Academic Mobbing and Bullying Offline and Online: The Health Hazard Academia Ignores

Abstract

Academic mobbing, bullying, and cyberbullying are pervasive and interconnected harms in academe with scarce conversation and intervention devoted to them. The author discusses what these dynamics are and asserts academia and academic institutions are incubators and beneficiaries of these aggressions. The text illustrates some of the violent consequences for targets of these abuses, refuting other conceptualizations that downplay the severity of academic mobbing and bullying. The author also argues that understanding of academic mobbing and bullying must extend to cyberspace. The text concludes with how both tactical disregard and notions of the academy as a just exemplar sustains these harms.