An organisational autoethnography of learning to manage academic workplace bullying through micro-resistance and activism

This article is about voice – I use my voice to speak out, and hopefully be heard. I am talking about workplace bullying and humiliation in higher education, and particularly in a business school, that caused abject disengagement. I articulate my pitiful, painful story through autoethnography. In doing so, I contribute to both the writing differently movement and to the growing critique of higher education. In attempting to deal with workplace bullying, I draw on theories of silence/exit/voice, complaint and disappointment as well as micro-resistance and subtle activism. My purpose is to give voice to bullying and humiliation so others (especially managers) might understand what it feels like, to learn how to deal with it individually (especially those being bullied and humiliated) and to learn how collectively we might act to address it, through micro-resistance and subtle activism.