Cliques in academia

[resistingreality]

Loads of threads from me recently. I think it's because I'm really struggling with this job at the moment. Anyway, anybody want to talk to me about academic cliques? I am finding this especially hard at the moment. It seems to me that in my area of research (probably others too) there are in-groups and out-groups and I am very much in the latter. I just went on Twitter where I saw a workshop which is my area and where I know a lot of the academics, not well but a bit. I was very much NFI. Is this a very normal occurrence? I feel a bit like I'm back at school and I found out all my mates went out without me. But there's loads of this - just this sense that knowing the right people is really important. Any thoughts?

twitter is very bad for academic FOMO when other people post all the conferences they are going to etc. Most people are probably actually doing just one conference per year but then boast about it for ages. so ignore them.

have you tried organizing your own conferences / workshops? that is a good way to create your own gang.

I wouldn't take any notice of Twitter. Look the sense of FOMO & cliques is endemic. As a friend (who's not an academic) said to me once: "You work in a very competitive profession that tries to pretend it's not competitive."

I was once left out of a day in honour of a senior scholar who had been a mentor to me. All the top people in my field were invited, except for me (and I am in that group - it's a small field!!). It felt very deliberate. It probably was. When I found out - a year later! - I contacted the scholar in question & his partner (I'm personally close to the both) and apologised for not being there. They were lovely about it, as they'd assumed I was too busy to attend and it was some distance away, but I had to admit that I wasn't invited. It was humiliating really.

So we all have our stories, I expect.

I know that what I do is try deliberately & consciously to make the choice to be generous whenever I can. Sometimes that is difficult & it takes thinking about, and it's not m first instinct. But if you can create and facilitate opportunities for others, you can build your own, open network. And I find I get back so much from doing that.

It helps that I've had excellent mentors & research partners - one in particular from whom I learnt about making the choice to be generous. I think you have to be fairly self-assured to be generous BUT - practicing generosity can help you feel more self-assured!

So forget about Twitter cliques and seek out the people you want to play with! Good luck