We Are the Field We Are the Field

Who We Are

We are the Field is an advocacy research initiative that seeks to uplift non-affiliated humanities scholars. We believe that scholarly communities should better reflect their constituencies with consideration to the academic hiring crisis in North America. We are researching to better understand how non-affiliated scholars are involved in scholarly communities, and how scholarly communities support scholars in precarious occupational positions.


Our analysis will demonstrate that non-affiliated scholars need additional support from academic institutions in order to stay relevant in their fields during post-graduate occupational shifts and beyond. We will also suggest ways in which academic societies, granting institutions, universities, and publishers can modify their programs and procedures to fit the needs of the diverse occupations and research habits of an increasingly non-affiliated scholarly base.


Additionally, We are the Field offers practical data collection, analysis, and visualization training for humanists who are interested in adding research from their fields to our growing body of studies.

Our Method

We are the Field calls for research that elucidates a fuller picture of granting, alum resources, conference participation, and publishing for scholars outside of academia. We encourage studies and surveys of the following:

  1. Granting
      - How many humanities grant programs for research, scholarly projects, community projects, etc., target scholars outside of academia?
      - How many scholars outside academia earn grants that are open to all scholars regardless of institutional affiliation?
      - What kind of grant programs from state and federal humanities agencies or academic societies should be created to fit the reality of post-graduate scholarly life?

  2. Alum/non-affiliated scholar access to scholarly resources
      - Are the library resources and databases available to alum suitable for competitive and thorough research for multiple disciplines?
      - What are the possible creative solutions for providing better resources and databases to alum?
      - Are there other options for scholarly access besides alum access?

  3. Conferences and academic societies
      - How many non-affiliated scholars present papers at major conferences in various fields?
      - Do any societies collect statistics on the affiliations of those who submit papers to conferences? Do we know the acceptance rate for affiliated and non-affiliated scholars?

  4. Publishing
      - How can we gauge the level of interest in academic publishing among non-affiliated scholars?
      - If scholars outside of academia published more often, how could that positively affect the publishing industry?
      - What are worthwhile and productive alternatives to traditional scholarly publishing?

We welcome all productive insights, ideas, and ways forward. We hope that you will consider providing data and analysis from your own discipline. Drop us a line at WeAreTheField-at-protonmail-dot-com. Thanks for connecting.