Contribution
Description: Through this performance text I shall present an autobiographical account of a four-year lived experience of pursuing a balance while constructing competing identities: that of a dedicated and aspiring doctoral student alongside that of a committed mother-of-three. As I engage with writing my doctoral thesis I am aware that research reports tend to be presented as polished accounts of a process that may occasionally be referred to as 'messy', though this 'messiness' is rarely exposed. This paper aims to shed light on the spaces where research meets everyday life. Armed with honest integrity, I shall dress in two halves in order to portray two images and use music, props and prose to deliver this performance text. The text itself explores the complexity and possibilities in braiding academic with everyday life, while pursuing high standards in both, and invites sincere contributions from the lived experience of others.
Methodology: Autoethnographic account drawing on key experiences as recorded in research diary during four years of doctoral study.
Conclusions: N/A Contrary to offering new knowledge, a fundamental aim of this proposal is to generate new insights through sharing lived experience. Some ways forward are suggested, though these cannot but be of subjective value.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.