Qualifying Differently

Reflecting on an Alternative Approach to Doctoral Comprehensive Exams

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.l5ajix-2503

Keywords:

doctoral education, qualifying examination, caring university, feminist geography

Abstract

In this paper, we build on critical scholarship calling for a care revolution in geography by examining the comprehensive/qualifying exam (QE) process as a moment of intervention. In North America, aspiring doctoral candidates are typically expected to pass a QE before beginning their research. The way QEs are traditionally designed and implemented in the field of geography reinforces a particular canon and a certain way of being a geographer that excludes diverse knowledges. Doctoral students often experience preparing for and completing these exams as a specifically stressful and isolating period. Such an approach to QEs limits geography’s potential as a caring discipline. From our positions as a doctoral student and PhD supervisor, we use collaborative autoethnography to explore an alternative QE format. To better understand the potential of alternative QEs to support doctoral education in geography, we bring literature on QEs into conversation with feminist geography literature on care and academia, exploring the educational possibilities of practicing QEs in a way aligned with a caring academic praxis. Rather than being viewed as a rigorous and individualized test focused on creating ‘expert geographers,’ we suggest the discipline thinks about QEs as a process that encourages scholars to practically and relationally engage with diverse ways of knowing. Despite its potential, doing QEs differently within an uncaring university system can be challenging. It requires a great deal of relational care work to be done well. In conclusion, we consider how geographers might begin to practice QEs differently in order to imagine the discipline, and academia, otherwise.

Author Biographies

Amy Kipp, Social Practice and Transformational Change Program, University of Guelph

Amy Kipp (she/her) is a PhD Candidate in the Social Practice and Transformational Change Program at the University of Guelph. Drawing from feminist and anti-oppressive theories, Amy’s research focuses on the ways in which care is practiced and experienced by individuals and communities across community contexts. Her work explores the infrastructures of caring communities, community care in response to COVID-19, the geographies of care in volunteer tourism, and the individualization of international development issues through ethical consumption campaigns.

Roberta Hawkins, Social Practice and Transformational Change Program, University of Guelph

Roberta Hawkins (she/her) is the Director of the Social Practice and Transformational Change PhD Program at the University of Guelph and an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics. Her research uses principles from feminist geography to examine ethical consumption campaigns and their discursive and material connections to the environment, social justice, and international development. She also theorizes and advocates for slow scholarship and the possibilities of a feminist academia.

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This image is comes from Acetino et al. (this issue). The authors write: it represents our effort to weave together our academic experiences. It is a patchwork of fourteen tiles that we created individually. Some are hand-drawn, some digitally designed, some are collages, and others are photographs capturing moments from fieldwork and life. The tiles are colourful, sized differently as if they were knitted with yarn of different textures, widths, and consistencies. They are all stitched together by a thread that forms a thin, yet solid line that joins the former blank spaces into a blanket. In the bottom left corner, the blanket is held together by the transfeminist symbol, filled with a raised fist holding a needle. This needle connects to the thread that binds the blanket - our experiences - together. The frame of the blanket is decorated with some sentences from the text: “Who has the privilege to be vulnerable?”; “Commendable when critical but only toward the “outside world.” “Eco-transfeminists, anticapitalists, antifascists, antimilitarists, anticolonialists”.

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Published

2025-08-22

How to Cite

Kipp, A., & Hawkins, R. (2025). Qualifying Differently: Reflecting on an Alternative Approach to Doctoral Comprehensive Exams. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 24(4), 426–443. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.l5ajix-2503

Issue

Vol. 24 No. 4 (2025): Research Articles, Intervention, Roundtable, and Translation

Section

Research

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Copyright (c) 2025 Amy Kipp (Interviewer); Roberta Hawkins

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