Journal of Applied Social Theory
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Feminist trade unionism and post-work imaginaries
Get PDFFeminist academics in the marketised university are doing not only unpaid emotional and social work, but other unpaid work which makes up the core business of the institution. In a culture of overwork and increased demands for productivity, teaching, research, and administration cannot fit into contracted hours so are done at nights and weekends. This article highlights the gendered impacts of current working conditions, focusing specifically on the conditions of precariously employed researchers and educators in the UK higher education system. Emphasising the unpaid work done by feminists in academia and beyond, this article suggests looking toward a post-work imaginary as one strategy to make possible more inclusive and accessible educational futures. Sharing feminist trade unionist strategies through which to question some of the unrealistic demands put upon university staff, the article emphasises the need for a feminist ethics of care to build sustainable movements and futures
Queer desire’s orientations and learning in higher education fine art
Get PDFThis paper explores the mechanisms of LGBTQI+ desire that intersect with fine art disciplinary learning. Sara Ahmed's Queer Phenomenology provides a theoretical scaffold for this work, particularly her reflection that orientations involve different ways of registering the proximity of objects and others. In so doing, sexual orientations might shape not just how we inhabit space, but how we apprehend this world of shared inhabitance (Ahmed, 2006, 3). I posit that the desires which determine self-placing within the LGBTQI+ rubric orient learning towards and/or away from disciplinary objects of engagement. They effect this through: accentuated tensions between two colliding aspects of a students' singularity (firstly, sexuality-centred states of being in which productive erotic desires reside and secondly, an individual student's creative will); sense making of the related desires; and the interaction of all of this with dominant disciplinary cultural manifestations in creative visual arts higher education. To investigate this premise, the work of queer/queering visual artists is introduced to the higher educational student learning research canon as a valuable source of understanding of what it means 'to be' in sexual orientation. In light of the work of queer artists, the discussion recognizes that tactics used by queer student artists and the cultural registers that they access and create can usefully be identified as a queer anatomy of agency that deserves fuller investigation. Specifically, it demonstrates how an analysis of queer artists' work offers a unique way of interrogating LGBTQI+ student learning experiences in fine art
Forging queer feminist futures through discomfort: vulnerability and authority in the classroom
Get PDFThis article explores how to do queer intersectional feminist teaching through the two authors’ autoethnographic reflections on our own teaching experience in UK higher education alongside queer and feminist pedagogy literature. We argue that central to queer intersectional feminist teaching is the negotiation of various discomforts in the classroom, whether discomfort is deliberately used as a pedagogical tool or it arises spontaneously and must be dealt with. However, it is a delicate and imperfect balancing act to negotiate competing aims and emotions in the classroom, whether they be ours as teachers or those of our students. The paper will focus on two key negotiations: ‘coming out’ and negotiating authority and privilege in the university classroom. Firstly, we will explore how to negotiate vulnerability in the classroom, particularly through using personal stories and ‘coming out’ as queer and as traumatised as a pedagogical tool. Secondly, we will explore how to acknowledge students’ own expertise and experiential knowledge, challenging the idea of the teachers as the only experts in the classroom, alongside the seemingly contradictory use of our position of power to challenge privilege in the classroom. These contribution to our overall argument that such queer feminist negotiations take time, something we are short of in the neoliberal university. Through these complex negotiations, we explore the challenges of prefiguring transformed feminist futures while navigating the less-feminist neoliberal present
German early career scholars in Gender Studies: Do networks matter?
