Changing cultures of critique: towards context, creativity and care in academic practice

In this Point for Departure, I argue that ideas and practices of 'criticality' in the western-influenced academy should explicitly and intentionally include: sensitivity to context, a spirit of creativity, and an ethic of care. Grounding this short piece in my own academic experience and in the etymology of the term 'critique' and its related concepts, I identify the dominant characteristics of criticality in the academy and explore alternative modes of enacting it. Inspired particularly by black feminist writing on embodied knowledge and scholarly practice, I make a case for context-specificity, creativity and care as always-already central to good and meaningful critical practice, and for the deliberate and collective tending of all three in the interests of positively transformative scholarship.