What is it like to be affirmed? Micro-affirmations as a practice of academic generosity

Abstract

Against the backdrop of neoliberal reforms and increasing vulnerability in higher education, we argue that microaffirmations, as a form of corporeal generosity, have a subversive potential and as such may contribute to a much-needed renaissance in academia. In this paper, we offer an empirically-grounded investigation of the experience of being affirmed through practices of what we call “collegial generosity.” Through highly sensitive micro-phenomenological interviews with academics across ranks and disciplines, we show how these fleeting moments are lived as subjective shifts – often marked by surprise, joy, and gratitude – that can instill a renewed sense of possibility and professional purpose. Building on embodied ethics, we conceptualize microaffirmations as ethical encounters that enhance our capacity to act and connect to others in our academic environments. These acts are experienced as restorative space-opening gestures that create joy and enhance an individual’s sense of belonging to their academic discipline and collegial community.

Prologue

There was “a feeling of warmth and being seen [. . .] starting in the stomach like a tingling sensation, what you call butterflies, and then the warmth spreads through the ribcage into the face, almost like blushing. You can feel your face getting a little warm as a smile emerges. [. . .] I laughed because I was feeling how wrong it was to think that I didn’t belong there. And I could actually feel I could contribute. (I am) feeling strong, feeling physically able just by the straightening of the spine. But there is also an anticipation rising in the chest, an anticipation for the future and the possibilities, an opening. An open future where all is possible.” – PhD Student Mira on receiving a micro-affirmation from her supervisor

Before reading further, we invite you to pause, turn your attention inwards, and seek out a similar experience. How did it unfold?

Introduction

Mira’s experience above may strike some readers as out of place among the more common despair-centered accounts emerging from academia today (see e.g. Fleming, 2021). It is indeed more usual to read bleak portrayals of toxic management culture, gendered and racialized institutional practices, rampant competition, and the uncritical expansion of metric culture than it is to read about benevolence in any form: generosity, kindness or affirmation. The harmful features of contemporary university culture, along with the exploitative relations that uphold them, will be recognizable for many readers. The backdrop for Mira’s own experience was a string of disheartening experiences that, over time, had eroded her self-confidence and made her feel cut off from both her work and academic passions. Yet when she entered her PhD program, she noticed her advisor had a different way of relating to her:

She just, she has an amazing way of. . . I don’t think she is even aware of it. When I first started the PhD program, I felt really lost because I don’t come from environmental science. . . it was just a whole new place for me. And I’ve often felt alienated – as if I didn’t belong there. Both my advisors actually, they kept doing this. . . just giving very small – but extremely significant for me – affirmations. Overall, it was the feeling of everything being kind of out of tune or skewed or something, and then everything went straight into balance again through these experiences. (Mira)

Seemingly small moments like the one described by Mira, when a person truly wishes to lift another through an attentively placed gesture of support, are the subject of this paper. We refer to these gestures throughout this paper as “micro-affirmations,” but they also go by other names – subtle acts of kindness, care, generosity or affection (Laughter, 2014; McDowell, 2016). As we will describe in more detail later, these gestures can be seen as small building blocks in the practice of academic generosity.

In initial conversations amongst the authors, we talked about our own experiences of affirmation that had been deeply meaningful, particularly at moments of vulnerability, self-doubt, and uncertainty about our professional futures. We began sharing these experiences with one another. The sudden sense of a colleague’s support, how its surprise can hit you in the chest and radiate into warmth. A single sentence of genuine encouragement that can change the course of an otherwise thorny day. A tone that envelops you like a blanket. A colleague going out of their way to give credit for an idea or someone remembering our name. We also knew about these moments from the perspective of the affirmer: moments of attending to students, taking time to write a “caring review” (Kostera, 2022), intentionally crafting our feedback in a way to support the growth of an idea, closing our laptops during meetings with students to signal I am listening. I have time for you. A student approaching us after a lecture could become an opening to make them feel welcome and seen. Such gestures hold particular significance for those who face particular forms of vulnerability: people from minority and working-class backgrounds, individuals whose care-giving responsibilities keep them from working the long hours needed to be competitive, women in male-dominated fields, and the precariously employed working endless overtime in hopes of a more secure future.

We found our research into affirmations seem particularly timely, having witnessed colleagues display a “care-less” attitude in advising and mentoring interactions. In such situations, rather than giving support, they seemed to be more concerned with demonstrating their own competence than focusing on the needs of their advisee. “How do you tell a PhD student that they shouldn’t be pursuing a career in academia?” one of us was asked during a seminar. This gatekeeping attitude is harmful and perpetuates the understanding that our advisees (and colleagues) should “be independent,” “sort things out for themselves” and refrain from being “needy.” This ideal neoliberal subject with the sole responsibility for their own success fails to recognize that we are inherently interdependent beings, even and especially in academia where knowledge is produced in dialog with our students, colleagues and disciplinary communities (Chadwick, 2024; Kostera, 2024).

