As we come to the end of an academic year, emerge from underneath the ever growing heap of administration that tumbles on top of many university staff at this time of year, we can be, understandably, reflective. I have a few things ending, or that have ended, this academic year. A couple of milestones too.
My first time being a Principle Investigator came to an end at the beginning of the academic year – a role I had not expected to take on, yet, which was rewarding but hard. I became ‘PI’ because my colleague, and friend, Clive Barnett suddenly and unexpectedly died at the end of 2021. Through the Algorithmic Politics after Brexit project I learned about digital government in the UK, about many things I didn’t know about Brexit, and I learned how (not) to manage. One of my proudest moments associated with the project (though not really anything I did) was my friend and colleague Kuba Jablonowski’s appointment to a permanent Lectureship at Bristol – a really wonderful (‘unofficial’) outcome for the project and one I am certain Clive would have celebrated too.
My first peer reviewed article came out, at least as ‘Early Online’ anyway, since 2018. The paper is part of a theme issue in Environment and Planning D: Society & Space that originated in an event in Singapore convened by Weiqiang Lin, Peter Adey, Tina Harris and Dylan Brady about automation in the time of COVID-19. Somewhat ironically, I gave that original paper online, rather than in-person, because I actually had coronavirus (I’d love to finally go to Singapore one day). I took a long time getting that article over the finish line, with wonderful support from Weiqiang and Dylan in Singapore, as well as Federico Caprotti and Sean Carter at Exeter, because of the mental health issues that had influenced the preceding gap in publications.
This is absolutely not intended as a ‘poor me’ post. I am very sorry if I have got the tone wrong such that it comes across that way. Rather, I wanted to reflect on the things that happen in life that dictate or influence the pattern of a career, which are (for all sorts of reasons) not visible on a CV, or LinkedIn, or ORCID, or the other quasi- ‘official’ ways we present ourselves professionally. Sometimes it can feel like real ‘feelings’, not the humble bragging of social media, are forbidden. Sometimes a peculiar form of nihilism is mistaken for stoicism. We can seem to only see the prosaic sharing of ‘delighted’ announcements and not the fuller story.
Without wishing to over-share, I have a story that sits behind the lack of writing. I lost my father in 2018 after a long battle with non-alcohol-related liver disease. He had survived various treatments, a liver transplant and many setbacks. With two children born during the time of his illness, my wife and I both found it immensely challenging. Very soon after his death we contended with another family illness and bereavement in my wife’s family. The pandemic happened and all of us clapped, stayed indoors, eat out, went back indoors, knocked elbows, met on Teams and Zoom. Clive passed away. My former head of department and commuting companion (on trains to/from Bristol) Henry Buller also, very sadly, passed away due to cancer. Life happens. I didn’t write. I felt I couldn’t.
Colleagues can be very kind. Even those you don’t know well. I had a bad habit, in the days of Twitter (as was), of expressing my feelings in an un-guarded way and on more than one occasion – perhaps unprofessionally – I said I felt I wasn’t coping or that I was watching my career fizzle out. I received responses from colleagues offering support. I received some informal mentoring from one of them. Academic community matters. While there are, undoubtedly, more helpful and more professional ways of seeking help, I definitely recommend doing so.
I applied for a job, at a different university, a couple of years ago. In my CV and covering letter I made some reference to the gaps in my publication record and tried to offer a positive and ambitious plan for the future, rather than dwell on the past. I was not shortlisted. I requested feedback and was told that I needed to be explicit in providing reasons for the gaps, to explain why I had become PI after the project had already started. more recently, I applied for promotion and tried to learn from the feedback – to explain, in a professional manner, the gaps and to demonstrate my ambition. I received constructive feedback that I hope will help me work towards career advancement in the future.
There has been plenty of commentary about the perceived artificialness of self-promotion on social media and on professional profiles. There are LinkedIn jargon generators, a simple search brings up a lot of them, there are satirical commentaries and videos about self-promotion. My own bot, GeoCritBot (formerly of Twitter, now on BlueSky) was an attempt to satirise both the forms of self-promotion and also the kinds of academic jargon that we tend to use. It is, perhaps, all-too-easy to be cynical and even snide about such things – but I think I/we need to try to resist that temptation.
All of us, of course, have stories broader than the one told on a CV, or on LinkedIn. Some people succeed in academia even in profoundly difficult circumstances. Some people leave, sometimes without choosing to do so. Some of us are not, and don’t necessarily want to be, the stellar Professor. Most of us contend with ‘rejection’ regularly – for publication, for grants and, perhaps, for jobs. Some of us don’t embody the ‘vocation’ of academia, perhaps see it as ‘work’. Life events happen, we all have to deal with them. There can be, perhaps has to be, ways of telling some parts of these wider stories as work lives are complicated by the rest-of-life happening. I am not advocating for over-sharing, I am far too British(!), nor for radical transparency, although I do believe in ‘open’ research. I am not really able to offer any neat solution. I want to reflect on reflecting – to think about how not to feel negative about perceived fallings-short. Comparison can be the thief of fulfilment. ‘We’/’I’ can’t be ‘them’, but we can try to find ways to be a good ‘us’/’me’.
Celebrate your successes. Find ways to tell the story of adversity professionally and without underselling yourself. Celebrate other people’s successes too, however you feel comfortable about doing so (in a kind and professional manner). We can’t know some of the challenges people go through, often – we shouldn’t. However, even in a system that rewards individualism, that still reveres the ‘big name’, we can and should look for ways to advocate for and support one another, to work together, where we can. Solidarity is important.
Lastly, even when everything is hard, hold on to the little wins.
Forbidden feelings
Forbidden Feelingz – Nia Archives.
A wha ya, a wha ya deal with
