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Performances of Professionalization
whereas the term [professionalization] once suggested a certain mastery of a field of knowledge linked to a specific skill and expertise, increasingly the mastery that a professional is expected to achieve is over what Mills called ‘the personality.’ In other words…today’s professional is supposed to gain control over his/her thoughts, imagination, relationships, and affects. Certainly one purpose of this is to promote the kind of self discipline and subjective investment long associated with being a professional.
This block quote comes from the heavily cited text of Kathi Weeks' The Problem with Work. We do not care about the ways that we should trace the process of publication to those who are able to distribute and claim ownership. We think more about the questions this brings up in terms of control, property, and professionalization in our assumptions of citation. How does this argument shine light on y/our knowledge networks? How do we want to cite? What do you want to cite? How does your physical tasks create landmarks….. What is the aftermath…
Citation as professional reference.
Professional reference as performance.
Performance as citation as professional reference.
Citation politics and practices and praxis extends beyond the formal process, structures, and operations of knowledge production and scholarship. It’s a practice, a direction. I/you/we work at a reference (citation) desk - I/you/we direct people to references.
This job (which is a performance) is to be a reliable, authoritative source; I/you/we are citations. I/you/we perform citations and referencing in shifts that are measured in units of time (that’s made up).
Citing work and words and worlds with learners’ is material and flesh. I/you/we try not to be dangerous or apolitical or naive or anti-historical.
I/you/we are supposed to have citation knowledge. The machine in front of us is alleged to have citation knowledge. The machine is in control of systems of information and circuits of knowledge. I/you/we are supposed to be in control of our systems of knowledge and circuits of information. I am not. I am out of order. Are you out of order, too?
This performance is a (historical and contemporary) demand of a specific type of professionalization. A professionalization that desires a performance that is not this: performing citation could hold and carry possibilities of genuine presence and meaningful participation and exchange rooted in relationality and collectivity and study.
This is no secret that the current citation performance is set against a way of life, embodiment, and sociality.
And there are other kinds of forms of performance in, and of, citation and professionalization.
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