Disrupting the derisory against Brene Brown

The volume of sales and the popularity of her digital works suggests that Professor Brene Brown as an organic intellectual is hugely popular. Her work is found on Netflix, Binge, TED, Youtube, blog posts, grey literature and white papers. But, there is a darker side to her popularity - she is derided in both academia and the popular cultural space by many.

The trajectory of my PhD on resistance to the social and cultural status quo, using Brene Brown as one of my theorists, has roots in my Higher Degree by Research Social Work advisors. Some years ago, I attempted to enroll in a PhD at my university, James Cook University. After discussion with the then Head of School. I was told that my focus topic, Craftivism, was not mainstream enough and they had no one to supervise the topic. I was pushed toward social enterprise instead. Not what I wanted to do. I was mortified that Social Work found craftivism not main stream given we are the profession that deals with social justice as social activists. 

When I was finally accepted into a PhD at Charles Darwin University looking at Lived Experience, I was told by a Social Work supervisor that I was too focused on Professor Brene Brown as a theorist. But wait, she didn't know that Brene Brown was even a social worker: let alone know she was a grounded theory research professor.

My supervisor's words about Brene Brown were, "isn't she just a pod caster?" The supervisor asked me to write a defense of why I wanted to use such a person as a theorist...and then she never read it. When received, she said it was not what she asked for: she asked for a literature review on Lived Experience and if I want to look at resilience then here is some other theorists. She resigned a week after this promptly followed by the resignation of the other Social Work and Psychology doctorates on my supervisory team.

The internal friction this caused me was substantial. I wanted a PhD and I wanted to incorporate Professor Brown's Shame Resilience Theory and I wanted to create a significant contribution to knowledge that makes a difference to lives at ground zero rather than just in the academies. 

Rather than ruminate and hate, I found a new supervisor (the amazing Professor Tara Brabazon), and delved into the adverse reactions toward Brene Brown: the very deriding that Professor Brown also talks about within her popular psychology and digital psycho educations. She speaks of the shame wielding comments unleashed on her by digital bullies on her blog posts, social media posts and news commentaries about her.

Curious, I wondered who these derisory fiends and keyboard warriors were and why they thought they had the right to make personal comments against a theoretical concept. More curious, I wondered why academia, particularly Social Work, see her as less than she is.

Given my background in Solution Oriented Counselling, Strengths Based and Motivational interviewing, I opted for a more positive inquiry and set about to discover why the readers of Brene Brown read her and what they do with the concepts they pick up from their readings. Naturally this led to a literature review that included what academia thinks of her.

Professor Brown is well published and therefore well cited...but not as well cited as some male counterparts. She writes for a non academic audience but her books are based on her grounded theory research because that is the type of researcher she is. That people don't like it, says that they don't like the things research participants are saying: they are denying the experiences of the people interviewed in the research.

A few peer reviewed articles deride her, more ignore her, one says she is harmless, and I know from personal communications that she is dismissed by some disciplines as being silly. Either way, she is excluded as being a serious academic even though she has met the robust and evidentiary rules of academic research.

Given the popular culture produced by Brene Brown can be bought in airport newsagents, chain stores and most book shops, she is hardly an author that one can avoid. So how did a PhD in Social Work not know that Brene Brown is more than a podcaster? Although Brown is commonly found in the Self Help or Business sections of book stores (grey or popular psychology), she did not choose those genre classifications for herself: publishing houses and book stores did. She set out to be a researcher yet because of her popularity she is derided, misunderstood, or ignored.

But for Social Work to not know who she is, is interesting. Is Social Work forgetting its roots and buying into the gentrified notion of academia as the Manor House with different classes of service to the Laird? While I would love to know that, I am more interested to find out if it is possible to disrupt the derisory against Professor Brown by reconfiguring her books as a psychoeducative tool.

So I turn to you, reader, do you read Professor Brene Brown and what do you think of her ideas? If you are a hater of her, who do you read instead and why? How have either helped you solve a problem in your life or have they helped you to help others?

Just a reminder that once my ethics application is through, I will be facilitating Brene Brown Book clubs via my Industry Partner, Type face books. I'd love you to join the discussion because your thoughts matter and count toward either disrupting the derisory against Brene Brown or telling the world who and why you prefer to read other intellectuals. Sign up to the Typeface newsletter to be the first to find out.

👵🏼 Megan Bayliss

👩🏼‍🎓 PhD Candidate: social and cultural resistance to the status quo.