amid these negative impacts are the acknowledgements of the important of working-class voices and what they bring to the institutions. As Sorca McDonnell outlines, working-class people bring ‘cultural wealth’ to the places that they work and ‘care, empathy and solidarity’. Sheila Gaffney also points to the richness of storytelling and Michelle Kinsella champions the inclusion of anecdotes to illustrate the transformative effects of education.
Many of the authors find themselves drawn to the work of Bourdieu, which is understandable because ideas of cultural capital, of habitus, and of cleft habitus are very common to the experiences of working-class academics. This comes through strongly in the essays. Marcus Free writes about his ‘secret guilt’ as a ‘class defector’, and Kieran McCartney describes the disconnect he experienced as child, growing up on a council estate, but holding middle-class values, inherited from his mother. Keith Murphy recounts the accentism he experienced as a student with a broad Dublin accent, and his attempts at mirroring the middle-class students in order to fit in. Deirdre O’Neill relates these feelings of not fitting in to those of the Irish diaspora in England – who were not always welcomed. Being a working-class academic can feel like being a member of a group that isn’t accepted for who they are and the culture they bring.
Some of the authors, such as Declan McKenna, don’t work in academia – and still feel uncomfortable with the ways in which higher education leads to changes, but others such as Aaron Edwards, state that eventually, their working-class experience became an asset in the work that they do.
These essays are heartfelt and genuine, they provide the reader with an accessible way in to understand the experiences of being working class in a higher education setting, both as a student (with many of the authors experiencing that rocky road to education mentioned earlier), and later as an academic. It isn’t easy – but as the essays show, amid the imposter syndrome, the lack of belonging and the impact of the cleft habitus, being a working-class academic also means possessing a wealth of experience, of strong working-class values such as community, collectively and solidarity and using this to inform teaching, research and the other work we take into the world. And sometimes something small makes it all worthwhile. Recently a student came to speak to me after a lecture. She was in tears. I had included some images of my old council estate on the slides, and spoken about the place that had made me. The student is from a similar high-rise estate in Sydney, and she had never heard anyone speak positively about council estate life. It was a transforming moment for her – suddenly she saw someone with a background like her, doing a job that she thought she’d never be able to do. My working-class background - my working-class identity was the connection, and maybe one day, that student will be doing the same thing for her students. This book shows the importance of talking about working-class experience and of demanding working-class presence in the academy. The authors show why they deserve to be there and the difference they have already made.
