Feminist Research Teams, and feminist practices in academia more broadly, can help push back against the demands of neoliberal university structures by fostering relationships, practices, and spaces that are reflexive, acknowledge and resist power, centre a feminist ethic of care, and value different ways of knowing, being, and doing academia.
This week our research team explored feminist values and practices central to becoming a "Feminist Research Team," through a virtual workshop using a series of invitational prompts and creative facilitation techniques.
Workshop Materials: The materials included in a
pre-workshop package sent to research team members
Pre-workshop engagement
As a PhD student in the University of Guelph's Social Practice and Transformational Change program, preparing and facilitating a workshop on a Feminist Research Team has been an important part of my Qualifying Exam (QE) preparation. Through this workshop, I/we were able to link peer-reviewed scholarship on feminist academia to our research team's practice.
The idea for this workshop emerged in the summer of 2021 while I was conducting research exploring the practices of feminist academia with my advisor, Dr. Roberta Hawkins. From this research, and our various conversations, I grew increasingly interested in what these practices might look like in our own research team. I proposed the idea for this workshop to our research team, who enthusiastically agreed to participate, which I understand as an act of care for myself and our team as they committed their time and labour to support me during my QE preparation and to imagine alternative ways of being together.
We set aside several times during our biweekly group meetings to discuss what such a workshop could look like. And, I created a joint document where we could share our ideas about the space, activities, and concepts we wished to centre during the workshop. Although we had hoped to meet in person because of the ongoing pandemic and our provincial government's most recent public health restrictions, we opted for a virtual workshop. In preparation for the workshop I mailed or delivered a package with workshop materials to each team member, including some chocolate and tea to connect us even as we were apart.
Through a series of invitations and creative prompts, I invited research team members to discuss the feminist values that underpin their/our individual and collective academic practice. Below I share these invitations and the collective reflections that emerged during the workshop.
What are your stories of a Feminist Academia?
To open the workshop, I asked us to think of a moment when we each felt cared for during our times in academia, including what this care looked like, what it felt like, who or what was involved, and what made this moment possible.
In response, we shared stories of professors taking the time to encourage, support, and mentor us; intimate and joyful moments in spaces like cafés and saunas, centring relationships, and fostering new ideas and connections; the feeling of being welcomed into a research team that centres openness and collaboration; and moments of representation and disruption in the classroom. As we listened there were smiles and nods, and for me, a feeling of warmth and togetherness despite the physical separation between us.
These stories worked to ground our conversation and spark our imaginations and helped us "contest the dominant neoliberal framing of academia" as we shared our embodied and emotional experiences of care (Askins and Blazek 2016).
What is with us in this space?
Although meeting virtually, the space that we created together was made up of many different things (e.g. materials, affects, politics, subjectivities, etc.). We brought with us our histories and identifies; our emotions and bodies; global, regional, and local contexts and politics; our care responsibilities; everyday objects and technologies; and different power dynamics. So, in a second invitation I asked the group to collectively reflect on what was with us in the virtual space of the workshop. Together we populated a document identifying things such as:
pandemic fatigue; public health guidelines; the mess and stress of being at home; impacted research
care, excitement, and joy
the whiteness of academia and our research team
the implications of living as settlers on stolen land
institutional structures
hierarchies and power dynamics
to do lists and stress of deadlines and class assignments
distance, loss, and a desire to be physically together
responsibilities to listen to and advocate for ways of knowing not typically represented or recognized in academia
research that doesn't reach community
transnational connections
the endless possibilities of academia, both exciting and overwhelming
We then read each item out loud, acknowledging and holding space for their presence and impact on our space and conversation.
What are the values of a Feminist Academia?
Next, using creative mind maps, we began to brainstorm what values underpin a Feminist Academia. Each team member received an excerpt from articles written by different feminist scholars. We each took turns reading - and re-reading - these excerpts aloud while simultaneously creating mind maps identifying and making connections between different feminist values. I encouraged us to be as creative as we like, writing key words down, doodling, and cutting and pasting old magazine scraps. Once all excerpts were read, we took turns sharing what came up for us, building off of the ideas shared by others.
We spoke about values such as collaboration and non-competitiveness; care for each other and ourselves; slowing down; acknowledging the importance of the everyday; building sustainable relationships; disrupting norms and pushing back against hierarchies; making the unspoken spoken; honouring radical affects/practices, such as love and resistance; and imagining new possibilities and ways of being together.
Example Creative Mind Map: My mind map identifying and making connections between key values underpinning a Feminist Academia
How do we enact these values through our practice?
We also discussed what values were core to our research team and what practices we could enact to live into these values. We included both practices we already do, as well as those we want to work towards. Acknowledging that this will be an ongoing conversation, we began with the following core values and associated practices:
Remembering the importance of the everyday | check-in with everyday ups and downs; acknowledge that what we do everyday together has broader implications and can lead to change; how we work together matters
Care, self-care, bodies, and limits | normalizing things like taking a break and the challenges of being humans
Flattening hierarchies (where we can) and leveraging privilege | being strategic and disrupting hierarchies from 'within'; supporting each other when we publicly resist norms/hierarchies; thinking outside the box; finding opportunities to combine what we're passionate about with political/social goals (e.g. reading groups, social media accounts for open dialogue, bringing in new spaces/practices)
Collaborative, non-competitive relationships | sharing grant applications and other resources; working to collaborate and support each other rather than compete; collaborating on projects (e.g. grants, papers, presentations)
Accessible, invitational, and open spaces | talking about how we want to be together; inviting us to share and participate how we are comfortable; designing spaces for access needs
To conclude our time together, we each shared a word (or a few!) that stuck with us (or to us) from the day's conversation. Words shared included: possibilities, learning, openness, and "what now?" Through this workshop, we aimed to create a space where we could reflect on our embodied, emotional, political, and everyday experiences in academia in order to "become" a Feminist Research Team. We've taken steps towards this becoming, we've imagined possibilities, shared and learned with openness, and now as we reflect on this workshop we ask "what now"?
We're not sure yet, but we're excited about the process of becoming.
Interested in hosting your own Feminist Research Team workshop?
Use this free guide and let us know what you imagine together!
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