Abstract:This essay uses a geographical vocabulary to describe the process of looking for and obtaining academic employment in critical human geography since the onset of the global recession. The first goal of this paper is to document a transformative moment in the history of geography by narrating stories of the job hunt. The second goal of the paper is to map the liminality, precarity, and contradictions of the contemporary job search. The final goal is to reflect on how the academic job search affects our approach… Show more
“…Just as importantly, through these practices and performances these places are made and remade. While work on the spatialities of research work and identities is thus far limited (though see Gillen ), we draw here on McAlpine and Mitra's () suggestion of the important role played by institutional spaces in fostering research work and identification and Hopwood and Paulson's () elaboration of the spatial constitution of PhD emotions. In particular, we are alert to the interplay of materials, meanings and identities in the spaces of the PhD.…”
Section: Space Research Work and Researcher Identificationsmentioning
Recent and ongoing changes in university structures and desires, as well as alterations in doctoral education, are shaping new spatialities and temporalities of academic work and identities. This paper considers the spatialities of one set of researcher identities – those undertaking PhD degrees – and specifically explores the material and socio‐cultural affordances of the sites in which research is practised. Based on a qualitative study (interviews with 30 PhD students and focus groups with 34 students) at two Australian metropolitan and research‐intensive universities, we find students associate different forms of researcher identities with the different spaces of research work. In particular, the university campus and specifically the office and/or laboratory are sites where research is approached as a form of work, and identification as both worker and researcher. Notably, social connections and the power relations of the campus are woven through these identifications. Home, in contrast, can serve as a place of respite or a quiet space to think, but more often disrupts identifications as researcher or emergent academic. This research suggests the need first, to recognise the significance of a physical workspace on campus for developing researchers and second, for a more nuanced consideration of the notion of a neoliberalised university.
“…Just as importantly, through these practices and performances these places are made and remade. While work on the spatialities of research work and identities is thus far limited (though see Gillen ), we draw here on McAlpine and Mitra's () suggestion of the important role played by institutional spaces in fostering research work and identification and Hopwood and Paulson's () elaboration of the spatial constitution of PhD emotions. In particular, we are alert to the interplay of materials, meanings and identities in the spaces of the PhD.…”
Section: Space Research Work and Researcher Identificationsmentioning
Recent and ongoing changes in university structures and desires, as well as alterations in doctoral education, are shaping new spatialities and temporalities of academic work and identities. This paper considers the spatialities of one set of researcher identities – those undertaking PhD degrees – and specifically explores the material and socio‐cultural affordances of the sites in which research is practised. Based on a qualitative study (interviews with 30 PhD students and focus groups with 34 students) at two Australian metropolitan and research‐intensive universities, we find students associate different forms of researcher identities with the different spaces of research work. In particular, the university campus and specifically the office and/or laboratory are sites where research is approached as a form of work, and identification as both worker and researcher. Notably, social connections and the power relations of the campus are woven through these identifications. Home, in contrast, can serve as a place of respite or a quiet space to think, but more often disrupts identifications as researcher or emergent academic. This research suggests the need first, to recognise the significance of a physical workspace on campus for developing researchers and second, for a more nuanced consideration of the notion of a neoliberalised university.
“…First, the neoliberalisation of academic job market has been marginalising social science research through casualising academic labour (McAlpine, 2010). In particular, the ‘unknowingness’ of job security and uncertainty of work-life balance have been affecting early career critical human geographers, shifting their career aspirations (Gillen, 2015). This problem is irreducible to academic tenure and Geography departments in Western research institutions, and is beyond our focus on Geography.…”
Section: Is Geography (Becoming) a ‘Broken Bottle’?mentioning
In this article, we reflect on the institutional conditions of disciplinary Geography and geographical knowledge production. While valuing diversity and vitality, we argue that Geography is becoming a ‘broken bottle’ with an increasingly loose conceptual or analytical ‘core’. Today, our disciplinary identity hinges more on the first half of various sub-fields – economic, urban, cultural – leaving the geography hanging and open to interpretation. The trend has been exacerbated by the intensification of academic neoliberalism and impact factor-driven publishing, which further stretches what it means to be a geographer. We propose to re-centre the region and make it the heart of geographical research and teaching of the 21st century, in order to rethink how the geographical scholarly community may rebuild ‘trading zones’ and social engagement.
“…Another student saw his inability to move where work was available (Gillen, ; Hammett, ) as an important barrier to pursuing a post‐PhD career in academia, writing: ‘I'd like to be able to remain in [my local] … area to be near family and friends … I feel this limits my future job prospects’. Others felt they were neither willing nor able to meet the high standards required to obtain work in academia: I worry that I won't be able to find work—I feel like … I will be competing with [others who] are probably more willing and capable of doing things that I am not (for example, moving long distances from home, working 60 hours a week, publishing many articles each year).…”
Section: Anticipating and Preparing For Post‐phd Careersmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In an analysis of early career academics, Solem and Foote (, p.889) found that many new faculty members struggled to maintain healthy personal and family lives. The perspectives of the aforementioned participants indicate that this struggle begins before graduation with practices developed during the PhD candidature effectively training students into problematic work patterns that they will take with them into their post‐PhD work (Gillen, ). Not only are these practices detrimental at the individual level but also they become particularly nefarious when, collectively, they work against wider agendas of pursuing greater diversity in graduate student and faculty populations.…”
Section: Anticipating and Preparing For Post‐phd Careersmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…It is within this context of flux and uncertainty that Australian geography doctoral students are forming their long‐term identities as geographers. This matters because ‘such experiences shape [their] relationship to geography … [and] determine the level of ‘propriety’ [they] may feel towards the discipline’ (Gillen, , p.727). It also matters in relation to the increasing awareness around the mental health issues faced by PhD students specifically (Levecque et al ., ) and the academy more broadly (Mullings et al , ).…”
Section: ‘I'm Quite Anxious About This As Are Most Postgrads I Speakmentioning
The PhD forms a watershed period where candidates' professional identities are formed, and their career aspirations and expectations are developed. Yet little is known about Australian geography doctoral students' career aspirations and expectations. Drawing on findings from a 2016 survey of those students, the paper establishes that while a majority of students aspire to work in academia, many also feel quite pessimistic about their prospects of being able to do so. The paper argues that the uncertainty and anxiety that many Australian geography doctoral students feel about their future careers is the product of a wider cultural shift that is occurring in relation to the purpose of the research doctorate. Geographers need to critically engage with these changes and the academic subjectivities they are producing to ensure that, as a discipline, geography continues to make a positive contribution to the careers of the individuals who undertake these degrees.
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