In this study, we invited colleagues to speak about their specific experiences of being affirmed, but we were particularly attentive to leaving our prompt as open as possible as we were unsure which experiences they would choose to present. In the interviews we used Rowe’s (2008) definition of a micro-affirmation, which we felt offered an accessible entry point. She defines micro-affirmations as: “apparently small acts, which are often ephemeral and hard-to-see, events that are public and private, often unconscious but very effective, which occur wherever people wish to help others to succeed” (p. 4). Having first wrote about micro-affirmations in 1974 in the context of her pioneering work at MIT, Rowe was particularly interested in the invisible barriers faced by women and minority groups in workplaces. Early on she noted that, whereas workplace policies were a first step toward insulating vulnerable individuals, such measures have limited effects at the micro-level, for example, in everyday situations where one might be overlooked, not given due credit, or not included in social activities. These micro-moments of feeling unwelcome – now called microaggressions – formed the building blocks of the “chilly atmosphere” for women that she writes about in much of her work. Rowe saw small acts of affirmative behavior as an overlooked, yet crucial dimension to inclusion and diversity work (Rowe, 1974, 1990, 2008, 2023).

Before moving on, we would like to introduce ourselves (the “we” of this paper) and tell you how we come together. The four of us met during the pandemic when a shared interest in the exploration of lived experience, via micro-phenomenology, brought us together: Jennifer from gender and feminist studies, Kat from cognitive neuroscience, Suneetha from management and Siri from feminist organization studies. Suneetha calls us a group of “transnational allies” whose collaboration is grounded in friendship and a shared curiosity about human experience. We are also all trained in micro-phenomenology as a method. Our academic (but not only) friendship has given us the energy to use micro-phenomenology to write about things that matter to us but that don’t receive much attention in our own universities. How can we live less divided academic lives? How can we give attention to the affective, embodied life of researchers and the work they do (Gill, 2009; Svallfors, 2021)? How can we attend to our colleagues and students in their full humanity, and with humanity? This study of collegial generosity was our attempt to claim the significance of these occurrences and make a space for studying them empirically. Consistent with a phenomenological approach that centers the lived experience itself, we ask quite simply: what is it like to be affirmed? What is the potential of experiencing generosity in academia, an environment often described as harsh and competitive?

In what follows, we will first discuss the potential of collegial generosity in rejuvenating our collective, academic commons, which are in desperate need of a renaissance. Then we present the specific method we used to study of micro-affirmations empirically by using micro-phenomenology to access detailed accounts of the experience of being positively “affected” by other bodies in concrete professional encounters. We have aimed to present the lived experiences of affirmation in a way that preserves their integrity and embodied depth.

Resisting neoliberalism: Nourishing our academic commons

In her book The Good University, Connell (2019) argues that universities worldwide are increasingly unhappy places to work and study. Each year many good academics pack their bags, leaving the university, willingly or unwillingly, for careers elsewhere (Gewin, 2022; Gill, 2009; Murgia and Poggio, 2019). This phenomenon, which has come to be known as “the great resignation,” hit particularly hard during the pandemic when social media provided an outlet to share stories of being underpaid, exploited by extreme teaching loads, and being forced to compete more intensely for a waning number of tenure track positions (Gewin, 2022). With resources already stretched to the limit in many institutions, the pandemic became a breaking point for many academics. Some have also pointed to factors that pre-date the pandemic: a “profound and extensive mental health crisis throughout academia” linked to factors such as uncertainty about the future, financial stress, burnout, and an increasing polarized social/political climate (Johnson and Lester, 2021: 2).

These current ills plaguing the university can be traced back even further in time to structural reforms in governance and management carried out since the 1970s. Much has been written about the devastating effects of neoliberalism in higher education institutions, much of it by academics with first-hand experience. What is important for our context is to understand the ways in which this increasing competition among researchers promotes negative behavior and work environments (Olssen and Peters, 2005). Gill (2009) describes the neoliberal university as “an overheated competitive atmosphere in which acts of kindness, generosity and solidarity often seem to continue only in spite of, rather than because of, the governance of universities” (pp. 46–7). Concerns have been raised, for example, over the loss of meaning, and what competition means for selfhood and ethical conduct. Rather than promoting a sense of connection to our academic communities and classrooms, one person’s success becomes a possible sign of one’s own failure. Under the current system, the more ruthlessly competitive or boastful you are, the more you stand to be rewarded by excellence schemes, which in extreme cases select for psychopaths and narcissists (Babiak and Hare, 2019). Finally, metric culture serves to alienate academics from their work by producing an ‘endlessly self-monitoring, planning, prioritizing “responsabilized” subject (Gill and Pratt, 2008). In this context, we join Fleming (2021) in asking whether hope in such a context is even justified.

