The Fables of the Academic Zoo: De‐Legitimizing Dominant Micro‐Practices Through Storytelling and Caring

ABSTRACT Contemporary academia is like a zoo where academics, like caged animals, are confined by dominant micro‐practices, creating an individualistic, competitive, and output‐driven neoliberal ecosystem. Although prior research highlights these practices, little is known about how to dismantle them, and rewrite the academic script. In this article, we unveil how to collectively de‐legitimize our dominant micro‐practices, transcending traditional writing by telling the fables of the Academic Zoo and creating a radically imaginative theory. We foster a reflexive recognition of our dominant micro‐practices, revealing their hidden logics, and challenging their illusion of inevitability. Through our fables and their associated morals, we construct a three‐phased process model of recognition, disruption, and transformation—embedded in our conceptual foundation of narrative theory and the ethics‐of‐care—in which academics collectively weaken the legitimacy of dominant micro‐practices and create opportunities for alternative ways of organizing. We call on academics to C.A.R.E—create awareness of our dominant narratives, alter the naturalized perception of these narratives through questioning and deconstruction, redistribute responsibility for disruptive counter‐action, and establish and embed care‐full alternatives—supporting the creation of a more inclusive and humane academic ecosystem where “Together We Can Make a Difference”!