Done

Posted on | November 23, 2007 |

So it actually took two weeks, but now it’s submitted. I’m looking forward to some feedback, because it’s one of the biggest things I’ve written since my book. I cite a bunch of you guys in it too, so best that you take a look at it at this stage. I really hope I’ve done justice both to the topic and the amount I have learned from other bloggers while figuring it to this point. Here’s the abstract to help you decide if you wanna download the draft:

While academic blogging has emerged as a distinct genre in the past few years (Walker 2006), a generation gap exists between those who blog from secure positions within the profession and PhD and junior faculty bloggers whose employment status is more marginal. This paper draws on subcultural theory to discuss the unique features of these two latter types and the functions they serve for their authors. The analysis demonstrates that blogs are important sites of support for those who aspire to and currently work in academia at the same time as they are a powerful indictment of the job conditions experienced therein. The paper therefore concludes by suggesting that the positive aspects of collegiality and solace taking place online for a new generation of scholars risk remaining disconnected from an effective labour politics - one that could change the very nature of the grievances blogs appear so well designed to express.

Apart from that, the rest of this week I’ve been hanging out with my Dad, driving, swimming with fishes, sniffing, getting annoyed with group emails, worrying about my breathing and trying to sleep. Oh, and looking forward to tomorrow. Won’t it be nice when the election’s over?

Category: Academia, Research

Comments

6 Responses to “Done”

  1. barry
    November 23rd, 2007 @ 4:28 pm

    oh god yes. i don’t even care who wins anymore.

  2. barry
    November 23rd, 2007 @ 4:55 pm

    I really like the paper, depressing as it is… I’m curious that you didn’t look at the potential for blogging outputs to be counted under the RQF though.

  3. melgregg
    November 23rd, 2007 @ 5:47 pm

    Wow - we should call you Speedy Barry! And I know you’re kidding about who might win. We will toast the end together tomorrow!!

    Hmmm. This RQF question seems to come up whenever blogging and career progress are considered together, as we saw with Greg’s question at MACS. I’m not sure this paper is the forum for that conversation. It seems too parochial - the RQF itself still too inchoate to engage with yet (Saturday’s result could affect the RQF going ahead, too). But I can see how it relates to the conscientiousness and self-monitoring I highlight at the start.

    I guess the notion that someone would blog for RQF recognition kind of appalls me still, so you’ve noticed that blockage in my thinking. I feel the same way about people who publish for DEST figures. Maybe that’s because I’m one of the workaholic junior faculty generation described in the essay, who still believes in the vocation more than efficiency!

  4. glen
    November 24th, 2007 @ 10:56 am

    i like the use of subcultural theory, very cool! plus my mum’ll be happy, lol

    I am super critical of the careerist subjectivity with which early career academics, by definition, are meant to inhabit. Not only because of the way everyone I know, at least, struggles with the set of expectations that define careerism. You highlight the different sets of expectations faced by ‘new’ ECRs compared to other cultural contexts. Rather than bloggers commenting on advice given by others (ie affable persona episode), as if this advice was the only advice, perhaps they can been seen as creating a space organised around the contingencies of ‘opportunity’, but without the neo-liberal infrastructure of ‘entrepreneurship’.

    For example John Howard has talked about producing a ‘nation of opportunity’, and I think this is awesome, and if he was accurate then I would actually support him. What he fails to mention is that the ‘contingencies’ which define ‘opportunity’, such as the challenge of education, exist as a ’struggle’ for others. Entrepreneurs of the self capitalise on opportunity (positive), but those who struggle continually find the contingencies of ‘opportuity’ to be problems (negative).

    The affective social network dimension of blogging seems to me to help cultivate opportunities that evade the expectations that produce entrepreneurs of the self because they rely on mostly horizontal social networking. The scholarly capacity has its best chance of being recognised as such, rather than being recognised only by fulfilling the expectations of the ECR framework. So the inverse of what Barry suggests above. I think this is what you are getting at with the notion of mentoring, but your focus is more on the institutional expectations, rather than the actual capacity to carry out scholarly work. In other words, I don’t think we should let the institutional expectations govern the way we work. How’s that for subcultural refusal!?!?!?!! lol

  5. M-H
    November 25th, 2007 @ 8:57 am

    I think this is my first citation! Thanks Mel. Now I’ll settle down and read what you actually said. :)

  6. glen
    November 26th, 2007 @ 4:04 pm

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLR4OJb5suo

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