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 1. I hope your journey is a long one: a guide to meandering careers Alexandra Bristow 2. Meandering academics Linda M. Sama, Mark Egan, Victor Friedman, David Jones, Nicholas Rhew, and Sarah Robinson 3. 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 4. A pebble skipper’s tale Mark Saunders 5. The general academic Rweyemamu Alphonce Ndibalema, Essa Bah, and Sophia Ndibalema Against Careerism Curated by Sarah Robinson 6. On ducks and vocations: notes against careerism Sarah Robinson 7. Careering through my career: how I failed to become a business school Dean Mark Learmonth 8. Ducks at the university? Two connected biographies in seven images Jesús Rodríguez Pomeda 9. Excellence and disruption: a mid-career dialogue Eugenie Hunsicker and Clare Hutton 10. 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 11. Across hostile waters to brave new lands? Notes on navigating academic belonging Sarah Robinson 12. The collective academic: a conversation across worlds Jurdene Coleman, Mac Benavides, Aliah Mestrovich Seay, and Tess Hobson 13. Before you decolonize, let me into the game: virtue, a key to unbridling the shackles of oppression Armand Bam 14. How to become an academic, and alienate people: the working-class academic Suzanne Albary 15. The back-door academic Sarah Stookey 16. The ingenuous communitarian Emma Newport 17. The journey of a surprised academic Laurie DiPadova-Stocks 18. The self-made academic: From business to a business school Adrian Zicari Nurturing Careers Curated by Olivier Ratle 19. Nurturing careers: on the importance of care and relationships Olivier Ratle 20. The permaculture academic Maribel Blasco 21. 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 22. The non-conformist Academic: professor, parent, provider Mary Godwyn 23. The mom academic (fragmentation) Elizabeth Siler The Hall of Mirrors Curated by Sarah Robinson 24. Mirroring academia: reflections from a hall of mirrors Sarah Robinson 25. Reflections, distortions - the mirrored academic Victoria Pagan 26. Academic misfits Magnus Hoppe, Anton Hasselgren, Fatemeh Seifan, Steffi Siegert, and Serdar Temiz 27. Becoming a (never) good enough critical scholar? On precarious academic subjectification processes Mie Plotnikof 28. The art of being a reflexive academic: painting a never-complete self-portrait Russ Vince 29. The poetic academic - [un]grounding the writing self Friederike Landau-Donnelly 30. 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 31. In the garden of dreams: a guide to transgressive careers Alexandra Bristow 32. Seek & destroy - from transgression to contestation. And back Sophie Del Fa 33. Meeting the threads that pull: a feminist declaration of consequence towards academia Camila Fredes Ortiz 34. The absurd academic Jaime Andrés Bayona 35. Crafting a career in ‘academic journalism’ Todd Bridgman 36. Blinds and bananas: metaphor in the margins Stephen Linstead 37. A clown's tale Ralf Wetzel The late entrance Curated by Olivier Ratle 38. The late entrance: muddy water and dry grass? Olivier Ratle 39. Late portrait arrival Catherine Heggerud 40. Disturbing bodies? Prospective and retrospective second-careering within the doctoral candidature Margaret Ying Wei Lee, Olivia Davies, and Kathleen Riach 41. Better late than never: the ‘up the hill backwards’ academic Mark Stringer Living Precariously Gallery Curated by Olivier Ratle 42. Living precariously and overcoming the odds Olivier Ratle 43. The happy and smiling, but inwardly crumbling gig academic: reflections on early career precarity and anxiety Emily Yarrow 44. 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 45. Re-imagining the dialectic of work and motherhood in academia Chrysavgi Sklaveniti 46. Waiting for Godot: the impaired academic Garance Marechal 47. Some counsel to doctoral students from a naïve and shell-shocked academic Ann Armstrong 48. ‘Why even bother?’ The defiant practice of the independent scholar Molly Hand The Haunted Gallery Curated by Alexandra Bristow 49. A guide to haunting careers: the realm of academic ghosts Alexandra Bristow 50. Higher Education in India: the academic outsider and the lived experiences of a reclusive rebel Subir Rana 51. Morals of the demoralised: The non-collaborative academic Alexia Cameron 52. Doing philosophy differently: learning to fight gender-bias by giving up on stereotypical academic norms Tone Grosen Dandanell 53. Being an academic ghostwriter: be(com)ing me(thodology) Martha Emilie Ehrich 54. Unwaged and repurposed: transitions from accidental to non-institutionalised academic Ruth Slater 55. 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
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.
Reviews for Doing Academic Careers Differently: Portraits of Academic Life
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.
