Becoming mother-researcher
Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2025 10:33 am
Collaboratively created, emerging from and through our discussions about this blog.
Embracing uncertainty – emergence from the ‘in-between’ The possibilities when research is entangled with mothering Barad (2007) posits that time has a thickness in which the past, present and future are knitted into every moment. Similarly, we argue that our mothering and being doctoral students are entangled. PhD mums can face a lack of support and understanding Belarus consumer email list from peers and supervisors, challenges relating to our changing, sometimes failing bodies, and time pressures and stress due to competing priorities. However, mothering can bring additional knowledge and skills, leading to different insights in and about research.
Since experiences can differ from cohort to country, we hope here to contribute to the discussion with our own international perspectives and call for further research exploring (m)other perspectives in doctoral education.I never expected to resume my academic life in my forties. So ambivalent were my feelings after my undergraduate experience that it was a decade before I embarked on a teaching qualification, leaving the world of business to return to education. I’m now a parent-carer, in full-time employment; daily life is busy. Yet here I am, in year 1 of a professional doctorate in education, knowing simultaneously that it is the right choice and that I am terribly late to the party – maybe too late?
Embracing uncertainty – emergence from the ‘in-between’ The possibilities when research is entangled with mothering Barad (2007) posits that time has a thickness in which the past, present and future are knitted into every moment. Similarly, we argue that our mothering and being doctoral students are entangled. PhD mums can face a lack of support and understanding Belarus consumer email list from peers and supervisors, challenges relating to our changing, sometimes failing bodies, and time pressures and stress due to competing priorities. However, mothering can bring additional knowledge and skills, leading to different insights in and about research.
Since experiences can differ from cohort to country, we hope here to contribute to the discussion with our own international perspectives and call for further research exploring (m)other perspectives in doctoral education.I never expected to resume my academic life in my forties. So ambivalent were my feelings after my undergraduate experience that it was a decade before I embarked on a teaching qualification, leaving the world of business to return to education. I’m now a parent-carer, in full-time employment; daily life is busy. Yet here I am, in year 1 of a professional doctorate in education, knowing simultaneously that it is the right choice and that I am terribly late to the party – maybe too late?