A crucial step in the direction of hope would be to try and enact resistance from below and view the university as an integral part of a flourishing academic commons – the shared cultural and intellectual assets necessary for a good society (Standing, 2019). The essence of the commons is its capacity to regenerate resources, rather than deplete them in the name of efficiency and profit (Standing, 2019: 28). Yet we can see that in the context of neoliberal reforms in higher education, the university has become incapable of sustaining itself, particularly its human resources who are subject to overwork, stress, and burnout. It would seem that neoliberalism has all but eradicated the possibilities for building solidarity and community, which would themselves be regenerating forces. In this context, the life-giving relational dimensions of academia have been relegated to the margins, seen as less important or prestigious. Kostera (2024) points out some of the consequences for those who carve out a space for themselves at the sidelines of such a callous system: “Usually the ones who succeed in coming out of the darkness radiate an unknown peace but rarely reach a position of fame or serve as role models for the younger academic generations but they are immediately recognizable” (p. 3). What would it mean then to care for life-giving and regernative forces, to bring them out of the shadows and allow such practices to grow?

Affective and embodied ethics

Part of this much-needed renaissance would involve rethinking how we relate to one another in our academic environments. Currently, academic culture, like that of many organizations, is dominated by principles of organizing that privilege certain types of subjects at the expense of others and that are upheld by oppressive mechanisms like racism, sexism, classism and ableism. The inspiration for alternative forms of organizing can be found in the literature on embodied ethics, which offer a different approach: one characterized by an openness to difference (Hancock, 2008; Pullen and Rhodes, 2014). Embodied ethics also involves a shift in where ethics come from: from rational codes and frameworks to being embodied in social subjects themselves. In this thinking we can see emerge “an epicenter of ethics as embedded in ethical subjects instead of codes of ethics, or other tools designed to either implement or measure ethics” (Baker and Roberts, 2011; Pérezts et al., 2015).

But how can we imagine the practice of embodied ethics in academia where the mind rather than the body is the dominant sensing organ? What would it mean to reawaken a responsiveness to others that was not guided by purely rational thought? While we acknowledge that microaffirmations and other acts of generosity have the potential to be understood transactionally in a logic of exchange, we are convinced that they represent a vital resource for academic communities. It is precisely Rosalyn Diprose’s theorization of corporeal generosity that brings into focus the ways in which the body can serve as the locus of moral behavior. Rather than conceiving of generosity as a voluntary act of giving, compelling the receiver toward reciprocation, Diprose writes of generosity as a fundamental, ontological condition of human existence. In her view, generosity is not a choice but something much more profound, something that “constitutes social relations [. . .] and communal existence” (Diprose, 2002: 5). This shift in thinking displaces the logic of generosity as a calculable transaction and instead emphasizes that vulnerability and relationality form the basis of social life – and in this case an unexplored potential for academia communities.

When we set out to study affirmations, we noted that much of the literature on embodied ethics is theorized from the perspective of the subject engaged in pursuing moral behavior. Much less is known about the vantage point of the receiver. For one might argue that for a practice of embodied ethics to take root within organizational culture, it would need to have an effect, gain traction and possibly grow into the “esprit de corps” or collective practice of the sort described by Pérezts et al. (2015). Our aim therefore in using micro-phenomenology was to understand the experience of receiving (or being folded into) an act of “corporeal generosity” from another person. We learned quickly that we lack a language to describe these positions. We use the term “receive” with the awareness that the practice of corporeal generosity destabilizes the traditional understanding of giver/receiver in favor of a process of mutual becoming (Diprose, 2002). With corporeal generosity, the boundaries that constitute the self and other soften; the boundaries become porous.

These bodily dimensions of ethics have shaped our thinking about how generosity may operate as a call to intersubjective responsiveness. Diprose (2002) argues that such ethical responsiveness arises not from detached reasoning but through embodied encounters with others – moments where we respond, affirm, attend to a vulnerability, or aim to share a moment of joy with another person. Thanem and Wallenberg (2015) have more recently proposed an affective, embodied ethics grounded in Spinozian philosophy. Rather than being about duty or recognition, Spinozian affective ethics emphasizes cultivating relationships that foster mutual empowerment and resonance (Thanem and Wallenberg, 2015). In professional settings, opening oneself to others in the way described by Diprose (2002) would mean acting from a position that demands an attunement with others, taking time to notice their potential and committing to help them develop it – which can in turn empower us. In this paper we argue for the importance of further developing empirical investigations of the lived experiences of such encounters to broaden the scope of potential futures in academia.

Interlude: Vertical descriptions

Now we pause to breathe. We see so much promise in these gestures, so much macro in the micro. But the more academic articles we read, the more we feel our fascination slipping away. What does it mean to pursue quantitative measurements of micro-affirmations, demonstrate their correlation with improved mental health, categorize them, and identify the patterns they follow when we haven’t understood the experience of receiving one? In a chapter on “Stories from the field and from the heart,” Persson (2022) asks the question: “Is there a place for emotional social science?” (p. 43). With this question she enquires into what we do to the phenomena we study when we pin down, classify, dissect, categorize, and correlate pieces of the living social world. Do we lose something beautiful about the whole when we engage in such analytical processes? How might we open up for a different manner of writing and communicating these experiences that restores their wonder? Micro-phenomenology allows us to break from traditional scientific approaches to subjective experience, and the writing differently tradition gives us the courage to write about these experiences by centering their richness and complexity (Kostera, 2022). By expanding these fleeting moments into “vertical reading” experiences (Helin, 2020) generated through micro-phenomenological interviews – we want you, dear reader, to connect with them and feel their energy.

