Over networked
Posted on November 5th, 2007, under Travel, Academia
Last week I was in Melbourne briefly for the Cultural Research Network annual meeting. The CRN is funded by the Australian Research Council and allows a select group of researchers across the country to be brought together for 5 years to capitalise on and extend existing research collaborations, as well as generate new ones. It’s an awkward privilege: by its nature, it draws in some of the most successful researchers in the field, but it’s fair to say that by the end of the network’s life, it is is likely to make these already successful researchers even more so. This is quite a complicated dilemma for anyone concerned about the competitive job market in Australian academia. Going to the meeting this year made me more conscious of this than last time, especially because it seemed that there was a little more pressure on everyone to find guaranteed grant-producing collaborators as the network enters its final years.
Having felt over-committed for the best part of this year, despite my best efforts to avoid the same trap as years past, I spent quite a bit of emotional energy leading up to and during the meeting developing strategies to try to avoid getting involved in any more projects. One of the biggest problems amongst younger researchers I know at the moment is their deeply felt incapacity to say no to things, their inability to recognise when they’re already doing enough. There is all the world of difference between making the most of opportunities that are on offer, and normalising an unrealistic work ethic both for yourself and those coming along after who would aspire to just some of the opportunities you have. And there is a point where the insecurity of the job-market has to be considered a structural experience worth mobilising our shared resources to overcome, against the present formula, which answers its challenges with an ever-growing pile of jaw-dropping individual CVs.
So I guess the answer for me is to use the network to achieve as many ‘other-oriented’ research outcomes as self-interested ones, if I can put it like that. I’ve been in the network for a little over a year, and have been lucky to have had two projects assisted by CRN funding: the wireless seminar in Sydney last December, which led to the special issue of MIA I’ve just finished editing with Gerard Goggin (phew); also the online communities book I’m writing with Catherine Driscoll. Indeed, the latter was the result of being thrown in a room ‘to network’ (vb) at last year’s meeting, but I think my research on the compulsory sociality of the workplace seriously affected my ability to do the same thing this year. I have one other big project I want to get off the ground with the help of the network which will extend the wireless agenda much further, and it looks as though I might have convinced a few people to come on board and be part of it. But on the plane down to Melbourne I thought the time was ripe to suggest something a bit more outward-looking and ambitious as a way for the CRN to make its mark before it winds up.
The idea is to hold a conference in 2009 on the ’state of the industry’ to showcase the changing nature of academic practice in Australia. It would be a 3 day thing that focuses on all aspects of the job: teaching and learning, research careers (including new job roles like project management, administration and research support, and asking whether the PhD is truly the most relevant qualification for these), new forms of public intellectual practice, working with industry, consultation and outreach roles in the community, etc etc. We’d ask all kinds of people to come along and witness what’s actually going on in universities, and also showcase some of the problems and issues facing this generation of workers. It seems to me that this kind of event, if run by younger scholars in and outside the network, would be an important ‘passing of the torch’ or ‘next wave’ positioning exercise, to challenge some of the cliches of how cultural researchers in particular are described in the mainstream media. But it might also be an occasion for the universities that employ us to take seriously some of the struggles we face in striving to keep the jobs we have been trained - sometimes quite inadequately - to do. Stay tuned.
On November 6th, 2007 at 7:33 am, glen said:
re wireless project, have you seen the latest BRW? feature on using PDAs etc and talks up the benefits of always beiong able to contact workers so there is no down time (!!!!!)
On November 6th, 2007 at 8:05 am, melgregg said:
Maybe they have read my article already?!
Thanks Glen - glad you are keeping up with the bourgie mags xx
On November 6th, 2007 at 11:33 am, glen said:
hey, it may be useful for what I hope is my next project. I want to engage with capitalist culture in terms of an enthusiasm and an infrastructure of a scene. The delirium of which Deleuze once spoke. Not simply a capitalist enthusiasm (an enthusiasm manifest within capitalist modes of production/exchange), but an enthusiasm for ‘capitalism’. Hence, BRW is the equivalent of Street Machine, part of the discursive infrastructure of the ’scene’!
On November 6th, 2007 at 12:03 pm, kiley said:
Good idea for a conference mel, although I wonder who would attend besides postgrads and ecrs.
Ironically, I’m in between both of your research areas at the moment. I’m struggling to maintain my own work with the increasing absence of a workaholic balckberry/networker and the day to day of my progeny.The blackberry was meant to lighten the workload but has instead increased it and subsequently, availability is unavailable in my house. I have taken to texting paul to let him know when meals are served.
ps have you seen the bigpond ad with every member of the family in a different room in a three storey house online? Thank god the mum is only looking at recipes!
