Creating Care-full Academic Spaces?
The Dilemmas of Caring in the ‘Anxiety Machine’
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v18i4.1465Keywords:
graduate supervision, care, feminist pedagogy, neoliberal university, wellness, PhD, emotionAbstract
Good supervision is understood as key to successful graduate research, and recent years have witnessed a proliferation of handbooks and critical accounts of how to be ‘good’. Amidst this growing volume of conceptualisations and accounts of the function of the supervision process very little literature addresses the emotional labours of being a good supervisor. This is despite an acknowledgment within the literature that practices of care and empathy are a key component of good supervision. This essay draws together feminist work from within and beyond geography on institutional intimacies and pedagogic practice with recent work in this journal and elsewhere on ethics, self-care and wellness to reflect on the challenges of being a ‘good’ supervisor in the context of the ‘anxiety machine’ of the neoliberal academy. As well as addressing the ‘dilemmas of care’ the paper reflects on the evolution of a wellbeing programme for graduate students and the challenges and ambiguities of such a programme as a critical care-full space.
References
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Ahmed, S. 2013a ‘Feeling Depleted’ https://feministkilljoys.com/2013/11/17/feeling-depleted/ last accessed 27/8/2016
Ahmed, S. 2013b ‘Critical Racism-Critical Sexism’ https://feministkilljoys.com/2013/12/19/critical-racismcritical-sexism/ last accessed 27/8/2016
Ahmed, S. 2014 ‘Selfcare as warfare’ http://feministkilljoys.com/2014/08/25/selfcare-as-warfare/ last accessed 27/8/2016 x
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Askins, K. And Blazek, M. 2010. Felling our way: academia, emotions and a politics of care. Social and Cultural Geography, 18 (8), pp. 1086-1105.
The Autonomous Geographies Collective, 2010. Beyond Scholar Activism. ACME: An International E-journal for Critical Geographies, 9,2, 245-275.
Bartlett, A. & Mercer, G. 2000 Reconceptualising discourses of power in postgraduate Pedagogies. Teaching in Higher Education 5, 2, 195-204.
Berg, L. D., Huijbens, E.H., and Larsen, H.G. 2016. Producing anxiety in the neoliberal university. The Canadian Geographer 60, 2, 168-80.
Berg, M. and Seeber, B. 2016. The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy, Ontario, University of Toronto Press.
Berlant, L. 1997. “Feminism and the Institutions of Intimacy.” The Politics of Research, ed. E. Ann Kaplan and George Levine (New Brunswick, NJ).
Berlant, L. 1998. Collegiality, Crisis and Cultural Studies, Profession, 1998, 105-116.
Bono, F, V De Craene and A. Kenis. 2019. My best geographer’s dress: bodies, emotions and care in early-career academia. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 101:1, 21-32,
Butler, J. 2006. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, London: Verso.
Chinn, S. E. 2011. Once more with feeling: pedagogy, affect, transformation. Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, 22, 2, 15-20.
Conradson, D. 2016. Fostering student mental well-being through supportive learning communities. The Canadian Geographer 60, 2, 239-244.
D’Ignazio, C and Klein, L. (Forthcoming) Data Feminism. MIT Open, available from https.//bookbook.pubpub.org/data-feminism.
Davidson, J. (2016) ‘Plenary address: A year of living ‘dangerously’: Reflections on risk, trust, trauma and change’, Emotion, Space and Society, 18: 28-34.
Domosh, M. 2014. Toward a more healthy discipline. Association of American Geography Newsletter. October 2 http://news.aag.org/2014/10/toward-a-more-healthy-discipline/ last accessed 27/8/2016
Dombroski, K. A. F Watkins, H. Fitt, J. Frater, K. Banwell, K. Mackenzie, L. Mutambo, K. Hawke, F. Persendt, J. Turković, S. Ko & D. Hart. 2018. Journeying from “I” to “we”: assembling hybrid caring collectives of geography doctoral scholars, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 42:1, 80-93.
Ellsworth, E. 1997. Teaching Positions: Difference, Pedagogy, and the Power of Address. New York: Teachers College Press.
El-Alayli, A, Hansen-Brown, A.A. and Ceynar, M. 2018. Dancing Backwards in High Heels: Female Professors Experience More Work Demands and Special Favor Requests, Particularly from Academically Entitled Students. Sex Roles, 79, 3-4, 136-150.
