Transitioning and re-membering of academics in times of upheaval

ABSTRACT

The higher education landscape has been amidst change over recent years. At the time of writing this paper, the pandemic outbreak has had a substantial impact on the higher education sector. This was our last year as early career researchers, but the prospect of promotion was replaced with managing unpredicted short-term job insecurity. In writing this article, we engage with collaborative diffractive autobiographical writing, re-membering, re-connecting and re-experiencing our autobiographical accounts, written at the beginning of our transition into academia. Through diffractive analysis, we shifted from positivistic approaches that assume a rigid separation between observer and the observed, to engage in an ongoing (re)pattering and (re)(con)figuring of our identities during this transition. In an intentional disruption of binary, we engage in writing as an event of interaction with texts, allowing ourselves to be affected by and experience these propositions in their mutual entanglements.

KEYWORDS:

• Diffractive analysis
• performativity
• transitioning
• autobiographical writing
• early career researcher

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anat Wilson

Dr Anat Wilson is a Lecturer in the Department of Education at Swinburne University of Technology. Her research focus is in the areas of coping in Initial teacher Education; metacognition and consciousness in education, and second language writing, teaching and learning. Anat has held leadership positions in secondary and tertiary educational settings.

Wendy Goff

Dr Wendy Goff is a lecturer in the Department of Education Swinburne University of Technology where she teaches in the Bachelor and Masters programs. Wendy is interested in adult relationships and how they impact/shape children’s learning, she has used mathematics education as a vehicle to study these relationships.

Maryanne Pale

Dr. Maryanne Pale is a Lecturer in English Language and Literacy Education at Swinburne University of Technology. Her research interests include Literacy Education, the Teaching and Learning of Pasifika students, and Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogies. Maryanne is a current member of the Victorian Early Childhood Research Consortium, the Australian Teacher Education Association and the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association.

Kristina Turner

Dr Kristina Turner is a Lecturer in Primary Education at Swinburne University. Kristina is the Course Director for the Bachelor of Education (Primary) and Master of Teaching (Primary) courses. She has worked in a variety of school and university settings. Kristina’s research interests are in positive education, teacher and principal wellbeing and pre-service teacher emotional intelligence. Her current research project examines the effect of teachers’ use of positive psychology strategies on their wellbeing, teaching practice and students’ learning.