Acts of Noticing: Resisting Desensitisation in the Neoliberal Academy

Abstract

This article explores the role of sensitivity within geographical research, teaching and methodological practice. It emerged from a shared desire to reclaim sensitivity, deployed here not in a reactive sense (i.e., a propensity to be easily provoked or offended), but rather a responsive sense: to be alive to the lived experiences of others, the fragility of a changing planet and the myriad things which do and should bother us, and which often serve as the propulsive engine behind our work as geographers. To that end, we first trace an incomplete genealogy of sensitivity across moral, emotional, feminist, decolonial, affective and more‐than‐human geographies, demonstrating the concept's widespread utility and arguing that geographical inquiry is inherently about sensitivity; our research would flounder without this sense of perceptual openness at its heart. Next, we outline some of the many processes of desensitisation which characterise the neoliberal academy, situating these within the broader precarisation of everyday life. Finally, we offer autoethnographic reflections on how these incongruities between theory and practice have impacted our own lives and professional trajectories, before concluding with tentative thoughts on the possibilities contained in cultivating rather than muting our inherent, collective sensitivities. In doing so, we establish sensitivity as an interpersonal attribute which fosters empathy, collegiality and mutual care. Protecting our sensitivities allows us to embody our research, find love in our work and produce methodologically and theoretically rich accounts of our world and those who share it with us. Additionally, we advocate for the refusal to be desensitised to the failures and violences of the neoliberal academy, as well as the broader injustices embedded into the world in which we live and work. We argue, ultimately, that surrendering our sensitivity entirely leads to the impoverishment not only of our work in practice, but also of our humanity.