Through the amplification of a fleeting moment, the poetry of an action opens up a deep, vertical reading experience of the sort so beautifully described by Helin (2023). Vertical writing, she explains, is writing that refuses the relentless process of becoming (horizontal time) in order to open up the moment. Vertical writing is not about establishing a logical sequence – a “disciplining” of experience – but it rather aims for a sense of depth, for exploring how the moment is embodied in complex ways as “felt sense” in the here-and-now. Helin writes, “To watch a bird flying, to read a poem, or making the first cup of morning tea, there is no limit to that which can touch us in our vulnerability, enabling us to ‘take off’ vertically in time (p. 387).”

Expanding the moment with micro-phenomenology

Although micro-phenomenology is a scientific discipline, and not a fictional or poetic endeavor, it similarly aims to uncover the verticality of experience. While much of the Writing Differently tradition involves bringing the self into writing and writing from the self, micro-phenomenology may help us elicit intimate experiences in others. Micro-phenomenological interviews do not follow a pre-given question catalog as is the case for semi-structured interviews. Rather, we begin by asking the interviewee to focus on a past singular experience – in this case a moment of affirmation. We then invite them to take the time to retrieve the context associated with the beginning of the experience – its space, time, and what they sensed there and then – to bring the memory back as fully as possible. Assisting the interviewee in developing the temporal unfolding of the experience (its diachrony) as well as the description of its cognitive, sensory, attentional and emotional dimensions of each of its sub-moments (its synchrony) involves a non-linear process of looping (Heimann et al., 2023; Petitmengin, 2006). As such, the interviewer spends time deepening the description of the characteristics of experience that are not temporal, freezing and expanding the moment vertically.

The micro-phenomenological interview fundamentally serves as the basis for collecting subjective “reports” about a particular lived experience. It unfolds according to a process that enables the participant to focus on the memory of the lived experience itself rather than conceptually reflecting over it and explaining its meaning (Heimann et al., 2023; Petitmengin, 2006). During the interviews (and subsequent analysis), we as researchers adopt a stance that can be described as “a view from below,” meaning that we consider the informants rather than ourselves as the experts of the phenomena being researched. During the interviews, a practice of sustained listening is essential for thick, subjective accounts to emerge. The online format, which was used for most of our interviews, further supports the listening process by affording participants a certain degree of intimacy and control of the space that they share.

Throughout the explorations, the researcher continuously supports the interviewee in staying with the past experience, rather than drifting into reflections and commentaries, and in shifting attentional focus from the “what” of the experience (its mere content) to the less commonly considered “how” (its appearance in experience). Due to the effort required to maintain a focus on the target subjective experience – prior to our judgments or what we think is happening – micro-phenomenological interviews need to be carefully introduced to the interviewee and require a trained interviewer. ¹ The second author conducted the interviews for our study.

Our interviewees were differently positioned academics working in Scandinavian universities (see Appendix 1 Table 1). We began by extending invitations to colleagues from our own networks, intentionally reaching out to those occupying different academic ranks (PhD student, postdoctoral researcher, associate professor, and professor), working under different contractual arrangements (permanent and non-permanent staff), and with majority and non-majority language and cultural backgrounds. Interviewees from different disciplinary backgrounds were also invited to participate. Over the 3 months (November 2023–February 2024) we conducted interviews, we met regularly to discuss and conduct a streamlined micro-phenomenological analysis in a collective setup inspired by Eggebø (2020).

The lived experience of an affirmation

In what follows, we present the embodied experiences of receiving collegial generosity. Although these experiences took many different forms, we were able to find features common to all of them. Our interviewees describe moments where a colleague took the time (often this is a matter of seconds) to respond to their situation or vulnerability through gesture, tone, the offering of a warm or calm presence, or other acts of sincerity. These gestures appeared as generosity, particularly in environments where time is a precious resource.

On shaky ground

Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of the interviewees began by describing a vulnerability or sensitivity affecting their academic lives at the moment when the affirmation touched them. In some cases, these vulnerabilities were described as unrelated to the academy. For example, one participant referred to a generalized anxiety condition that deeply affects how they experience many aspects of daily life, constantly leading them to doubt their own actions and the well-meaning intentions of others.

Other interviewees spoke about how the affirmation was set against a backdrop of negative academic culture, in particular precarious non-permanent employment situations that hindered a sense of “really belonging.” Even two of the more established interviewees recalled a moment that dated back to the precarious period in their own academic careers. They describe this period as a time of constantly fighting to keep up with an overwhelming workload in a hyper-competitive setting – all the while being aware of the very limited chances of obtaining a permanent position. For them, this translated into the felt sense of impossibility to imagine a future in academia or elsewhere, a foreclosing of the imagination that is also well documented in the existing research literature (see e.g.: Rossella et al., 2019; Sutherland, 2018; Sørensen and Kristensen, 2022; Yudkevich et al., 2015). One participant described this sense of precarity by saying that he felt compelled to “sell himself” to maximize his opportunities for future employment.

