Learning as moments of friction and opportunity: an autoethnography of ECR identities in queer time
Abstract
In this article, we explore how time and temporality shape the identities of early career researchers as they learn to become academics. We engage in a collaborative autoethnography to reflect on how our shared identities as middle-class women and our divergences in age, ethnicity, familial status and sexuality shaped our embodied experiences of becoming academics. Drawing on the concept of queer time, we reconceptualise the becoming of newcomers as they learn (or do not learn) to belong to academia. We illustrate how queer time interrupts normative ideas of newcomer learning as progress, development and reproduction. We suggest that learning may alternatively be understood as ‘moments of friction’ and ‘moments of opportunity’ in which newcomers to the academy feel out of step, out of place and out of time. We conceptualise these moments as simultaneously painful yet productive of possibilities for learning to become an academic, differently.
Get full access to this article
View all access and purchase options for this article.
References
Adam B (2013) Time and Social Theory. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Ahmed S (2011) Happy futures perhaps. In: Tukhanen M, McCallum E (eds.) Queer Times, Queer Becomings. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Ahuja S, Heizmann H, Clegg S (2019) Emotions and identity work: Emotions as discursive resources in the constitution of junior professionals’ identites. Human Relations 72(5): 988–1009.
Alvesson M (2010) Self-doubters, strugglers, storytellers, surfers and others: Images of self-identities in organization studies. Human Relations 63(2): 193–217.
Anderson-Gough F, Grey C, Robson K (2000) In the name of the client: The service ethic in two professional service firms. Human Relations 53(9): 1151–1174.
Anteby M, Chan C, DiBenigno F (2016) Three lenses on occupations and professions in organizations: Becoming, doing, and relating. The Academy of Management Annals 10(1): 183–244.
Bauman Z (2000) Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Becker H, Geer B, EC Hughes, et al. (1961) Boys in White. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Beech N, Gilmore C, Cochrane E, et al. (2012) Identiy work as a response to tensions: A re-narration in opera rehersals. Scandinavian Journal of Management 28: 39–47.
Beech N, Gilmore C, Hibbert P, et al. (2016) Identity-in-the-work and musicians’ struggles: The production of self-questioning identity work. Work, Employment & Society 30(3): 506–522.
Behar R (1996) The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology Breaks Your Heart. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Bell E, Bridgman T (2018) Expecting the unexpected in management learning. Management Learning 49(1): 3–7.
Bell E, King D (2010) The elephant in the room: Critical management studies conferences as a site of body pedagogics. Management Learning 41(4): 429–442.
Bochner AP (1997) It’s about time: Narrative and the divided self. Qualitative Inquiry 3(4): 418–438.
Bolander P, Holmberg I, Fellbom E (2019) Learning to become manager: The identity work of first time managers. Management Learning 50(3).
Bothello J, Roulet TJ (2019) The imposter syndrome, or the mis-representation of self in academic life. Journal of Management Studies 56(4): 854–861.
Boylorn R, Orbe M (2013) Critical Ethnography: Intersecting Cultural Identities in Everyday Life. New York: Routledge.
Bristow A, Robinson S, Ratle O (2017) Being an early-career CMS academic in the context of insecurity and ‘excellence’: The dialectics of resistance and compliance. Organization Studies 38(9): 1185–1207.
Bristow A, Robinson S, Ratle O (2019) Academic arrhythmia: Disruption, dissonance, and conflict in the early-career rhythms of CMS academics. Academy of Management Learning & Education 18(2): 241.
Brown A (2006) A narrative approach to collective identites. Journal of Management Studies 43(4).
Butler J (1999) Gender Trouble: Feminism and Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
Chang H, Ngunjiri FW, Hernandez K-AC (2012) Collaborative Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Collinson D (2003) Identities and insecurities: Selves at work. Organization 10(3): 527–547.
Costas J, Fleming P (2009) Beyond dis-identification: A discursive approach to self-alienation in contemporary organizations. Human Relations 62(3): 353–378.
