In 2014, the popular conversation about safe space in the classroom tended to mock marginalized students seeking protection. Nearly a decade later, the discourse has become protectionist toward majority students allegedly discriminated against by being informed that they benefit from racism, sexism and heterosexism. What, then, does it mean to…

In the context of renewed debates and interest in this area, this paper reframes the theoretical agenda around laddish masculinities in UK higher education, and similar masculinities overseas. These can be contextualised within consumerist neoliberal rationalities, the neoconservative backlash against feminism and other social justice movements,…

It has been argued that racialised Others occupy a liminal space of alterity; a position at the edges of society from which their identities and experiences are constructed. Rather than being regarded as a place of disadvantage and degradation, it has been posited that those excluded from the centre can experience a "perspective…

By the middle of the nineteenth century American society was becoming restructured according to the concept of career. A new middle class emerged, and within it professionalism became the highest goal. The creation of the university in America provided the necessary matrix for its development, making possible new attitudes about authority,…

In this essay, the author presents a rationale (and opportunities) for anthropologists to study the middle and upper end of the social power structure, as well as the lower. Anthropologists have much to contribute to an understanding of the processes whereby power and responsibility are exercised in this country; indeed there is a certain urgency…