Surviving (thriving) in academia: feminist support networks and women ECRs

Abstract

In this paper, we reflect upon our experiences and those of our peers as doctoral students and early career researchers in an Australian Political Science department. We seek to explain and understand the diverse ways that participating in an unofficial Feminist Reading Group in our department affected our experiences. We contend that informal peer support networks like reading groups do more than is conventionally assumed, and may provide important avenues for sustaining feminist research in times of austerity, as well as supporting and enabling women and emerging feminist scholars in academia. Participating in the group created a community of belonging and resistance, providing women with personal validation, information and material support, as well as intellectual and political resources to understand and resist our position within the often hostile spaces of the University. While these experiences are specific to our context, time and location, they signal that peer networks may offer critical political resources for responding to the ways that women's bodies and concerns are marginalised in increasingly competitive and corporatised university environments.

Keywords::

• reading groups
• early career researchers
• feminist peer support
• peer mentoring
• women postgraduates
• higher education

Acknowledgements

Our doctoral studies, our activities with FRG and the initial research for this paper were conducted as students and then employees of the University of Queensland. We thank Dr Barbara Sullivan, Postgraduate Coordinator in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland for her important support during our doctoral studies. We would like to thank both anonymous reviewers and the editors of this special edition for their advice and feedback. We also thank all the women who participated in FRG and in our research for their extensive contributions to this paper and to each of our lives.

Notes

^1. Hazing is a term used to describe a process whereby a newcomer to a group is subject to initiation practices that may be difficult, stressful, dangerous or humiliating in order to gain group admittance or acceptance (for more information see: Gadon and Josefowitz 1989, Honeycutt 2005).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alissa Macoun

Alissa Macoun is a Research Fellow in the Indigenous Studies Research Network at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.

Danielle Miller

Danielle Miller is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Sustainable Organisations and Work at the School of Management at RMIT in Melbourne.