Chapter 5: ‘Why Are You Talking Like That?’ From Fearing Sounding ‘Thick’ to Embracing Your Voice: Working-Class Solidarity in Academia

In this chapter, the authors reflect on their experiences as students, researchers, and assistant lecturers from working-class backgrounds. Their approach to writing is in line with how they embrace their identities through their teaching and research. They intend to communicate their experiences in a way that is representative of who they are, telling their stories in their own unfiltered voices. Drawing on an autoethnographic approach, the chapter is informed by journal entries, shared WhatsApp conversations, and reflective notes based on conversations at work, over coffee, and in pubs. The authors argue that class solidarity is vital to their remaining in academia. It is through the solidarity and love engendered by shared understandings of their respective experiences, both inside and outside the academy, that they have been able to navigate and persist in an environment they are not meant to inhabit.