Exploring academic careers through the metaphors of doors and ladders: a relational, feminist and vulnerable approach

Building on Sara Ahmed’s work on use (2019) and exploring the value of metaphors in theorizing organizational phenomena, this paper develops the metaphorical conceptualizations of doors and ladders, surfacing several complexities involved in women’s academic careers in neoliberal workspaces. In doing so, it challenges the idea of linearity in academic career trajectories, underscoring the contested and constantly (re)negotiated dynamics and unfixed processes of both praxis and sensemaking in neoliberal academia. Empirically, we focus on the microlevel of organizing academic careers, sharing personal narratives nurtured by feminist vulnerability and facilitated through a relational autoethnographic approach. Contributing to critical approaches to academic careers, theoretically we articulate the conceptual relevance of doors and ladders in revealing the hidden dynamics therein, discussing the nuances of navigating the neoliberal academic professional context at different career stages. We consider the spatial and temporal dynamics of doors and ladders, their shifting and disorienting nature, offering visibility to the everyday experience of academic work.