Building Community Through Feminist Collectivity: Being and Becoming Women in Academia

• In Event: Research on Women and Equity

Abstract

This paper explores women’s experiences in academia through collective biography from a feminist, transdisciplinary, intersectional frame. Crosscutting disciplines, classifications, and subject positions, we use dialogue to explore the nuances of what it is to be a woman in academia, and the experiences of building and developing community as women. We draw on data from a fall 2020 focus group where we each were part of a course in designing qualitative inquiry, as well as our reflections, memos, and conversations in dialogues that followed. We use poetic transcription to convey the texture of our experiences, offering both methodological and empirical implications for studying and researching women’s experiences in academia.

Authors

• Whitney Toledo, University of Georgia - Athens

• Maureen Alice Flint, University of Georgia

• Caroline N. Sharkey, University of Georgia

• Sarah McCollum, University of Georgia

• Adrienne Cottrell, University of Georgia

• Oluwayomi Khadijat Paseda, University of Georgia

• NIa Mitchell, University of Georgia