Many experiential accounts also bear witness to negative feelings being aggravated by a sense of alienation or disconnection from colleagues with whom superficial or even hostile exchanges were the norm. Commenting directly on the importance of our study, PhD student Sarah emphasized with a note of sadness that “Opportunities to celebrate and affirm each other are rare in academia.” And Emma, a young postdoc, talked about becoming so unsure of her own academic abilities that instead of accepting the enthusiastic feedback she receives from her supervisor she tries to “keep it (her reaction) down.” Whether they did belong, ever had the opportunity to belong or even wanted to belong to the perceived non-community of academia was something that most of our interviewees constantly questioned. We believe this explains why even the smallest gesture of support had an almost frightening power of reawakening a hope that seemed almost dangerous to accept.

Attention and disbelief

A common dimension to all the affirmations was that they began with a moment of intense surprise, which provoked a shift into a mode of heightened relational awareness. This awakening, to the other but also to one’s own embodied response, was characterized both by hopeful anticipation as well as doubt. This reaction was triggered by the realization that the affirmation felt extraordinary and highly exceptional. The gesture arrived unanticipated, startling the receiver to a degree that sharpened their senses. Emma, for example, had been long anticipating an academic feedback session on her thesis with a professor that she was visiting abroad. She reflected on this time as a period of deep uncertainty about everything, with the Covid atmosphere reinforcing her negative reading of her own research and work. During the interview, she described waiting outside the professor’s office, feeling her heart pounding in her chest when finally the door opened: “[She opens the door] and there is this smile and beautiful but also very present eyes. . .[. . .] I notice this presence. . .and also an acknowledgement from her that I came all the way to have this conversation.” This initial sensing of the professor’s smile and eyes also caused a shift of attention and presence in Emma: “I felt a sense of extreme presence, like I was noticing everything. I was so present and zoomed in, like dense and compactly. . . seeing everything in the room.” Still, it takes the professor several re-assurances for Emma to accept her positive feedback. Indeed, it is only when the professor stresses “I would tell you (if your work was not good enough)” that Emma can finally embrace the affirmation.

In Jan’s case, he had been feeling the weight of an uncertain future after his postdoctoral fellowship. During a “development conversation” ² with his head of department he confided that he was hesitating between applying for another postdoc and applying for an investigator grant. He felt he lacked the credentials for the latter. Pursuing a Ph.D. after a career in industry meant that he lacked academic experience. In response, his head of department explicitly supported him by offering to vouch for his capacities despite his lack of field-relevant documentation. Like the others, Jan experienced genuine surprise that sharply focused his attention on the situation:

And then she says, ‘but we can still do it.’ And there is a little surprise, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I didn’t think about that,’ you know. . . it wouldn’t even cross my mind to [ask for such support], for instance.[..] I had been inwards then, and there I was again, looking up looking at my interlocutor, being brought back in the dialogue.[. . .].

Awakening embodied response

One of the compelling features of an affirmation is the shift it provokes, causing the state of heightened attention and disbelief to melt into relaxation, warmth, joy, and a range of other positive affects. It seems as if the affirming gesture breaks the spell and allows the dormant body to come to life. Ali, for example, an academic in Norway with a non-EU migrant background, came back from his holiday to find a colleague had left him a small box of chocolate with a holiday greeting in German, the language they share. Although he feels comfortable in his current position, Ali experienced the gesture as unusual and touching. Like many others, he described his initial feeling of surprise being followed by a pleasant sensation, a warming of his body, and a deeply relaxing sensation in which he wanted to linger.

I’m just suddenly feeling a little bit warm. [. . .] I notice that quite clearly because my office is very cold, and (as I had been on holidays) I had turned off the heater completely – outside it was basically minus five or six degrees. [. . .] But then in that moment, there was a feeling of warmth in it.[. . .] It’s just like, suddenly the cold goes away and I feel relaxed. [. . .] And I wanted the feeling to linger a bit.

Roland, an established senior academic, experiences a different range of positive affects. During a minor interaction in teaching, a colleague gracefully intervened during Roland’s teaching, helping smooth over a tension that was building in the classroom: “There was this sense of gratitude […] It was a sense of relief. There’s a sense of easening up, so all the tension is gone and, I mean, no one would be able to tell, but I definitely have this sense of: ‘Thank you. Well, done!’”

