“Hi, I’m New Here”: Building a Network of Support

We hardly enter academic spaces as equals.  A growing body of literature shows that membership in different social categories such as race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, etc. alters individuals’ experiences in various academic environments. What is often dismissed, however, is the ways that individuals’ networks can alter their satisfaction and their success. But focusing on these networks can help us understand our experiences and find ways to address our problems.

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One of the very first things that I realized upon my arrival to the United States around eight years ago was an unfamiliar but clear kind of vulnerability that perhaps everyone new to a country or discipline feels: something like what Gordon-Bouvier calls “relational vulnerability.” This form of vulnerability is “relational” because it is a product of being situated in an unsupportive relational network.

The idea of relational vulnerability is embedded in a more general theory of vulnerability introduced by political philosopher Martha Fineman. As she puts it, we are all susceptible to “the ever-present possibility of harm and injury from mildly unfortunate to catastrophically devastating events.” But we can build resiliency through building a network of support (Fineman 2013). She argues that resiliency is inherently relational and our position in interpersonal networks and institutional structures can influence our ability to acquire it.

In other words, my vulnerability was simply more exposed than it used to be because I was situated differently in a new environment. All I needed to do was to build a new network of support. But this was much easier said than done, even though it was not my first time doing it. I just could not figure out why.  

For the most part, I was desperately lonely and very confused upon arriving in the U.S. My loneliness was confusing because it seemed like I chose to be lonely. I started putting myself out there much less than I used to. And when I look back, it makes sense why. All my connections were very fragile, as all new connections are. I was trying to befriend people who already had friends, so I needed them more than they needed me. Hence, if something went wrong, I would have the heavier burden to lift. Also, if someone hurt me, there would be no or little social pressure for them to address it. It almost felt as if I am what Vanessa Carbonell calls a “second class moral citizen.” I had concerns that did not matter to anyone else.

Things did in fact go wrong. I did get hurt, and afterwards my natural and healthy aversion to exploitation and powerlessness made it more desirable to remain in my shell. I later learned that what I was experiencing was a more general pattern that is also present in academic collaborations. Members of underrepresented groups often have less bargaining power in their collaborations and can end up doing most of the work without much credit. This lower bargaining power and insignificant credit provide enough incentive for them to avoid collaboration with members of the dominant group or even altogether. Cailin O’Connor models this effect beautifully in her book, The Origins of Unfairness, and the graph below shows an example of its dynamic.

As this graph illustrates, undesirable interactions give individuals incentive to collaborate with members of the same group. But this is slightly misleading because the ability to form connections are not evenly distributed. As Anderson argues, levels of trust are extremely low among members of marginalized groups. Even empathy for shared experiences might not be something that is easy for them to come by, as Kate Manne’s analysis of what she calls “himpathy” suggests. Thus, in practice, members of marginalized groups either work solo or stay in contact with those who intentionally or unintentionally tend to give them the short end of the stick. In other words, they remain relationally vulnerable because of their limited access to similarly situated individuals.  

Despite the limited access of marginalized groups to the necessary means of building support networks, homophilic clusters are a reality in academic philosophy. You can see an example of such clustering in the following graph that represents a similar clustering by gender in recent philosophical literature. An interactive version of this graph and other works by its author is available here.

Clustering of underrepresented philosophers occurs but comes at a cost. Their clustering in a few subdisciplines means less exposure and access to potential allies in others. Not only do these philosophers become less visible in other subfields, but the cost of joining other fields increases with clustering. In fact, O’Connor shows that the greater the homophily of a network, the higher the level of discrimination. The long history of questions like “How is this paper philosophy?”, especially when the work is produced by members of underrepresented groups and addresses issues related to their social identities and experiences, is evidence for this correlation. Such homophily in a network and the network’s resulting discrimination increase the cost of joining the cluster of collaboration that we need to survive academically. It also creates an environment in which members of marginalized groups need to constantly “prove they are good enough for the discipline,” as George Yancy argues.

Change became a tangible possibility for me when I met another female international grad student at a workshop. The similarity between our experiences was striking. Aside from being very isolated, we had a long list of seemingly random but surprisingly similar experiences with being stereotyped, being treated unfairly in minor but annoying ways, and being the target of other instances of intentional or unintentional microaggressions. Normally, I avoided conversation about those experiences at all costs to prevent the impression of a person who blows things out of proportion. But as Regina Rini argues, and my experience confirms, these kinds of minor negative experiences accumulate over time and harm their recipients by diminishing their feelings of belonging. But my new connection allowed me to acknowledge this burden without gaslighting myself. She became an informal ally and gave me a way to combat something close to what Miranda Fricker calls testimonial injustice.

