Hope at the Edge of a Glass Cliff: Autoethnographic Explorations of a Transnational Scholar Across Landscapes of Leading and Following

• In Event: Intersectional Challenges and Successes of Women in Higher Educational Leadership Internationally: Autoethnographic Reflections

Abstract

Objectives
I am positioned by others, as much as I fight to position myself. It has never been as great a struggle as when I moved into the role of newly minted academic. This paper is an autoethnographic analysis of key points in my work as a woman in leadership, and the mosaic of transnational opportunities and experiences which inform my sense of hope, as I find myself standing on the precipice of risk, that is the glass cliff, at the end of the ugly road through early career academics.

Theoretical framework
Informed by positioning theory (Van Langenhove & Harré, 1999), my narrative maps a landscape of leadership work across schools, coming into the suffocating sensations of obliging follower in white academia. Across this landscape, I use a social theory approach to transnationalism (Levitt & Schiller, 2004) to identify the rich and diverse ways that my positioning keeps me connected to my sense of self, community, sense of justice and identity. At the junction of positioning myself and understanding the transnationalism of my life and work, hope theory (Snyder, 1989; 2000) provides a lens through which to reconcile the risk and measure the opportunity. Thus, my autoethnography is an intersection of roles (positioning) and contexts (transnational), viewed through a lens of hope.

Research methods
As travel has defined my work and life narrative, this writing is a representation of the many photographic albums which have served as record of my personal experiences across the range of socio-cultural, economic, and political contexts (Ellis, 2004). In the same way that Ellis (2004) spoke of writing notes as therapeutic for helping to “organize my life, figure out what’s going on” (p. 19), so too my photo albums have become records of people, moments, and places—stories of my work and life. In this way, my autoethnographic approach marries that part of self (autobiography) with the parts of culture (ethnography), undulating over transnational borders, as I reflect on changing positionings from teacher to principal to postgraduate student and beyond, while all the time seemingly hopeful for the next opportunity.

Findings and Implications
The photo albums provide a visual narrative, viewed through a lens of hope theory to provide a perspective of how race, gender and identity have led to my current position on the glass cliff. Analysis of this experience of risk informs findings on the tensions of being an Asian scholar in white Australian academy. My role is not a singular experience but a potential positioning of many other scholars of Asian heritage locally and globally (Bhopal et al., 2018). However, in using hope theory as a lens, risk can become a tool to leverage possibilities- hopefulness may still be present.

Scholarly Significance of the Study or Work
This autoethnographic exploration of positioning, transnationalism and hope theory is a unique intersection of misunderstood roles and identity, against a backdrop of racialized and marginalized practices contributing to a high-risk landscape for scholars of color, who continue to fight for hopeful opportunities.

Author

• Nicola Sum, Monash University