Gill, R. 2009. Breaking the silence: The hidden injuries of neo-liberal academia. In Secrecy and silence in the research process: Feminist reflections, ed. R. Flood and R. Gill. London: Routledge, 228––244. x
Giroux, H.A. 2014. Neoliberalism’s war on higher education, Haymarket books, London.
Grant, B.M. 2015. The pedagogy of graduate supervision: Figuring the relations between supervisor and student available from https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/2292/295/02whole.pdf?sequence=9 last accessed 27/8/2016
Green, M. 2015. Thanks for listening. The Chronicle for Higher Education, October 19. http://chronicle.com/article/Thanksfor-Listening/233825. Last accessed: 27/8/2016
Hall, R. 2014. On the university anxiety machine. Richard Hall’s Space, blog post March 19 2014. http://www.richard-hall.org/2014/03/19/on-the-university-as-anxiety-machine.
Halse, C. and Malfroy, J. (2010) Retheorising doctoral supervision as professional work, Studies in Higher Education, 35, 1, 79-92.
Hawkins, R. and Manzi, M and Ojeda, D. 2014. Lives in the Making: Power, Academia and the Everyday, ACME: International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 13, 2, 328-351.
Hemer, S R. 2009. Coffee as a Supervisory technique; power, formality and the persona in supervision available on line from: https://www.adelaide.edu.au/carst/docs/hemer-2009-supercino.pdf last accessed: 27/8/2016
Hockey, J. 1994, Establishing boundaries: problems and solutions in managing PhD supervisor’s role. Cambridge Journal of Education 24, 2, 289-305.
Hockey, J. 1995. Getting too close: a problem and a possible solution in social science PhD supervision. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling 23, 2, 199-210.
Hockey, J. 1997. A complex craft: United Kingdom PhD supervision in the social sciences, Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 2,1, 45-70
Hochschild, A. R. 1983. The managed heart: Communication of human feeling. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom New York: Routledge.
hooks, bell. 2003. Teaching community: a pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge.
Ives, G. and Rowley, G. 2005 Supervisor selection of allocation and continuity of supervision: PhD students’ progress and outcomes, Studies in Higher Education, 30, 5, 535-555.
Jagodzinski, j. 2002. The ethics of the 'real' in Levinas, Lacan and Buddhism: Pedagogical implications. Educational Theory, 52, 1, 81-96.
Johnson, L. Lee, A. & Green, B. 2000. The PhD and the autonomous self: gender, rationality and postgraduate pedagogy, Studies in Higher Education, 25, 2, 135-147.
Lorde, A. 1988. A burst of light: Essays. London: Sheba Feminist Publishers.
Macclean, K. 2016. Sanity,‘madness’ and the academy. The Canadian Geographer, 60, 2, 181-191.
MacNell, L. Driscoll, A. and Hunt, A. N. 2015. "What’s in a Name: Exposing Gender Bias in Student Ratings of Teaching," Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy. 2015, Article 53. Available at: h p://thekeep.eiu.edu/jcba/vol0/iss10/53, Last accessed 27/8/2016
Manathunga, C. 2007. Supervision as mentoring: the role of power and boundary crossing. Studies in Continuing Education 29, 2, 207-221.
Meyerhoff, Eli, E. Johnson, and Braun, B. 2011. Time and the university. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 10, 3, 483-507.
Moss, P., K. J. Debres, A. Cravey, J. Hyndman, K. K. Hirschboeck, and M. Masucci. 1999. Toward mentoring as feminist praxis: Strategies for ourselves and others. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 23, 3, 413- 427.
Mott, C., Zuppan, S. Debbane, AM and RL. 2015. Making Space for Critical Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: Struggles and Possibilities. ACME: An International E-journal for Critical Geographies, 14 (4), 1260-1282.
Mountz, A. 2016. Women on the edge: Workplace Stress at Universities in North America. The Canadian Geographer. 60, 2.