In some cases, we can see evidence of positive affect expanding, allowing for an experience of intersubjectivity that transgresses the boundaries of the self. Renée, a postdoc in a male-dominated field, remembers being invited into a steering group and entering a Zoom meeting with three male peers that she had never met previously. She described joining the meeting “feeling small,” “pulled back” with her body posture hunched over, being uncertain about what she could contribute. As the meeting got underway, the main facilitator noticed that she had unmuted herself and invited her to speak. After an initial feeling of surprise at being noticed, she describes “a softness coming up vis-a-vis the others, and then really looking at them and giving them space.” During this expansion, Renée’s relation to the others in the meeting is softened as she gives them space to expand before her. Molly, on the other hand, is a senior academic who describes herself as “working a bit on the fringes” due both to her age and being “a bit different” than the others in her department. During the interview, Molly remembered a rather strong moment of resonance with a younger, and very successful colleague, who comes into her office to share some news:

What I remember is the sight of her. [. . .] And there’s something that is just joyful. It is as if my seeing her could be something that came out here (touches her chest) and surrounded her (extending her arms out into space in a long embrace) [. . .]It’s like, moving out towards. . . or, or not even moving out. . . BEING out towards, like if you could hug at a distance without that distance being felt. . . (Molly)

Molly perceives this act of sharing news as a form of collegial generosity since her colleague took time to include her. As her colleague shares the joyful news, Molly feels herself in her chest and in extension toward her younger colleague as an embrace.

Reciprocation

Most interviewees mentioned that experiencing the affirmation elicited an immediate sense of gratitude and urge to reciprocate. Ali recalls thinking “I will catch up with her, when she returns.” PhD student Sarah remembers feeling this urge after being cc’d in an email by an administrator who praises her for an idea she put forward:

She made me look so good (emphasis). She didn’t have to, but she really put effort into saying ‘Sarah got this amazing idea and it’s a big opportunity for the department and she will do all this work. . . It was really, really, really nice.’ It was really the wording of the email that mattered. And then she just cc-ed me not so I could see what she wrote about me, but just so I knew exactly what she had proposed. She was getting everyone really hyped about the idea I had. I wrote her back. Immediately almost . . . [. . .] I think I just wrote her like ‘thank you’. And then: ‘I was very touched by the way you represented me’. Because I really wanted to let her know that that it had meant something to me. I think I also told my supervisor. . . I felt the need to reciprocate; I had this need to give her credit for being so awesome at giving credit, right?

This urge to reciprocate and spread positive affect further offers a glimpse into how academic communities might gain traction from micro-level phenomena in order to build up resistance to dominant organizational power relations. In this way, recognizing the potential of bodies to act positively on other bodies means reimagining them not as sites of control or regulation but as powerful agents.

Opening space for a shared future

Extending on this idea of what bodies can do (Thanem and Wallenberg, 2015), we consider it to be our most important finding that micro-affirmations are space-opening gestures. They are experienced by our participants as virtual apertures toward a future that was previously in doubt, a powerful widening of possibilities that allowed the person to find a new equilibrium or sense of belonging. This opening created energy and motivation for Renée: “I feel my body dissolving, like this sense of having to hold myself [. . .] it’s as if I grow larger [There is an] energy that’s starting to build, a sense of energy of wanting to say lots more things. [. . .] It is like a fountain of ideas flooding me [. . .]. I feel shiny and bright.” In Mira’s case, the micro-affirmation gave her a space in her new field of study, a possibility that she previously doubted:

The embodied memory [of that moment] is feeling strong, feeling physically able just by the straightening of the spine and then also an anticipation rising in the chest, anticipation for the future and the possibilities, an opening, an open future where all is possible. A feeling of importance. . . almost being a puzzle, a fitting piece. . . that I could fill a gap just being me.

In a similar vein, Lance, a PhD candidate facing the difficult decision of whether to quit his studies in the wake of a difficult year both professionally and personally, experienced an affirmation during a Zoom meeting with his supervisor. She listened attentively while he explained his situation, and then offered her unconditional support for whatever decision he decided to make. This generous act of listening generated a spark of energy, allowing him to reconnect with the love of his field and work – an exuberance that he felt could be immediately directed outward into action. When his supervisor expressed genuine sadness about his struggles and offered her support, Lance noted the following:

I was surprised, you know, at such a positive and strong response, and the support. And well, it actually. . . it was very motivating. It made me think that if she has such confidence and she’s the expert, you know, then I’m probably just not seeing something about myself or my work. . .It was sort of a rising up, a bubbling up of feeling or a stirring of the passion that I have for philosophy. The only reason I’m in it, you know? It kind of reminded me that I do enjoy this work. So it was this kind of feeling of . . .a little bit of energy. . . a spark?

In other cases, this sense of widening the scope of possibility was more vague in the sense that it did not refer to a specific future or possibility within a particular organization. Jan for example experienced a more unspecific widening of his horizon:

[I felt] a sense of expansion. Extension, enlargement of horizon. [. . .] it’s clearly related to these questions of what are you going to do? Next year? You know. . .? And then you discover that there are ways to think about it that expand the range of possibilities.

Here we might draw insight from Bachelard’s (2014) renowned work The Poetics of Space and think of this as an unspecified space for dreaming or imagining – a momentary refuge in our metricized, rationalized academic lives, a regaining of agency to imagine a professional future, whatever form it may take.

