From Dystopian Academia to Utopian Sororal Counterspaces: A Collaborative Autoethnography of Women Academics in Business Schools

Roula Gergess, Natalia Vershinina and Amal Abdellatif
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Roula Gergess: LIRSA - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de recherche en sciences de l'action - Cnam - Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers [Cnam]
Natalia Vershinina: Audencia Business School
Amal Abdellatif: Northumbria University [Newcastle]

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Abstract: The contemporary business school is increasingly portrayed as dystopian, shaped by neoliberal managerialism, metric‐driven performativity, and precarious labor. These pressures weigh heaviest on women academics, whose careers are fractured by intersecting lines of gender, race, class, and citizenship. Drawing on a year‐long collaborative autoethnography involving three women scholars situated in three distinct national systems, this article interrogates the everyday dystopias of academic life and maps the emergence of sororal counterspaces: utopian pockets of solidarity, care, and collective resistance that materializes within, against, and beyond the neoliberal academy. By weaving feminist political economy, intersectionality, and utopian studies with dialogic vignettes, we demonstrate how practicing sorority transcends entrenched institutional boundaries, rehumanizes academic subjectivities, and offers concrete mechanisms for change. We conclude with a framework for cultivating sororal counterspaces and ritualizing solidarity and a call for gender‐equitable, care‐centered business schools.

Keywords: Dystopia; Feminist counterspaces; Neoliberal academia; Sorority; Utopia; Heterotopia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
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Published in Gender, Work and Organization, 2026, 33 (3), pp.1137-1147. ⟨10.1111/gwao.70098⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05419394

DOI: 10.1111/gwao.70098

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