Mountz, A., A. Bonds, B. Mansfield, J. Lloyd, J. Hyndman, M. Walton-Roberts, R. Basu, R. Whitson, R. Hawkins, T. Hamilton, and W. Curran. 2015. For slow scholarship: A feminist politics of resistance through collective action in the neoliberal university. ACME: International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 14, 4, 1235-1259
Mullings, B. L. Peake, and K Parizeau. 2016 Cultivating and Ethic of Wellness in Geography. The Canadian Geographer 60 (2) 161-167.
Oberhauser, A. M., and M.A. Caretta 2019. Mentoring early career women geographers in the neoliberal academy: dialogue, reflexivity, and ethics of care, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 101:1, 56-67
Parizeau, K. Shillington, L. Hawkins, R. Sultana, F. Mountz, A. Mullings, B. and Peake, L. 2016. Breaking the Silence: A feminist call to action. The Canadian Geographer, 60, 2, 192-204.
Peake, L., and B. Mullings. 2016. Critical reflections for geography on mental health in the academy. ACME: International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 15, 9, 253-284.
Puawai Collective 2019 Assembling disruptive practices in the neoliberal university: an ethics of care, Geografisk Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 1001: 1, 33-43.
Raghuram, P. 2016. Locating Ethics of Care beyond the Global North, ACME: An International E-journal for Critical Geographies, 15, 3, 511-33.
Salmon, P. 1992. Achieving a PhD: Ten Students' Experience. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books Limited.
Sheffield, C. 2011. Always Ready for Summer; Reflections on the Emotional Cost of Teaching about Violence against Women. Transformations: The Journal of Inclusion Scholarship and Pedagogy 22, 2, 21-29.
Simond- Gagnon, L. 2016. “Everyone is fed, bathed, asleep and I have made it thought another day” problematizing accommodation, resilience and care in the neoliberal academy. Canadian Geographer, 60, 2, 219–22
Taylor, S. and Beasley, N. 2005. A handbook for doctoral supervisors, Routledge: London.
Taylor, Y. And Lahad, K. 2018. Feeling Academic in the Neoliberal University. Feminist Flights, Fights and Failures. Palgrave, London.
Thomas, K. 2014. We don't want anyone to know, say depressed academics. The Guardian online, May 8. http:// www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/
may/08/academics-mental-health-suffering-silence-guardiansurveyealth. Last accessed 27/8/2016
Wisker, G., Robinson, G., Trafford, V., Warnes, M. & Creighton, E. 2003. From supervisory dialogues to successful PhDs: Strategies supporting and enabling the learning conversations of staff and students at postgraduate level. Teaching in Higher Education, 8, 3, 383-397.
Ahmed, S. 2013a ‘Feeling Depleted’ https://feministkilljoys.com/2013/11/17/feeling-depleted/ last accessed 27/8/2016
Ahmed, S. 2013b ‘Critical Racism-Critical Sexism’ https://feministkilljoys.com/2013/12/19/critical-racismcritical-sexism/ last accessed 27/8/2016
Ahmed, S. 2014 ‘Selfcare as warfare’ http://feministkilljoys.com/2014/08/25/selfcare-as-warfare/ last accessed 27/8/2016 x
X Ahmed, S. 2015 ‘Against students’ http://thenewinquiry.com/?essays=against-students last accessed 27/8/2016
Ahmed, S. 2017 Living A Feminist Life Duke University Press.
Askins, K. And Blazek, M. 2010. Felling our way: academia, emotions and a politics of care. Social and Cultural Geography, 18 (8), pp. 1086-1105.
The Autonomous Geographies Collective, 2010. Beyond Scholar Activism. ACME: An International E-journal for Critical Geographies, 9,2, 245-275.
Bartlett, A. & Mercer, G. 2000 Reconceptualising discourses of power in postgraduate Pedagogies. Teaching in Higher Education 5, 2, 195-204.
Berg, L. D., Huijbens, E.H., and Larsen, H.G. 2016. Producing anxiety in the neoliberal university. The Canadian Geographer 60, 2, 168-80.
Berg, M. and Seeber, B. 2016. The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy, Ontario, University of Toronto Press.
Berlant, L. 1997. “Feminism and the Institutions of Intimacy.” The Politics of Research, ed. E. Ann Kaplan and George Levine (New Brunswick, NJ).
Berlant, L. 1998. Collegiality, Crisis and Cultural Studies, Profession, 1998, 105-116.
