Of Academia, Status, and Knowing Your Place

Academic jobs in the Netherlands are seen as high-status jobs. Through recollection of a few social interactions I have had outside, and within the academy, I discuss how my positionality at the intersections of, among others, migration background, gender, and class, is perceived as incongruent with the status associated with being an academic in the Global North. I touch upon matters such as the right to knowledge (re)production and the ascribed and prescribed equivalence of one’s country of origin and the type of work they are expected to do.