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I am intentional in the way I cite colleagues and their work. My footnotes are a recognition of the time, skill, expertise, and reverence people bring to the craft. The same with in-text mentions. It is an act of acknowledgement, professionalism. /1
@SaraNAhmed made the point in 2013 that citation practices serve as a “a way of reproducing the world around certain bodies.” Citation “structures” form disciplines. /2
“The reproduction of a discipline can be the reproduction of these techniques of selection, ways of making certain bodies and thematics core to the discipline, and others not even part.” /3
Citations are a form of scaffolding then. They structure our arguments by laying bare how our thinking works. They screen out ideas deemed less relevant, central, less deserving of inclusion, and underscore what and who is important, pivotal. /4
They are an act of generosity, kinship, a celebration of the evolution of the field. Citing graduate students, early career scholars making their way, colleagues whose work you admire, affirms our shared investment in extraordinary discoveries and arguments well made. /5
They are some of the things that define us as a community. And as a community, we need to take good care.