Bono, F, V De Craene and A. Kenis. 2019. My best geographer’s dress: bodies, emotions and care in early-career academia. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 101:1, 21-32,
Butler, J. 2006. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, London: Verso.
Chinn, S. E. 2011. Once more with feeling: pedagogy, affect, transformation. Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, 22, 2, 15-20.
Conradson, D. 2016. Fostering student mental well-being through supportive learning communities. The Canadian Geographer 60, 2, 239-244.
D’Ignazio, C and Klein, L. (Forthcoming) Data Feminism. MIT Open, available from https.//bookbook.pubpub.org/data-feminism.
Davidson, J. (2016) ‘Plenary address: A year of living ‘dangerously’: Reflections on risk, trust, trauma and change’, Emotion, Space and Society, 18: 28-34.
Domosh, M. 2014. Toward a more healthy discipline. Association of American Geography Newsletter. October 2 http://news.aag.org/2014/10/toward-a-more-healthy-discipline/ last accessed 27/8/2016
Dombroski, K. A. F Watkins, H. Fitt, J. Frater, K. Banwell, K. Mackenzie, L. Mutambo, K. Hawke, F. Persendt, J. Turković, S. Ko & D. Hart. 2018. Journeying from “I” to “we”: assembling hybrid caring collectives of geography doctoral scholars, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 42:1, 80-93.
Ellsworth, E. 1997. Teaching Positions: Difference, Pedagogy, and the Power of Address. New York: Teachers College Press.
El-Alayli, A, Hansen-Brown, A.A. and Ceynar, M. 2018. Dancing Backwards in High Heels: Female Professors Experience More Work Demands and Special Favor Requests, Particularly from Academically Entitled Students. Sex Roles, 79, 3-4, 136-150.
Gill, R. 2009. Breaking the silence: The hidden injuries of neo-liberal academia. In Secrecy and silence in the research process: Feminist reflections, ed. R. Flood and R. Gill. London: Routledge, 228––244. x
Giroux, H.A. 2014. Neoliberalism’s war on higher education, Haymarket books, London.
Grant, B.M. 2015. The pedagogy of graduate supervision: Figuring the relations between supervisor and student available from https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/2292/295/02whole.pdf?sequence=9 last accessed 27/8/2016
Green, M. 2015. Thanks for listening. The Chronicle for Higher Education, October 19. http://chronicle.com/article/Thanksfor-Listening/233825. Last accessed: 27/8/2016
Hall, R. 2014. On the university anxiety machine. Richard Hall’s Space, blog post March 19 2014. http://www.richard-hall.org/2014/03/19/on-the-university-as-anxiety-machine.
Halse, C. and Malfroy, J. (2010) Retheorising doctoral supervision as professional work, Studies in Higher Education, 35, 1, 79-92.
Hawkins, R. and Manzi, M and Ojeda, D. 2014. Lives in the Making: Power, Academia and the Everyday, ACME: International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 13, 2, 328-351.
Hemer, S R. 2009. Coffee as a Supervisory technique; power, formality and the persona in supervision available on line from: https://www.adelaide.edu.au/carst/docs/hemer-2009-supercino.pdf last accessed: 27/8/2016
Hockey, J. 1994, Establishing boundaries: problems and solutions in managing PhD supervisor’s role. Cambridge Journal of Education 24, 2, 289-305.
Hockey, J. 1995. Getting too close: a problem and a possible solution in social science PhD supervision. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling 23, 2, 199-210.
Hockey, J. 1997. A complex craft: United Kingdom PhD supervision in the social sciences, Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 2,1, 45-70
Hochschild, A. R. 1983. The managed heart: Communication of human feeling. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom New York: Routledge.
hooks, bell. 2003. Teaching community: a pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge.
Ives, G. and Rowley, G. 2005 Supervisor selection of allocation and continuity of supervision: PhD students’ progress and outcomes, Studies in Higher Education, 30, 5, 535-555.
Jagodzinski, j. 2002. The ethics of the 'real' in Levinas, Lacan and Buddhism: Pedagogical implications. Educational Theory, 52, 1, 81-96.
Johnson, L. Lee, A. & Green, B. 2000. The PhD and the autonomous self: gender, rationality and postgraduate pedagogy, Studies in Higher Education, 25, 2, 135-147.
