Engendering belonging: thoughtful gatherings with/in online and virtual spaces

ABSTRACT

Conference attendance is a feature of contemporary academic work and an accepted way of building academic identities and networks through the dissemination and promotion of ideas, achievements and research. However, our personal experiences have caused us to problematise the traditional conference and consider alternatives which mitigate its associated problems yet achieve its aims. In this paper, we use collaborative autoethnography to engage in inquiry about the roles of conferences, and their inhabited notions of representation, membership and inclusion/exclusion. We use personal experiences of virtual confer-ring to highlight that many agreed-upon purposes of attending conferences can be effectively achieved through other means. We explore how particular ways of engaging with technologies enable responsive gathering spaces, relational knowledge production, kinship and community; and facilitate the development, and promotion of scholars and scholarship. We offer a view that confer-ring interactions in online/virtual spaces can support collegial, feminist and egalitarian sharing and knowledge exchange.

KEYWORDS:

• Women in academia
• autoethnography
• academic conferences
• online gatherings
• Conferring

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Ali Black is a Senior Lecturer and arts-based/narrative researcher in the School of Education, University of the Sunshine Coast. Her research and scholarly work fosters connectedness, community, well-being, and meaning making through the valuing of reflective and creative lives. She is interested in storied and visual approaches for knowledge construction, and the power and impact of autoethnographic and collaborative writing. [email protected]

Dr Gail Crimmins is a Senior Lecturer and feminist academic within the School of Communication and Creative Industries at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Gail works with arts informed and feminist research methodologies to unearth and re-present the narratives and voice of various marginalised groups, including women academics, mothers with rheumatoid arthritis, and women survivors of domestic and family violence. She presents her research using both traditional and non-traditional forms of research communication including performance, film, creative writing and traditional academic discourse. [email protected]

Dr Rachael Dwyer is a Lecturer in Curriculum and Pedagogy in the School of Education at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Prior to entering academia, Rachael was a music specialist teacher in primary and secondary schools, and is a strong advocate for music and the arts as part of the educational entitlement of all children. Rachael’s research interests include teacher education, music and arts education, critical pedagogy, women/mothers in academia and narrative inquiry. [email protected]

Victoria Lister is a full-time business woman and a part-time MPhil student at the Queensland University of Technology. She is a qualitative researcher and her current project features interview, observation and auto-ethnography. Located in the School of Advertising, Marketing and PR, Victoria is using her work in the complementary health sector as the context, and exploring how the same service delivered in different settings is experienced by service consumers and service providers. [email protected]

ORCID

Alison L. Black http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0515-6456

Gail Crimmins http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7548-0139

Rachael Dwyer http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2576-2709

Victoria Lister http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3671-5206