Importantly, however, these more general expansions are not less powerful. On the contrary, they can reestablish one’s belief in and belonging to a larger community or collective space. This idea is exemplified by Emma, who talks about the conversation with her professor as an opening that connected her to something much more important than the work of isolated individuals. When she received constructive, honest feedback on her dissertation, she described the emerging sense of being part of a collective endeavor, the importance of which exceeds her individual contribution:

[. . .] It is an opening on to a kind of collective thinking that comes before us and it will continue after us. . .[. . .] if I need to do anything in academia, this is really what I want to do: feel like I’m contributing to a space that feels more real to me. [. . .] there is justice in this moment. . . that we’re feeling like we are doing something right, together that contributes to something that’s much bigger than I am. And that space has always existed, and now I’m allowed to be in this space. And I feel so extremely grateful for that, that I that I can be part of this thinking. [It is about . . .] we’re in this space together. And we’re creating it and we’re keeping it open, and we’re all contributing to this. [. . .] I really had a strong connection to that feeling in that moment. And I had felt very isolated from it for a very long time for many reasons.

This connection to something larger that Emma feels, a collective thinking that has taken root in her body, which has so much promise. It is to that kind of academy that we wish to belong. An academy in which we function as a community in the generation of a powerful collective thinking, sustained by our shared joy and passion for our disciplines.

The afterlife of an affirmation

Thanem and Wallenberg (2015), drawing from Spinozian ethics, remind us that our bodies retain traces of past encounters with other bodies. When these encounters are joyful, they can enhance our power and capacities, leaving behind affective imprints that shape future experiences. Our interviewees indeed described how micro-affirmations – especially those received during moments of vulnerability – became enduring resources to which they could return in times of distress. For instance, PhD student Sarah shared that she had archived a supportive email in a dedicated folder for years, revisiting it whenever she needed a reminder of “how it could be to work in academia.” Similarly, Emma reflected on a feedback session with her supervisor, describing it as a kind of emotional sustenance: “These kinds of conversations were openings, or fuel that you could live on for many, many weeks afterwards.”

Interviewees who recalled micro-affirmations from years or even decades ago emphasized their long-lasting impact, particularly on their relationships with the affirming individuals – some of whom became close friends or significant figures in their lives. Perhaps most strikingly, Roland, who had since secured a permanent academic position, noted that while recent affirmations were still meaningful, they lacked the transformative power of those received earlier in his career: “Because I am not that student anymore, worried about whether I will become a professor – or be unemployed.” These reflections suggest that the affective traces of affirmations are not only retained but may evolve over time, shaped by new contexts.

Discussion

As we discussed in the introduction, contemporary academic culture is so saturated with competition, precarity, and self-monitoring that genuine acts of care have become unimaginable. They will be shrugged off as incompatible with busy schedules and with career trajectories that are undermined by taking time to attend to others’ well-being. In this context, we believe that we as academics must find ways to work against forces that socialize us into being “good academics” solely based on our ability to (over)work and compete to ensure our individual success – at the expense of losing ourselves and our sense of academic community (Prasad, 2013; Tekeste, 2025).

In this paper, based on Diprose’s conceptualization of corporeal generosity, we offer an empirically-grounded investigation of the experience of being affirmed through practices of what we call “collegial generosity.” Using micro-phenomenology, which makes visible the embodied micro-dynamics of these lived experiences, we have tried to awaken the reader’s imagination to the possibilities offered by a practice of collegial generosity. Even the smallest acts of generosity can have a powerfully restorative effect. We may affirm an idea, someone’s place within a disciplinary community, a presence, and more. But beyond this, we believe that micro-affirmations and other acts of academic generosity offer potential as acts of resistance. As Pérezts et al. (2015) have shown in their study of anti-money-laundering analysts working under stress, certain embodied practices can grow into a collective resistance or esprit de corps. Sharing small moments of humor or lived experience with colleagues provided moments of respite as well as the opportunity to regenerate. Such practices can grow and help build strength for resistance (Pullen and Rhodes, 2014).

Although we have only explored the experiences provided by our interviewees, we believe these micro-affirmations reveal that our bodies possess a multitude of resources, which are not yet empirically well understood, to strengthen others even in the most banal daily work situations. In response to the literature exploring how neoliberalism drains and alienates scholars from their work, we argue that there is a need to further explore these micro-level counter practises of generosity that hold promise for our much needed academic renaissance. By using micro-phenomenology as a method, our study extends empirical knowledge about the immediate and embodied consequences of these acts. Not least, we hope it will inspire you to try some out, awakening in yourself and in others the possibilities for a practice of “systemic soft sabotage” (Kostera, 2024: 28) through your body’s power to joyfully affect other bodies in your own academic work environment. In what follows, we will summarize and discuss our findings, highlighting what we think are the most important points.