Lorde, A. 1988. A burst of light: Essays. London: Sheba Feminist Publishers.
Macclean, K. 2016. Sanity,‘madness’ and the academy. The Canadian Geographer, 60, 2, 181-191.
MacNell, L. Driscoll, A. and Hunt, A. N. 2015. "What’s in a Name: Exposing Gender Bias in Student Ratings of Teaching," Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy. 2015, Article 53. Available at: h p://thekeep.eiu.edu/jcba/vol0/iss10/53, Last accessed 27/8/2016
Manathunga, C. 2007. Supervision as mentoring: the role of power and boundary crossing. Studies in Continuing Education 29, 2, 207-221.
Meyerhoff, Eli, E. Johnson, and Braun, B. 2011. Time and the university. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 10, 3, 483-507.
Moss, P., K. J. Debres, A. Cravey, J. Hyndman, K. K. Hirschboeck, and M. Masucci. 1999. Toward mentoring as feminist praxis: Strategies for ourselves and others. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 23, 3, 413- 427.
Mott, C., Zuppan, S. Debbane, AM and RL. 2015. Making Space for Critical Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: Struggles and Possibilities. ACME: An International E-journal for Critical Geographies, 14 (4), 1260-1282.
Mountz, A. 2016. Women on the edge: Workplace Stress at Universities in North America. The Canadian Geographer. 60, 2.
Mountz, A., A. Bonds, B. Mansfield, J. Lloyd, J. Hyndman, M. Walton-Roberts, R. Basu, R. Whitson, R. Hawkins, T. Hamilton, and W. Curran. 2015. For slow scholarship: A feminist politics of resistance through collective action in the neoliberal university. ACME: International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 14, 4, 1235-1259
Mullings, B. L. Peake, and K Parizeau. 2016 Cultivating and Ethic of Wellness in Geography. The Canadian Geographer 60 (2) 161-167.
Oberhauser, A. M., and M.A. Caretta 2019. Mentoring early career women geographers in the neoliberal academy: dialogue, reflexivity, and ethics of care, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 101:1, 56-67
Parizeau, K. Shillington, L. Hawkins, R. Sultana, F. Mountz, A. Mullings, B. and Peake, L. 2016. Breaking the Silence: A feminist call to action. The Canadian Geographer, 60, 2, 192-204.
Peake, L., and B. Mullings. 2016. Critical reflections for geography on mental health in the academy. ACME: International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 15, 9, 253-284.
Puawai Collective 2019 Assembling disruptive practices in the neoliberal university: an ethics of care, Geografisk Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 1001: 1, 33-43.
Raghuram, P. 2016. Locating Ethics of Care beyond the Global North, ACME: An International E-journal for Critical Geographies, 15, 3, 511-33.
Salmon, P. 1992. Achieving a PhD: Ten Students' Experience. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books Limited.
Sheffield, C. 2011. Always Ready for Summer; Reflections on the Emotional Cost of Teaching about Violence against Women. Transformations: The Journal of Inclusion Scholarship and Pedagogy 22, 2, 21-29.
Simond- Gagnon, L. 2016. “Everyone is fed, bathed, asleep and I have made it thought another day” problematizing accommodation, resilience and care in the neoliberal academy. Canadian Geographer, 60, 2, 219–22
Taylor, S. and Beasley, N. 2005. A handbook for doctoral supervisors, Routledge: London.
Taylor, Y. And Lahad, K. 2018. Feeling Academic in the Neoliberal University. Feminist Flights, Fights and Failures. Palgrave, London.
Thomas, K. 2014. We don't want anyone to know, say depressed academics. The Guardian online, May 8. http:// www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/
may/08/academics-mental-health-suffering-silence-guardiansurveyealth. Last accessed 27/8/2016
Wisker, G., Robinson, G., Trafford, V., Warnes, M. & Creighton, E. 2003. From supervisory dialogues to successful PhDs: Strategies supporting and enabling the learning conversations of staff and students at postgraduate level. Teaching in Higher Education, 8, 3, 383-397.
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Published
2019-09-12
How to Cite
Hawkins, H. (2019). Creating Care-full Academic Spaces? The Dilemmas of Caring in the ‘Anxiety Machine’. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 18(4), 816–834. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v18i4.1465
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