We had an article submitted yesterday titled “Stop the Clocks: Enabling Practitioners and Precarity in Pandemic Time(s).” Obviously it still needs to go through the review process, but a submission is still an achievement. When I say “we” it is a team of academics that has come together through the Mental Health Special Interest Group (SIG) as part of NAEEA (National Association of Enabling Educators Australia). The team includes the amazing Anita Olds, Angela Jones, Joanne Lisciandro, Susan Hopkins, Juliette Subramaniam, Helen Scobie, Marguerite Westacott and Rebekah Sturniolo-Baker. All very amazing, driven and intelligent women. I’m not sure how long we have been working on the project to be honest, but I have emails that go back to mid-2021. The entire experience has been extremely positive.

So the paper is an autoethnography where we each wrote a reflection about what it was like to be an enabling educator during 2020 when the pandemic hit. For me, I lost my sessional work and had to relocate from Victoria to Queensland just to remain employed so that was kind of a big deal! My job up here is 0.5 and many people think it’s really crazy to move across the country for a job that is not even full time. However I am a PhD student, so I’m not quite ready for full time work, but, more to the point, this position had two magic words – permanent, ongoing!

We had 8 written reflections that we then thematically analysed and discussed in this paper. I think the image above reflects the interconnectedness we discovered despite all our journeys being different, many common themes. It is not a full on feminist paper but those themes are there. Mostly we talk about neoliberalism, guilt and shame and the uncertainty that we all experienced.

I have no doubt that some, if not all of us involved in this project will work together again. It’s just a matter of when that will happen. In fact I’ve already pitched another autoethnography idea to Anita, the first author. That one will certainly wait until after my confirmation is done. Susan Hopkins and I also have plans to write a discussion piece together. In fact I had around 3000 words of a draft that I took to her. She instantly agreed I had a good idea and that the paper should get finished and published. I just call it the “Intersectionality piece”. Basically I argue that in higher education research everyone adds a disclaimer to their work that basically says “yes we know that many of these students belong to more than one equity group, but it is beyond the scope of this project to investigate that any further.” I hate that!

I can agree that intersectionality as a method is a little fuzzy and many researchers may not have the confidence or skills to use it. But if intersectionality is thought of more as a framework, a philosophy or a discourse that guides the research then it is not that difficult to include and add to discussions! I guess it is a pet peeve of mine because I know how each part of life affects other things. My diabetes, for example, can affect absolutely everything at times and if I lived in a major city those affects would be very different. But I live in a rural town and although I have relocated I have been in rural locations for at least the last 20 years. The intersection of a low income, chronic illness and rurality is very real in my life.

Anyway, the intersectionality article is on hold at the moment with the goal of submitting it before the end of the year. I still have 7 assignments to mark so I should attend to that!