Becoming Reading Group: reflections on assembling a collegiate, caring collective

ABSTRACT

In neoliberalising universities, collegial and collective practices such as reading groups are often positioned by students, staff and managers as less important than meeting individual KPIs (such as producing research publications, seeking research grants, or meeting the increasing demands of producing quality teaching outcomes.) However, reading groups can be vital for cultivating caring collectives and spaces of collegiality. In this paper we use assemblage thinking to explore 25 years of a Geography reading group at the University of Newcastle. The paper addresses two questions: what does reading together do and make possible; and how might we think about the labours of reading together as a way of building caring collectives. The paper draws on reflections from 24 past and present members of reading group to explore how these kinds of academic practices nourish our working lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Collegiality
• care
• assemblage
• academic practice
• postgraduate education

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support of the Geographical Society of NSW for funding our celebratory event, and the Editors of Australian Geographer for encouraging us to embark on this unusual writing endeavour. We would also like to thank the two very generous reviewers and Editor Natascha Klocker whose insights contributed greatly to our revision of the paper. We would also like to acknowledge all the other past and present members of the UoN geography reading group who were unable to attend our celebration and collaborate in this piece of writing, but who were in our minds and hearts as we were laughing, sharing stories and writing this piece together.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Melina Ey joined reading group as a postgraduate student and went on to become reading group coordinator. She is a current participant in reading group.

Kathleen Mee joined reading group when it was first established as a postgraduate student at the University of Sydney. She was later appointed to an academic position at the University of Newcastle and has been a part of reading group for 27 years.

Jai Allison joined reading group as a postgraduate student. He is a current participant in reading group.

Susan Caves joined reading group as a postgraduate student and went on to become reading group coordinator. She is a current participant in reading group.

Eliza Crosbie joined reading group as a postgraduate student. She is a current participant in reading group.

Ainsley Hughes joined reading group as a postgraduate student. She is a current participant in reading group.

Faith Curtis joined reading group as a postgraduate student and went on to secure an academic position at the University of Newcastle.

Rupert Doney joined reading group as a postgraduate student and went on to become reading group coordinator. He now works in the public sector.

Penny Dunstan joined reading group as a postgraduate student working in visual arts. She now works in public and private sector roles. She is a current participant in reading group.

Ryan Jones joined reading group as a postgraduate student and went on to secure academic positions at the University of Sydney and University of Auckland. He is a current participant in reading group.

Adam Tyndall joined reading group as a postgraduate student. He now works in the public sector.

Tom Baker joined reading group as a postgraduate student. After working in national and local government, he secured an academic position at Simon Fraser University and now works at the University of Auckland.

Jenny Cameron joined reading group as a member of academic staff. She is now a conjoint of the University of Newcastle.

Michelle Duffy joined reading group as a member of academic staff. She is a current participant in reading group.

Rae Dufty-Jones joined reading group as a member of academic staff. She was later employed at the University of Tasmania and the University of New England and now works at Western Sydney University.

Kevin Dunn was an establishment member of reading group as a postgraduate student. He went on the secure academic positions at the University of Newcastle, University of New South Wales and Western Sydney University. He is now Professor and Pro-Vice Chancellor Research and Western Sydney University.

Paul Hodge joined reading group as a postgraduate student and went on to secure an academic position at the University of Newcastle. He is a participant in reading group.

Matthew Kearnes joined reading group as a postgraduate student. He secured academic positions at the Open University, Lancaster University and Durham University. He was an ARC Future Fellow and is now a Professor at the University of NSW.

Pauline McGuirk established reading group as a member of academic staff. She is now a Senior Professor and Director of the Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space (ACCESS) at the University of Wollongong.

Phillip O'Neill established reading group as a member of academic staff. He is now a Professor and Director of the Centre for Western Sydney at Western Sydney University.

Kristian Ruming joined reading group as a postgraduate student. He secured academic positions at the University of NSW and then Macquarie University. He is now Head of Department of Geography and Planning at Macquarie University.

Meg Sherval joined reading group as a member of academic staff. She is a current participant in reading group.

Miriam Williams joined reading group as a postgraduate student. She secured academic positions at the University of Newcastle and now works at Macquarie University.

Sarah Wright joined reading group as a member of academic staff. She is an ARC Future Fellow and a current participant in reading group.

Notes

1 At the University of Newcastle, academic groupings are called Disciplines. Therefore our grouping is the Discipline of Geography and Environmental Studies. However for the purposes of this paper we have called ourselves a Department to avoid confusion with the wider discipline of geography in Australia and internationally and the concept of discipline/ self-discipline that we explore in the paper.

2 Here we draw together the work Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012) (discussed in more detail later in the paper) with assemblage thinking to describe our approach to the paper.

3 Robyn Longhurst and her colleagues (for example Adams-Hutcheson and Longhurst 2017, Longhurst 2013) have produced excellent work the relational effects and effects of Skype that we think are applicable to our experiences of using Skype or Zoom in reading group. While these technologies enable participants who are outside the room, experiencing reading group via Zoom does not allow distant participants to share a cup of tea and a piece of cake, or to sense the shifting affects of the discussion experienced by those in the room (see particularly Adams-Hutcheson and Longhurst’s 2017 discussion of the effects of Skype here). While we don’t have space to explore this further here, there is room for more research on how digital communication is impacting on postgraduate education and academic labour more generally.

4 This included meetings of School Executive with the Head of School and Pro Vice Chancellor and with the Infrastructure and Facilities Services Division of the University, as well as written submissions during renovation processes.

5 The sometimes serendipitous effects of the reading group assemblage ring out across the Tasman Sea too. After hosting visiting colleagues from the University of Auckland in the Ontology Laboratory, the Auckland geographers applied the same label to room in their institution’s plan for a new building. Years later, Auckland’s Ontology Lab is a valued space for their human geographers, and a seemingly confusing one for some non-geography colleagues.

6 As the opening vignette shows, sometimes we do things differently.

7 At times there have been postgraduate students with backgrounds in Accountancy, Art and Design, Fine Art, Law, Politics and Veterinary Science.

8 Over the years themes for reading group have included new methodologies; readings that have been pivotal for informing the theoretical approach taken by postgraduate students; work based on an academic-activist stance; agenda-setting books (such as Fredric Jameson’s Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) and J.K. Gibson-Graham’s A Postcapitalist Politics (2006); and articles or chapters that current postgraduate students had published while working on their thesis.

9 Disciplinary cultures vary in time, space and place. Our reading group discussions have often included reflections of the differences between the disciplinary culture of Australian geography compared to other disciplines and compared to geography elsewhere. This is most often in discussions of what is tolerated and accepted as appropriate conduct at conferences, particularly in academic interactions with postgraduate students. We are aware that our experience of and performance of these more supportive and less adversarial academic cultures may be very different that of other colleagues.

10 Over the 25 years of reading group, there have been relatively few staff or postgraduate students from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse backgrounds and very few international postgraduate students. This reflects the student makeup of the University of Newcastle and to some extent it also reflects the academic workforce of Australian geography. None of the international former postgraduate students were able to attend the reading group celebration. Some former international postgraduate students had expressed difficulties with both the content of some readings and the speed of dialogues interchanges in reading group at certain times. In these instances, the students were encouraged to suggest texts to the group that would be more appropriate for them to engage with, staff tried to gently encourage their verbal participation and welcomed their contributions and other members attempted to slow their speech and explain their comments further. While these former students also tended to find reading group a positive experience, they encountered more barriers to participation than most staff or postgraduate students.