Talking to Foucault: Examining Marginalization and Exclusion in Academic Science

Although we usually think about writing as a mode of "telling" about the social world, writing is not just a moping-up activity at the end of a research project. Writing is also a way of "knowing"--a method of discovery and analysis. By writing in different ways, we discover new aspects of our topic and our relationship to it. Form and content are inseparable. --Laurel Richardson In this article, I invite you to join me as I follow Laurel Richardson's advice to use writing as a method of inquiry. (1) To do so, I engage in a fictional conversation with Michel Foucault--later joined by actor-network theorist Michel Callon--in which I talk through and construct understanding(s) of and from my research on the under-representation and marginalization of women in academic science. I have chosen to talk through possible meanings with Foucault and Callon not only because of the applicability of their theorizing, but also because their work has inspired me to resist normative discourses in social research. By writing through meaning(s) in conversation--albeit fictitious--in this way and inviting you to join me, I hope we will both, indeed, discover new aspects of this topic and our relationship to it. (2) Before we begin however, let me share a few important details about this research. It is a narrative ethnography (3) in which I have spent nearly 50 hours in conversations with five male and female doctoral candidates and junior faculty members in natural science departments. Amanda, Aaron, Sylvia, Peter and Greta each shared up to 10 hours talking with me in their offices, coffee shops and local restaurants about the ways in which they understand and develop some sense of 'fit' or belonging within academic science. Amanda, Aaron and Sylvia are all doctoral candidates in chemistry, microbiology and ecology while Peter and Greta are assistant professors in chemistry and earth science departments. In the writing and the reading of the text that follows, I hope to create opportunities in which multiple understandings of and new possibilities for disrupting marginalization and exclusion can emerge from the intersections of our experiences of the world and our interpretations of the words. Co-Constructing Understanding(s) With the assistance of some imaginative time travel the year is 1983 and I am sitting in the office of Michel Foucault. My lap is filled with folders containing the stories, conversations, vignettes and diagrams that came from initial analyses of 2500 pages of transcribed conversations with my co-participants. My backpack is filled with books written by and about Dr. Foucault, as well as pages and pages of notes taken from these texts for easy reference. Just moments before, a delightful young graduate student escorted me into this voluminous office, offered me a seat at a round table that appears to be a place for taking meetings, and assured me that Dr. Foucault would arrive shortly. Nervously, I organize my folders, notes, and books on the table in front of me. While I am looking forward to talking about the findings and implications of my research with one of the people who inspired it, I just hope that I can keep from being immobilized by the process of down shifting into my lizard brain the minute he walks in the door. Sitting at his table, looking around at his shelves filled with books written by famous philosophers and social scientists like Kant, Chomsky, Weber, and Nietzsche, I begin to tremble with the fear of having nothing meaningful to say. I've spent nineteen months completely absorbed by this project and all of the sudden I'm terrorized by the notion of wrapping it up and putting it in the hands of readers. As that fear begins to take hold in the pit of my stomach, I feel compelled to grab my things and leave. Before I can get my body to move, however, Michel Foucault walks in the door. With that, a new form of paralysis kicks in. Reminding myself to breath slowly and consciously, I take in all of his characteristic features. …