On November 6th, 2007 at 12:14 pm, melgregg said:
I’ve seen it now, thanks. She’s also buying shoes of course!!
On November 6th, 2007 at 2:47 pm, melgregg said:
Also I wanted to say that no, it won’t just be postgrads and ECRs, because we’ll be getting teaching, research and admin staff at all levels to come and speak. We’ll also be inviting sponsors of the research, whether universities, industry partners or other bodies to take part and tell us various things including what they value about or want from academic research. So the point is not only to showcase the kind of research that the CRN has funded, for example, which is quite diverse, but to establish an agenda for academic practice in the future.
But the second thing to note is that the postgrad/ECR identity is what the whole exercise is intended to question. There are ECRs in the CRN who are in their 40s and have already had successful careers, just as their are postgrads who are in full-time teaching jobs, etc. These categories are only ever abstractions, and yet they have significant weight in institutional terms to affect people’s lives. An event of this scale is one of the best ways we can demonstrate the limitations of and the assumptions behind their ongoing deployment - to consider some wider structural issues facing the industry beyond the particularities of life-stages or job ambitions.
On November 6th, 2007 at 3:31 pm, melgregg said:
Just finally, and then I’ll stop: outdated cliches about life-stages and job ambitions are a whole other set of issues the event should give us the chance to discuss. At the CRN meeting last week, I was comparing notes with another postdoctoral fellow who had been facing a bit of scrutiny from the tenured T&R staff present for wanting to pursue a research career rather than apply for a (non-continuing) teaching job. We’ve both found that to an older generation of academics our desire to stay in research by *choice* rather than by default is the source of persistent interrogation if not moral judgment that we should be willing to sacrifice our research if the right teaching job came up. Trouble with that is, the right teaching jobs aren’t likely - indeed haven’t ever looked likely - to come up in the present context, especially as universities are introducing ‘teaching intensive’ positions. Nor have we ever had the chance to experience ongoing teaching work that would allow us the very pleasures of student interaction that are claimed to be so important for our jobs.
These differences in access, aspiration and expectation have been crucial factors in our decision to make research our focus, and yet the problem this poses more broadly is that research only staff compete directly with T&R academics for grant funding, making our rate of production the benchmark for performance. No wonder there is resentment on both sides!
The conference is intended to open these issues up for the public debate they deserve.
On November 7th, 2007 at 1:49 pm, Emily said:
The desire to build academic community as much as a CV can contribute to the over-commitment thing. I wonder how we can negotiate this? can an ECR’s lack of perspective on how hard they are working be connected to this lack of community - you know, other voices that can moderate internal expectations?
On November 8th, 2007 at 9:20 am, melgregg said:
I think so, yes. Also, as I think we’ve discussed recently, a lack of variation in the forms of mentoring and discussion time we set aside. The competitiveness between junior academics works against peer-to-peer mentoring in many ways, as does the workload of those we know that are starting to plea for rights under the ‘mid-career’ identity!
On the other hand, I think MACS here in Brisbane has worked well as an example of what is possible for peer-to-peer mentoring, revealing some of the benefits and limitations of postdoc, postgrad and ECR collegiality. It’s a model that could be adopted elsewhere, if people had the motivation… and time!
On November 8th, 2007 at 10:22 am, Emily said:
MACS looks like a great model, and am heartened that it’s been a success: I remember in postgrad days getting more than two or three people (who were not ‘friends’ outside department life) down to the pub was impossible - and there was beer involved, too! I guess not everyone wants or needs peer community (at least in the same way). So what happens at MACS get togethers? Are they structured, or do they just unfold?
On November 8th, 2007 at 1:56 pm, melgregg said:
For the first couple of years I organised the theme based on what seemed like a good idea at the time - in response to books or arguments that were current, or other issues like the ARC intervention in 2005. Topicality is hard to predict though, and for a long time I tried to get a ‘working group’ to help generate some themes to ensure discussions would be relevant for lots of people. Now it’s being taken on by others to organise, so I can focus on other things. The last one was organised on Facebook which might help to create a group dynamic (but I’m not optimistic about the long term sustainability of that).
We generally ask a bunch of 3 or 4 people to speak to a topic for 10 minutes and keep it informal - plenty of time for questions and discussion along the way. Then when we’re sick of sitting still in a seminar room we go to the pub!
You’re right tho. Not everyone wants or needs peer community in this way, or feels comfortable with this model. I haven’t seen many alternatives tho. And people still seem to come.
One thing is I’m not sure how it would fare in a bigger city with more unis. We have trouble getting people outside of the UQ/QUT nexus to come, which says something as well.
On November 12th, 2007 at 5:46 pm, laura said:
Organising a major conference is a deeply time-consuming and ultimately thankless task, in my experience.