Get PDFPurpose of the study: The field of Gender Studies in Germany demonstrates a rather heterogeneous culture due to its unclear status in relation to other disciplines, while its scope varies from diversity management to critical feminism. Career origins, paths and options for new generations of researchers in this field have to date been only minimally analysed. The contribution of this essay aims at reducing the existing research gap by focusing on the career start and qualification stage in Gender Studies and highlighting the significance of social networks in this process. Methodology: Building upon a qualitative analysis, this study is based on an explorative investigation into German early career researchers. It utilises primary data collected during semi-structured problem-centred telephone interviews with 30 PhD students and Postdocs. The findings evidence three forms of recruitment of PhD students into Gender Studies and question the same sex co-optation principle reported within other fields of scientific inquiry. At the same time, results show that network composition and modes of support are based on the supervisor’s and the early career scholar’s mutual interest in contributing to theory, rather than maximising political and administrative power. The main contribution, thus, addresses social networks and institutional nepotism in general and as a recruiting strategy in particular, as well as the role of graduate schools as a ‘second best’ option for junior researchers in Gender Studies
Accidental Academic Activism - Intersectional and (Un)intentional Feminist Resistance
Get PDFDrawing on autoethnographic reflections, this work explores the concept of ‘accidental academic activism’. It outlines how this notion aids understanding of power struggles and resistance in higher education. Shaped by feminist and queer theory, there is discussion of processes of (mis)identification as an academic activist. This article examines how the intersections of racism and sexism result in the presumed political presence of Black women in academia, in ways that may influence their academic activism. This account also considers how creative and self-reflexive approaches can enable resistance to neoliberal pressures to perform perfection as an academic. When considering the history and future of academia, questions concerning identity, ideology and inequality inevitably arise. These include the contested scope for individuals to pursue and produce work that is both academic and activist in nature. Pairing such debates with discussion of race, gender and feminism yields insight into fractious forms of academic resistance, solidarity, (un)settling silences, and identities. This article stems from my perspective as a Black (and mixed-race) woman, and who as an early career researcher is still determining the extent to which their work is resistant. By reflecting on tensions and overlaps between academia and activism, there is exploration of the parameters within which feminist research and resistance is (im)mobilised
Making internal conversations public: reflexivity of the connected doctoral researcher and its transmission beyond the walls of the academy
Get PDFAdvances in digital technologies, especially those associated with Web 2.0 such as blogs and Twitter, have created new spaces for discussion and to encourage the development of ideas. These advances have the ability to reduce the isolation of the doctoral researcher who may have previously been limited to discussions restricted to physical spaces such as departmental offices and at conferences. Whilst moving these conversations into public spaces can offer benefits, it also presents a distinct set of challenges. This paper adopts an autoethnographic approach in order to explore my experiences of using digital technologies to support my development as a doctoral researcher. Drawing on Archer’s (2003; 2007) theories of reflexivity and the internal conversation, it explores two critical incidents (Tripp, 1993) during my first year as a doctoral researcher. The first focuses on making sense of the rejection of a conference paper and the second on making sense of what ‘can’ and ‘should’ be said in a digital space as the result of tweeting and blogging at a conference. In doing so, this paper highlights the ways in which digital technologies have the capacity to support an individual’s varied modes of reflexivity. Through this, it also illuminates how bringing these conversations into a public space can also offer a form of public scholarship, opening up the inner workings of the academy to a wider public, challenging traditional academic practices. Consequently, the paper concludes with suggestions for future research and training needed to support digital scholarship for doctoral researchers
Bakhtin, digital scholarship and new publishing practices as carnival
Get PDFDigital scholarship is causing disruptions to established academic practices that have long framed how we share knowledge and do research. The web is increasingly vital to all forms of academic scholarship. Using key theoretical concepts from the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, we question what it means in relation to social science when digital scholarship is considered by some to be ‘carnivalesque’ in relation to established academic practice. We draw upon our experiences of editing and curating a collection of works, commonly known as a Book of Blogs published online as Dialogues of sustainable urbanisation: Social Science Research and Transitions to Urban Contexts. The idea of the book was that it would encourage multivoicedness around the topic of sustainable urbanisation. We reflect upon how the Book of Blogs aims to foster a dialogical, unfinalised approach to social sciences research. Seventy chapters or ‘blogs’ from 83 researchers were included in the collection. Such engagement with the Book of Blogs format emphasised that this approach to scholarship spoke to many as a way to be heard. Therefore, we include our reflections on the implications of networked participatory scholarship in the digital sphere for our professional identities and academic careers, alongside example lessons and practicalities of curating and editing a Book of Blogs. We conclude with considering how social theory, particularly a dialogical epistemology, influences our digital scholarship and the ways in which we perform academia
Sociable scholarship: The use of social media in the 21st century academy
Get PDFSocial media have broken down the distance between scholars and the larger world, enabling lay people to become active participants in the construction of knowledge, through offering ideas and data, recounting experience, and engaging critically with academic research. Academics no longer operate from the safety of ivory towers: they are able to engage with a much wider audience, in a conversation rather than a lecture, through the use of Twitter, Tumblr, blogs, discussion forums, etc. These Web 2.0 tools have broadened academic spaces, enabling the participation of different voices, and addressing the academy’s commitment to social justice. Using the feminist theory of intersectionality, we explore the use of social media in academic collaboration and dissemination, and the tensions that may arise as scholars and the academy are reshaped in the 21st century