Transforming Early Academic Careers: Global Challenges and Individual Trajectories - II: Crafting the Academic Self

Abstract

A significant research corpus has examined academic career paths; more recently, attention has been paid to the increasing globalisation of research institutions and to its effects on the lives of early career researchers (ERCs), a group often working in precarious conditions (Murgia and Poggio, 2018; Bataille et al., 2017).

Across many countries, the globalisation of the academic labour market is associated with the growing prevalence of fixed-term (often part-time) academic positions and the emergence of a PhD and postdoctoral “bubble” in the academic workforce. These changes have brought challenges, for individuals and their academic institutions.

In this panel, we would like to explore how these shifts in the traditional academic career path interact with parallel transformations in the life-courses of individuals. We are particularly interested in analysing the reproduction or reconfiguration of gender norms and practices that are associated with the experiences of ECRs. How does the long work hours culture and the requirement to be geographically mobile interact with the intimate relationships and family formation patterns of ECRs? What are the effects of care responsibilities on their capacity to meet the requirements of an early academic career? How does expatriation impact on the access of ECRs to support networks and social welfare across the life-course?

Discussants

• Cara Margherio, University of Washington

• Charlotte Ann Morris, University of Sussex

Individual Presentations

• Crafting Careers in Experimental Particle Physics: Junior Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider - Helene Sorgner, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt | Wien | Graz

• Walking the Tightrope: Precarious Intimacies and Intimate Precarities in Female Early Career Academic Narratives - Charlotte Ann Morris, University of Sussex

• "Enjoy the Struggle": Twelve Strategic Principles for Early Career Researchers, Based on the Experiences of Female Senior Professors in Critical Disciplines - Thamar Melanie Heijstra, University of Iceland; Gyða Margrét Pétursdóttir, University of Iceland

• Caring for the Carers: Entangling Domestic and Doctoral Practices - Martin Oliver, UCL Institute of Education; Richard Freeman, UCL Institute of Education; Iman Azzi, UCL Institute of Education; Zachery Spire, UCL Institute of Education

Session Organizer

• Marie Sautier, University of Lausanne/Sciences Po Paris