A Place to Stand - Lindquist
As a bartender/ ethnographer Lindquist explores how bars are spaces where thevanishing public is not endangered; publics are being created and sustained as the Smokehouse workers and regulars engage language and perform various political and personal identities. The “transformative power of routine” (48) in such spaces facilitates the ease of everyday language and political discussions as they sit side-by-side, on the same level, at the bar.
Smith’s (1988) discussion of gender (along with other things) asserts that an academic study of the everyday is incomplete. Sociology is a discipline, serving as part of a hegemonic construct. She goes on to argue that the only way to have equalrepresentations of women and men in sociology is for the everyday to become problematic. This everyday is an explicit, discursive formulation of the/an actual everyday world and a reality that rises for those who live it (9). I am interested in the idea of the power of everyday life; how it cannot and will not be discovered in a lab or through carefully constructed academic endeavor. The power of everyday life will come from those living it.
This stance on the power of the everyday could be considered dangerous to some as it threatens to diminish the possibility the power of the academic elite, returning to the public. It says that there is power and value in just living day to day. Such an idea also implies the power and significance in language, placing everyday language on the same level as academic jargon. In this context, language/writing does not exclude others, but it opens up and transforms the social positions that are occupied or available to be occupied (Sheridan et al., 2005).
The idea of the everyday brings to my mind two immediate connections. 1. The first is Neil Degrasse Tyson as a public intellectual. I may be holding a grudge against him for killing Pluto (RIP), but I have also seen him evoking an identity of public intellectual when he talks to us like we are idiots. 2. I also think we can relate Tyson and this text back to Dewey and his ideas on the role of the public intellectual. He discusses expertise (21) as a bearer of knowledge while he locates power the audience the intellectual is engaging. Dewey’s ideas on expertise (21) align with Lindquist’s because he also situates power in the everyday citizen and the conversations that occur among citizens.
The value that Lindquist, Smith, Sheridan, Dewey, and others contribute to the everyday unlocks a path that I would like to turn back on myself and the academy: the everyday for many professors is problematic. Within the confines of the university, the silos of disciplines/departments normalizes the jargon we use everyday. The academic bubbles we get stuck in can cause us to lose sight of the world, the stakeholders, and the language we need to be able to communicate in a clear manner. Some academics may be able to write a lengthy article on a complex and important topic but stammer or patronize (Tyson) while attempting to explain it to the general public. A similar problem occurs for WPAs and others working with faculty from across the disciplines. While they may be more than able to write and make meaning in the genres of their disciplines, they find it difficult to teach, explain, or even discuss the inside workings of the writing in their discipline.
We could learn something from Lindquist and her comparison of bartenders and ethnographers. Both positions call for a democratic, navigation of spaces: being inside and outside of the situation, central and peripheral, observer and participant (48). It is a tricky balance to maintain, but a worthwhile one. One way we could start considering this balance could come form her discussion on the “egalitarian”, “leveling effect” (48) of a bar. When level, the external status distinctions are not as significant and have less power over those when they are at the bar. What spaces in the university – within, across, and beyond the disciplines – create opportunities for or value the everyday? What risks and rewards could come from academic spaces where the social hierarchy is relaxes and social relations are valued?
Smith’s (1988) discussion of gender (along with other things) asserts that an academic study of the everyday is incomplete. Sociology is a discipline, serving as part of a hegemonic construct. She goes on to argue that the only way to have equalrepresentations of women and men in sociology is for the everyday to become problematic. This everyday is an explicit, discursive formulation of the/an actual everyday world and a reality that rises for those who live it (9). I am interested in the idea of the power of everyday life; how it cannot and will not be discovered in a lab or through carefully constructed academic endeavor. The power of everyday life will come from those living it.
This stance on the power of the everyday could be considered dangerous to some as it threatens to diminish the possibility the power of the academic elite, returning to the public. It says that there is power and value in just living day to day. Such an idea also implies the power and significance in language, placing everyday language on the same level as academic jargon. In this context, language/writing does not exclude others, but it opens up and transforms the social positions that are occupied or available to be occupied (Sheridan et al., 2005).
The idea of the everyday brings to my mind two immediate connections. 1. The first is Neil Degrasse Tyson as a public intellectual. I may be holding a grudge against him for killing Pluto (RIP), but I have also seen him evoking an identity of public intellectual when he talks to us like we are idiots. 2. I also think we can relate Tyson and this text back to Dewey and his ideas on the role of the public intellectual. He discusses expertise (21) as a bearer of knowledge while he locates power the audience the intellectual is engaging. Dewey’s ideas on expertise (21) align with Lindquist’s because he also situates power in the everyday citizen and the conversations that occur among citizens.
The value that Lindquist, Smith, Sheridan, Dewey, and others contribute to the everyday unlocks a path that I would like to turn back on myself and the academy: the everyday for many professors is problematic. Within the confines of the university, the silos of disciplines/departments normalizes the jargon we use everyday. The academic bubbles we get stuck in can cause us to lose sight of the world, the stakeholders, and the language we need to be able to communicate in a clear manner. Some academics may be able to write a lengthy article on a complex and important topic but stammer or patronize (Tyson) while attempting to explain it to the general public. A similar problem occurs for WPAs and others working with faculty from across the disciplines. While they may be more than able to write and make meaning in the genres of their disciplines, they find it difficult to teach, explain, or even discuss the inside workings of the writing in their discipline.
We could learn something from Lindquist and her comparison of bartenders and ethnographers. Both positions call for a democratic, navigation of spaces: being inside and outside of the situation, central and peripheral, observer and participant (48). It is a tricky balance to maintain, but a worthwhile one. One way we could start considering this balance could come form her discussion on the “egalitarian”, “leveling effect” (48) of a bar. When level, the external status distinctions are not as significant and have less power over those when they are at the bar. What spaces in the university – within, across, and beyond the disciplines – create opportunities for or value the everyday? What risks and rewards could come from academic spaces where the social hierarchy is relaxes and social relations are valued?