1st Edition
Doing Academic Careers Differently Portraits of Academic Life
Should academic careers always unfold in exactly the same way? Is there one best way of being an academic? This book says no. Assumptions about who academics are and what they should do are becoming increasingly narrow and focused on achieving so-called ‘excellence’ in teaching and research above anything else. This book problematises this and explores the scope for doing academic careers differently.
Authors paint individual or group portraits of their academic careers, working with metaphors which challenge the dominant discourses of how academic careers should be led. From rejecting the pressure to focus on ‘one big thing’, to prioritising nurture and care, transcending disciplinary boundaries, reshaping own daily practice, connecting with communities, and being academics outside academia, the chapters in this book offer those considering, starting, or developing an academic career a treasure trove of many alternative possibilities.
Presented as a portrait gallery through which readers are encouraged to meander at will, this compilation of insights into alternative academic lives will help to inspire and encourage current academics to re-think and take ownership of their careers in their own terms, according to their own strengths, weaknesses, and circumstances.
Introduction: entrance hall and cloakroom
Alexandra Bristow, Olivier Ratle, Sarah Robinson
The Meandering Gallery
Curated by Alexandra Bristow
I hope your journey is a long one: a guide to meandering careers
Alexandra Bristow
Meandering academics
Linda M. Sama, Mark Egan, Victor Friedman, David Jones, Nicholas Rhew, and Sarah Robinson
The all-over-the-place academic: how to fit in an academic niche but also be free to pursue new and exciting research ideas
Lucas Lauriano
A pebble skipper’s tale
Mark Saunders
The general academic
Rweyemamu Alphonce Ndibalema, Essa Bah, and Sophia Ndibalema
Against Careerism
Curated by Sarah Robinson
On ducks and vocations: notes against careerism
Sarah Robinson
Careering through my career: how I failed to become a business school Dean
Mark Learmonth
Ducks at the university? Two connected biographies in seven images
Jesús Rodríguez Pomeda
Excellence and disruption: a mid-career dialogue
Eugenie Hunsicker and Clare Hutton
Collectively creating conditions that nurture: the bushland as metaphor for the academic ecosystem
Sumati Ahuja, Mihajla Gavin, Simone Grabowski, Najmeh Hassanli, Anja Hergesell, Walter Jarvis, Pavlina Jasovska, Ece Kaya, Alice Klettner, Helena Liu, Jennie Small, Christopher N. Walker, and Ruth Weatherall
Navigating Belonging
Curated by Sarah Robinson
Across hostile waters to brave new lands? Notes on navigating academic belonging
Sarah Robinson
The collective academic: a conversation across worlds
Jurdene Coleman, Mac Benavides, Aliah Mestrovich Seay, and Tess Hobson
Before you decolonize, let me into the game: virtue, a key to unbridling the shackles of oppression
Armand Bam
How to become an academic, and alienate people: the working-class academic
Suzanne Albary
The back-door academic
Sarah Stookey
The ingenuous communitarian
Emma Newport
The journey of a surprised academic
Laurie DiPadova-Stocks
The self-made academic: From business to a business school
Adrian Zicari
Nurturing Careers
Curated by Olivier Ratle
Nurturing careers: on the importance of care and relationships
Olivier Ratle
The permaculture academic
Maribel Blasco
A room for three: living academic, feminist lives (or the unfinished reading of A room of one’s own)
Jenny Helin, Nina Kivinen, and Alison Pullen
The non-conformist Academic: professor, parent, provider
Mary Godwyn
The mom academic (fragmentation)
Elizabeth Siler
The Hall of Mirrors
Curated by Sarah Robinson
Mirroring academia: reflections from a hall of mirrors
Sarah Robinson
Reflections, distortions - the mirrored academic
Victoria Pagan
Academic misfits
Magnus Hoppe, Anton Hasselgren, Fatemeh Seifan, Steffi Siegert, and Serdar Temiz
Becoming a (never) good enough critical scholar? On precarious academic subjectification processes
Mie Plotnikof
The art of being a reflexive academic: painting a never-complete self-portrait
Russ Vince
The poetic academic - [un]grounding the writing self
Friederike Landau-Donnelly
I am you, as you are me: academic lives as a mirror of ourselves
Oscar Javier Montiel Méndez, Duncan Pelly, and Araceli Almaraz
The Transgressive Gallery
Curated by Alexandra Bristow
In the garden of dreams: a guide to transgressive careers
Alexandra Bristow
Seek & destroy - from transgression to contestation. And back
Sophie Del Fa
Meeting the threads that pull: a feminist declaration of consequence towards academia
Camila Fredes Ortiz
The absurd academic
Jaime Andrés Bayona
Crafting a career in ‘academic journalism’
Todd Bridgman
Blinds and bananas: metaphor in the margins
Stephen Linstead
A clown's tale
Ralf Wetzel
The late entrance
Curated by Olivier Ratle
The late entrance: muddy water and dry grass?