Responding to emerging vulnerabilities

Micro-affirmations research has traditionally focused on marginalized identities or vulnerable student populations; micro-affirmations are often framed as counter-responses to microaggressions. In line with an embodied ethics, which takes difference and care as the basis of responsiveness, we found that all participants in our study – regardless of gender, cultural background, or academic rank – had experienced moments where a colleague attended to them in a meaningful, humanizing way. This attention directed toward others matters in ethical terms because it is precisely through generous acts of presence and attention that we may open ourselves up to notice vulnerabilty. In opening up, we may seize the opportunity to intervene, disrupt and change its course. In cases where participants were in particularly vulnerable positions, the micro-affirmation did act as a disruption and was experienced as transformative. For example, Mira’s affirmation helped peel away a deeply held belief that she didn’t belong in her department. In contrast, participants who felt professionally stable described lighter moments – gestures that reinforced collegial bonds and reminded them of their place within a community, such as Roland receiving support during a teaching session. These affirmations varied in what they affirmed – a relationship, a sense of contribution, or a reassuring presence – but they were all experienced as positive affective forces. Importantly, apart from the more substantial affirmations involving resource allocation (as in Jan and Lance’s cases), most gestures did not implicate the giver beyond a brief, fleeting moment of attention or care. They were experienced as well-placed, context-sensitive gestures – small openings that invited the receiver into a more comfortable, connected space.

From micro to macro

We have shown that the effects of micro-affirmations and other forms of academic generosity are much more complex than previously understood. The lived experiences we studied allow for a more nuanced understanding of their “big impact” (Powell et al., 2013), including how they are lived as embodied experiences with specific micro-dynamics. The main finding in our study shows how micro-affirmations function as space-opening gestures, experienced by the participants as a virtual opening toward a future or self that was previously doubted. They represent a powerful widening of the space of possibilities that allows the participant to regain a sense of agency to imagine a professional future, whatever form it may take. In this way, we found that the experience of receiving an affirmation was experienced as a significant subjective shift as well as a momentary intertwining of self and other. The affirming gesture was also received as a considerable surprise, awakening a bodily felt sense, a joy that, together with the heightened attention caused by the surprise, strengthened their feeling of connection to the giver, sometimes to the degree that it resembled memories of falling in love.

Most significantly for us, the affirmation was described not only as warm, relaxing and reassuring, but as a considerable strengthening of the self. This strengthening then allowed for the opening of a space to imagine a future in academia, a sense of future that had been cast in doubt up to that point. As we mention above, the most significant of such shifts were experienced by precarious academic staff – those without long-term contracts – where precarity was lived as an embodied “closure” or “turning inward,” a micro-level form of institutional control that specifically eclipsed the possibility to imagine a future. A micro-affirmation for these particularly vulnerable participants was experienced as an opening up to an energizing, relational space where they could imagine new possibilities for themselves and where a future, however vague or specific, can be imagined, sensed, and felt.

We also found that the experience of a micro-affirmation elicited not only strong feelings of gratitude but had the power to culminate in the receiver wanting to reciprocate and extend their sense of well-being outward toward others. This desire to engage in reciprocity hints at the potential for cumulative effect, with cascading acts of kindness resulting in a possible multiplier effect. We believe they also have the possibility beyond the mere multiplier effect to transform our professional spaces into nurturing environments, help cultivate compassion – to counter the pervasiveness of neoliberal ideology (Waddington, 2021).

Attending to situated vulnerabilities

Finally, in centering participants’ experiences, we could confirm the positive impact of a wide range of experiences: being reassured by a supervisor, receiving unexpected credit for an idea, obtaining academic feedback from a professor, being invited out of your silence to speak up during a Zoom meeting, sharing a comical moment during a coffee break, receiving an expression of unconditional support or an intervention of support during a co-teaching session. While micro-affirmations thus seem not to be restricted to certain types of actions, a number of interviewees stressed the need for the act to be “genuine.” For example, in the case of Emma, the sincerity of the exchange had a lot to do with her supervisor’s particular way of attending to her (“big smile and present eyes”) as well as their acknowledgment of the particular investment that Emma had done to enable the meeting (“you’ve come all this way ”) and them noticing that Emma had stopped by the locally famous smoothie store – which holds the promise of a shared intimacy.

Conclusion

We recognize that micro-affirmations will likely never be a stand-alone remedy to the different ills that make academia an untenable space for many: systemic inequalities, logics of competition, and norms concerning rank and privilege that exclude many people from pursuing academic careers. Nor do we intend our results to be co-opted by the logics of competition as a way to keep people afloat in unsustainable work environments. We do believe that these practices hold great potential when we use our bodies to resist and affirm our embodied humanity within academia. In making visible these in-depth experiential accounts, we hope to have created space for inspiration but most importantly a space for these practices to grow and take further shape.

Epilogue

She wrote in her book, different notes. She wrote about what I wanted to teach and a few other things that I was interested in. And she noted down all the things without sorting, without saying one thing was more important than another—she just wrote in her book. And funnily enough, it was her hands that anchored this whole experience, everything took place with those hands while she wrote, and the fact that she wrote it all down. I calmed down and became settled. I felt seen and cared for, not in a very sentimental way, that was just how it was. (Molly)