On November 12th, 2007 at 8:06 pm, ap said:
i like the idea of the conference - i think there are interesting models from other industries for this kind of thing. in the early days, the national young writer’s festival (newcastle) tried to achieve something similar for ‘emerging writers’. there’s a generation of people who benefited from it (including a few of us whose higher degree research flourished because of it). a key element to it (and this is not art’s) success i think is that it inverted the usual power structures of agenda setting. the bottom feeders (the emerging, early career people) programed the event, rather than vying for limited space in the established spaces, and invited select ‘high profile’ people to speak.
if i can remember to check your blog more often i will try to keep an eye out for how the idea develops.
On November 12th, 2007 at 9:55 pm, melgregg said:
It will need to be a team effort, that’s for sure. And Anna - yes! Thanks for the reminder that there *are* models that work, for the organisers as well as the participants. That seems to be the balance academia is missing, if Laura’s experiences and my observation of conferences over the years are any guide…
I’ve never dreamed I’d organise a conference before for exactly the reasons Laura writes, but I’m almost at the stage where the topic seems too important for it not to happen. Anyway, it will have to be somewhere outside Brisbane, so I’ll be looking for lots of experienced helpers!
On November 13th, 2007 at 6:48 am, ap said:
(i would’ve said this in an email if i could work out if you have it listed on your blog somewhere
)
i’d be keen for a chat if you suspect i may fit the description of ‘experienced helper’.
On November 15th, 2007 at 11:47 am, Graham said:
the conference seems like a good idea but i’m not sure the number of thankless hours of organization would be justified by what seems to me to be a massive exercise in inside baseball.
On November 15th, 2007 at 12:09 pm, melgregg said:
Anna - yes - I’ll email you.
Graham - surprised by this. It sort of suggests that there wouldn’t be much point in ever organising a conference about something you cared about. You’ve been involved in Antithesis, right? I’d be interested to hear how you think the exercises differ, or indeed converge… maybe that’s yr point? Experience tells you the effort isn’t worth it?
I guess the other issue is that the conference itself could be an experiment in what would happen if the labour involved in organising a conference *was* recognised. That is, the CRN is uniquely positioned to employ people for the purpose of bringing other people together. Effectively this means that once the idea is established, the groundwork could be outsourced. Part of the point of the conference is to show how much work is involved behind the scenes in the production of knowledge (and as Laura shows, when this falls in the hands of academics, it can be completely derailing. Um, it’s because we aren’t trained to be conference organisers during our PhD!). Also, universities that want to take the credit for hosting conferences and generating important newsworthy events should be helping out more in terms of providing the infrastructure to make them happen.
Anyway, if it goes ahead, this could be a different kind of conference experiment because there could actually be a clear and (imagine!) equally rewarded split between mental, manual and service labour. Maybe I’m being too optimistic. But that’s what brainstorming is for.
On November 15th, 2007 at 12:36 pm, Graham said:
oh, i think i came off a bit too blunt there.
my objection isn’t to the process of organizing conferences in general but rather to the focus of the prospective conference. that is, i’m not too interested in discussing the state of the industry itself (this is what i mean by inside baseball) but i’d rather attend and organize conferences on subjects of political, personal and aesthetic interest and relevance.
my feeling is that the state of the industry type questions are better suited for either the boardroom or the bar (or the blog). real change is already underway (whether from institutions i.e. the Melbourne Model or in our individual classroom practice) and i’m not sure a conference is (although it has many strengths) the right venue.
my experience working on antithesis has been positive and quite instructive and it’s the sort of experience that most or all postgrads should have…
On November 15th, 2007 at 3:45 pm, melgregg said:
Thanks for clarifying - and glad you are having a happy time!
Your description makes me better able to suggest precisely why I think a conference (or a public event of some kind) is necessary. When these conversations stay in the boardroom or the bar or the blog (writing a paper about that now!) there is never any:
1) cross-pollination between generations or levels of hierarchy
Do we really expect that university executives are reading our blogs?
2) public accountability for decisions made. How do we voice our responses to change if we are kept out of the boardroom?
If there is a way to achieve these things without organising a meeting with significant national representation, then I would abandon the idea. I completely welcome more ideas!!
On November 18th, 2007 at 7:20 pm, home cooked theory » Blog Archive » Rates of writing said:
[…] There’s been quite a bit of discussion going on in the comments of this post, which I’d urge people to take a look at if they haven’t for a while. I can’t help but read the various responses as themselves symptomatic of the difficulties junior scholars have at getting mobilised for a big cause. Lots of pessimism outweighing the optimism, lots of concern about wasted time and unrewarded labour, lots of earnest concern ultimately tempered by resignation. […]