From withering to flourishing: repairing academia through holistic and sustainable care practices

We are scholars and educators committed to embracing care while working within colonialist, neoliberal, and performative academic environments, and we are withering. Our withering is balanced against our inner strength, a fierce belief in connection and community, and a commitment to harnessing the power of transformation. In this essay, we advocate for a radical openness and embracing of care-based practices to reshape our learning and teaching spaces and places. To achieve this aim, we identify three themes which represent existing harm-inducing dominant practices within higher education; these include educators’ (often unintentional) enactment of: (1) “business as usual,” (2), technocratic extractivism, and (3) the “normalization of disconnection.” The themes sit as juxtapositions against seven interconnected care-based prompts for action we share within them. Our prompts for action encourage educators to reclaim their agency and create learning and teaching environments which prioritize respect, reciprocity, accountability, belonging, connection, and repair. By challenging dominant paradigms and highlighting the power of micro-emancipations, we call both to ourselves and other educators to shift from competitive and disconnected learning models to inclusive care-driven practices. It is our hope that this essay will inspire educators to authentically engage in journeys of healing while embracing care-based actions which address systemic inequalities and foster meaningful, holistic, and sustainable transformational change.