I reached another milestone when I found myself in the wrong room in one of the APA division meetings. I had inadvertently joined a group of legendary philosophy stars who were introducing themselves one by one. In turn, I introduced myself, shared my affiliation, and disclosed that I probably should not have been there. I even tried to sound silly to lift the tension while I left the room. But fortunately the group included Sally Haslanger, who walked over, hugged me, and said, “Never let people make you feel like you don’t belong. Stay!” We had a great conversation afterward, and I also got to know a few other amazing and caring souls like Julie Maybe and Yannik Thiem. Their care to go out of their way to welcome someone who was struggling opened my eyes to the sheer possibility of a connected network of philosophers who could understand and support my efforts. This empowering gift was a cure to all my social illnesses. Now instead of one ally, I had access to a network of allies who believed my testimonies and subsequently opened the door to a wealth of philosophical concepts by which to understand my own experiences in works by scholars like Lorde, Anderson, Young, Frye, Jagger, Toronto, Collins, Ahmed, Moallem, Khader, Fatima, and many others.

While one’s personal struggle can be painful, the general idea behind experiences like mine is pretty simple: as Elizabeth Anderson argues, we rely on cooperation with others to survive and grow, and much of our day-to-day functioning is possible through informal social incentives for cooperation. For example, we need others to do us small favors, give us advice, have our back if things go wrong, stick up for us when we are bullied, give us the gossip about creepy people we need to avoid, inform us about cool new things that happen in the discipline, recommend us when special opportunities arrive, and many other things that make the profession a functioning community. But we neither owe such services to others nor others to us, especially given that doing such favors can be costly and sometimes come with risk. Of course, in a strong relationship, helping a friend is a no-brainer, even if it comes with a cost. But things are less straightforward when ties are weak, as many professional ties are.

Behavioral scientists show that when relationships are weak, social pressure is often the main incentive for people to cooperate and do favors for others. Failing to do so can hurt our reputation or cause others to sever their links with us. But this kind of social pressure kicks in only when the interacting individuals have a supported link. Two people have a supported link when they have at least one shared friend. For instance, it is more likely for me to get a useful piece of gossip from Lavender if we are both friends with Ali. The more friends we have in common with others, the denser is our network of social relations

Unsurprisingly, individuals with no or few supported links are very vulnerable to harm. It is no accident that international students experience the highest rate of sexual assault among students in the US. Another form of harm that I have heard about anecdotally from too many international students is being ostracized by peers or even faculty members, for no good reason. The friend I met at the workshop was ostracized because her peers believed that her facial expressions were too hard for them to read. Another friend was excluded from social gatherings in his department because his fellow grad student disliked his habit of removing his shoes on occasions for which she thought it was unnecessary. A close relative who wears a headscarf and doesn’t drink was completely excluded from her department’s gatherings because people felt uncomfortable drinking in her presence. These situations happen because it is too easy to ostracize someone who does not have very many connections to the group.

Obviously, international students are not the only ones affected by disparities in connectivity. In fact, most graduate students share the vulnerabilities that come with having few and weak connections. But neither graduate students nor international students are homogeneous groups. As Iris Young argues, social groups “mirror in their own differentiation many of the other groups in the wider society.”  Membership in certain groups and a specific location in the broader professional network can alter individuals’ access to allies and chances to build a network of support.

In sum, through no fault of their own, people from underrepresented groups can be relationally vulnerable. If you are one of these people, I invite you to be good to yourself and to use resources within your reach to build your support network. Going to conferences, seeking out others who are similarly positioned, connecting to mentoring networks, reaching out to organizations like MAP or the APA graduate student council that intentionally bring people together are only a few examples of actions that I recommend based on my own experiences. If you do not belong to such a group, I invite you not only to take the vulnerability of others into consideration but also to make it possible for them to connect with each other and to the broader philosophical community if you have the means to do so.

The Women in Philosophy series publishes posts on women in the history of philosophy, posts on issues of concern to women in the field of philosophy, and posts that put philosophy to work to address issues of concern to women in the wider world. If you are interested in writing for the series, please contact the Series Editor Adriel M. Trott or Associate Editor Julinna Oxley.

Sahar Heydari Fard

Sahar Heydari Fard is a Sawyer Fellow in the Department of Humanities at Illinois Institute of Technology. She teaches courses in applied ethics, philosophy of the social sciences, philosophy of race and gender, and introductory humanities. Her research focuses on social movements and social change, why and how they happen, and our individual moral responsibility to them and their goals.