Olivier Ratle
Late portrait arrival
Catherine Heggerud
Disturbing bodies? Prospective and retrospective second-careering within the doctoral candidature
Margaret Ying Wei Lee, Olivia Davies, and Kathleen Riach
Better late than never: the ‘up the hill backwards’ academic
Mark Stringer
Living Precariously Gallery
Curated by Olivier Ratle
Living precariously and overcoming the odds
Olivier Ratle
The happy and smiling, but inwardly crumbling gig academic: reflections on early career precarity and anxiety
Emily Yarrow
The ‘sack-race’ academic: a post-socialist portrait of a single mother facing social expectations and the trade-offs of an academic career path
Gabriella Kiss
Re-imagining the dialectic of work and motherhood in academia
Chrysavgi Sklaveniti
Waiting for Godot: the impaired academic
Garance Marechal
Some counsel to doctoral students from a naïve and shell-shocked academic
Ann Armstrong
‘Why even bother?’ The defiant practice of the independent scholar
Molly Hand
The Haunted Gallery
Curated by Alexandra Bristow
A guide to haunting careers: the realm of academic ghosts
Alexandra Bristow
Higher Education in India: the academic outsider and the lived experiences of a reclusive rebel
Subir Rana
Morals of the demoralised: The non-collaborative academic
Alexia Cameron
Doing philosophy differently: learning to fight gender-bias by giving up on stereotypical academic norms
Tone Grosen Dandanell
Being an academic ghostwriter: be(com)ing me(thodology)
Martha Emilie Ehrich
Unwaged and repurposed: transitions from accidental to non-institutionalised academic
Ruth Slater
The redundant academic: am I academic, or am I still an academic?
Mark Hughes
Exit via the gift shop
Olivier Ratle, Sarah Robinson, Alexandra Bristow
Biography
Sarah Robinson is Professor of Management and Organisation Studies at Rennes School of Business, France.
Alexandra Bristow is Senior Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at the Open University, UK.
Olivier Ratle is Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies at the University of the West of England, UK.
"This book is wonderfully refreshing and very inspiring. It is vital reading for any of us who have felt we are invisible, on the margins or do not comfortably belong in the academy. Reading this book assures me I am not alone in how I have experienced my academic life and it inspires me to authentically own my professional path." Hannah Rumble, Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath, UK
"Academic careers have a long-lasting history with very deep roots. Over the last fifteen years, academic careers have changed immensely, and few of us have discussed these changes. That is why this is a welcomed book analyzing different sides, dimensions and contexts of academic careers. It brings a collection of very thought-provoking and inspiring chapters written by some outstanding academics. This is a must-read book for new and experienced academics. More importantly, it inspires new futures." Rafael Alcadipani, FGV-EAESP, Brazil
"Doing Academic Careers Differently challenges linear accounts of the academic career and it rebukes the hegemonic moves that push academics into impossible, unsustainable, unhealthy conduct, values, and practices. By collaborating, theorizing, and writing differently 79 academics from 21 countries tell stories with images, poetry, prose, interviews, and essays on contemporary academic lives. The stories thrive on complexity, difference, dialogue, creativity, divergence, and ambiguity. Robinson, Bristow, and Ratle beautifully curate the emerging richness in this book that becomes an enthralling and contemplative new archive of academics' lives where finally alternative voices, knowledges, and experiences can be heard over the conformism and pain of career as individual/ individualizing competition and instrumentality. The book offers a refreshing, powerful, and life-affirming read." Alessia Contu, UMass Boston, USA
"Many academics lose their sense of direction in a university environment that prioritises journal rankings and other forms of ‘excellence’. It is easy to end up believing that there is only one kind of academic career – the type that is laid out by performance management systems. The enthralling stories of struggle, hope, and leap of faiths shared in this timely book demonstrate the narrowness of this perspective and offer a powerful reminder of the many different ways in which one can be an academic. Doing Academic Careers Differently is essential reading for anyone pursuing or considering an academic career today." Sverre Spoelstra, Associate Professor in Leadership and Strategy, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.
"A courageous book that inspires, surprises, awes, and eventually heals. Creatively and thoughtfully written and curated, this book restores hope in academics despite the brute corporatization contemporary academia has subjected them to. I felt such longing to walk through such a place as I read through this beautiful manuscript." Ghazal M. Zulfiqar, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan
"The most creative inspiring enjoyable exhilarating academic work of art on academia I have ever come across. These playful, sardonic, ironic and heartful stories are in a garden of delights that will provide a wonderful learning experience as well as a rigorous piece of research" Damian Ruth, Massey Business School, New Zealand.
