“The Necessity of Genre Disruption in Organizing an Advocacy Space for and by Graduate Students”
by Ashanka Kumari, Sweta Baniya, and Kyle Larson | Xchanges 15.1, Spring 2020
Part 1: Genre in Traditional Spaces: Disruption
Representing WPA-GO, Presswood and Schwarz (2020) draw us to think about how a precarious population might incite change within a field at large that does not seem to have structural support for holding people and programs accountable. This consideration’s importance cannot be overstated. Lack of accountability exists within our own institutions and the larger field. What would building robust accountability structures entail in Rhetoric and Composition (Rhet-Comp), a field Lauer (1984) described as a “dappled discipline” that reflects a patching-together of multiple disciplinary ideas leading to the “complex, messy, and rock-bottom realm [that is] Composition Studies” (p. 28)? We believe the answer involves dappling with, learning from, and building upon social movement genres. Here, we’re inspired by Kynard (2013), who “situate[s] the social world of composition studies in its connections to Black Power, Black Studies, and the Black Arts Movement” (p. 15). We also praise Bowman and Kovanen (2020), who advocate for the frameworks borrowed from labor activism, addressing how Rhet-Comp grew as a discipline in response to disputed labor conditions. Likewise, nextGEN’s creation spurred generally from protest over white language supremacy on WPA-L, and from faculty dismissal of and outrage over a graduate student’s anti-racist contribution. Historically “online forums including . . . listservs can be spaces where rising scholars like graduate students and junior scholars learn about the spirit of the field and contribute their emerging perspectives” (Glotfelter & Tham, 2018, para. 1). However, what happens if and when they are not welcome to do so?
WPA-L operates as a longstanding disciplinary space in existence since 1991, when writing studies was beginning to establish itself.2 Unfortunately, it has cultivated its genred discursive space over this time towards boundary-maintaining and mere information-sharing, rather than community-building and power-sharing. Graduate students therefore organized via their own already-existing social networking spaces, adopted the older genred technology of a listserv, and built a consolidated graduate-centered space dedicated to enriching conversations among graduate students, early-career faculty, non-tenure-track faculty, and adjuncts.3
But listservs traditionally don’t organize community uplift spaces at conferences, collectively write responses to other listservs, and have Twitter accounts; however, nextGEN does. Several questions have therefore been posed to those involved in nextGEN: What does nextGEN want to be? An organization? A standing group? To respond, we ask ourselves and others: How would institutionalizing nextGEN into disciplinary academic genres dissolve some of nextGEN’s current and potential power?
As the first moderators, we don’t wish to assimilate to disciplinary genres that limit movement potential, but desire to build from and beyond them. We especially seek to disrupt historically institutionalized hierarchies and power structures reifying systemic oppressions. We work to disrupt the hierarchical genre of networking by emphasizing, first and foremost, the value of horizontal networking and the celebration of graduate student scholars, moving past the tradition of valuing and lauding veteran teacher-scholars more than new voices. nextGEN creates space for horizontal mentoring4 by cultivating a community praxis of uplifting and supporting one another rather than viewing each other as competition. It’s crucial to re-vision the hierarchical genre of mentoring that traditionally happens in one-on-one settings locally. Many graduate students may not receive adequate institutional support, and we hope and believe spaces like nextGEN can provide opportunities to experience the value of horizontal mentoring.
nextGEN’s existence necessitates this form of hierarchical genre disruption. After all, its genred discursive space works to flip the script of faculty power. We’ve been clear that faculty can have a presence on nextGEN. The community voted to have it be so. However, faculty must participate in a way that reflects the digital praxis of feminist methodological ethos, which emphasizes decentering themselves, uplifting underrepresented voices, and being open to critique (Larson, 2018). nextGEN thus has evolved as a space where graduate students offer guidance, provide resources, and support each other emotionally and professionally. We therefore see nextGEN as not only a community, but also a movement. It’s a rhizomatic (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) movement that grows and spreads by assembling via digital and conference spaces to advocate for graduate student welfare. We work to advance, at times, a disruptive movement in order to create hope, reliance, and space for Rhet-Comp graduate students, including us.
In what follows, the initial three nextGEN moderators reflect on the need for this genre disruption. To be clear, nextGEN isn’t an organization with a governing body—it’s a listserv that networks itself into other digital spaces (like Twitter); however, social movement organizing principles and practices have been instrumental to nextGEN. With the space established, a central consideration is what becomes of this space. Does it emerge to only sink from use and memory due to a lack of attention and engagement? What’s the role of moderation for a space without a developed cultural, disciplinary identity? It became clear, early on, that part of moderation would be community-building and -organizing.
[2] According to Flaherty (2019), “Dave Schwalm, professor emeritus of English at Arizona State University, founded the listserv in 1991, when writing studies was still an emerging field and considered to be a ‘duty’ of many English departments. (Today there are about 4,000 subscribers, though many accounts are probably inactive.)” (“The End of the List?” para. 6)
[3] See Glotfelter & Tham’s (2018) interview with representatives of nextGEN’s Startup Team for more on nextGEN’s formation.
[4] VanHaitsma and Ceraso (2017) describe horizontal mentoring “quite simply, as mentoring (the offering of help, guidance, and training) that is carried out within a horizontal rather than hierarchical relationship (between peers, as opposed to a more and less experience mentor and mentee” (p. 211).