Costas J, Grey C (2014) The temporality of power and the power of temporality: Imaginary future selves in professional service firms. Organization Studies 35(6): 909–937.
Coupland C (2001) Accounting for change: A discourse analysis of graduate trainees talk of adjustment. Journal of Management Studies 38(8): 1103–1119.
Coupland C, Brown A, Daniels K, et al. (2008) Saying it with feeling: Analysing speakable emotions. Human Relations 61(3): 327–353.
Crimmins G (2019) Strategies for Resisting Sexism in the Academy: Higher Education, Gender and Intersectionality. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Crozier SE, Woolnough H (2019) Is age just a number? Credibility and identity of younger academics in UK business schools. Management Learning 51(2): 149–167.
Cummings S, Bridgman T, Hassard J (2017) A New History of Management. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Dale K (2014) Family household and reproduction. In: Parker M, Cheney G, Fourneir V, et al. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Alternative Organizing. London, UK: Routledge, 120–134.
Dar S (2019) The masque of blackness: Or, performing assimilation in the white academe. Organization 26(3): 432–446.
de Souza M, Brewis J, Rumens N (2016) Gender, the body and organization studies: Queer(y)ing empirical research. Gender, Work & Organization 23(6): 600–613.
Edelman L (1994) Homographesis: Essays in Gay Literary and Cultural Theory. New York: Routledge.
Edelman L (2004) No Future: Queer Theory and Death Drive. Duke University Press.
Eguchi S (2015) Queer intercultural relationality: An autoethnography of Asian-Black (dis)connections in white gay America. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 8(1): 27–43.
Faulkner S (2012) That baby will cost you: An intended ambivalent pregnancy. Qualitative Inquiry 18(4): 333–340.
Freeman E (2010) Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories. Durham: Duke University Press.
Gabriel D, Tate SA (2017) Inside the Ivory Tower: Narratives of Women of Colour Surviving and Thriving in British Academia. London, UK: UCL Institute of Education Press.
Giddings L, Pringle J (2011) Heteronormativity at work: Stories from two lesbian academics. Women’s Studies Journal 25(2): 91–100.
Grey C (1994) Career as a project of the self and labour process discipline. Sociology 28: 479–497.
Guo K (2018) The odyssey of becoming: Professional identity and insecurity in the Canadian accounting field. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 56: 20–45.
Halberstam J (2005) In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York University Press.
Halperin D (2003) The normalization of Queer Theory. Journal of Homosexuality 45(2–4): 339–343.
Harris P, Thiele B, Currie J (1998) Success, gender and academic voices: Consuming passion or selling the soul? Gender and Education 10(2): 133–148.
Hay A (2014) ‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing!’: Surfacing struggles of managerial identity work. Management Learning 45(5): 509–524.
Hay A, Samra-Fredericks D (2016) Desperately seeking fixedness: Practitioners’ accounts of ‘becoming’ doctoral researchers. Management Learning 47(4): 407–423.
Hay I (2017) How to be an Academic Superhero: Establishing and Sustaining a Successful Career in Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Høg Utoft E (2020) ‘All the single ladies’ as the ideal academic in times of Covid-19? Gender, Work & Organization 27(5): 778–787.
Huopalainen A, Satama S (2019) Mothers and researchers in the making: Negotiating ‘New’ motherhood within the ‘new’ academia. Human Relations 72(1): 98–121.
Ibarra H (1999) Provisional selves: Experimenting with image and identity in professional adaptation. Administrative Science Quarterly 44: 764–791.
Ibarra H, Barbulescu R (2010) Identity as narrative: Prevalence, effectiveness, and consequences of narrative identity work in macro work role transitions. Academy of Management Review 35(1): 135–154.
Jagose A (1996) Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: NYU Press.
Katila S (2019) The mothers in me. Management Learning 50(1): 129–140.
Katila S, Laamanen M, Liahonen M, et al. (2019) Becoming academics: Embracing and resisting changing practice. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management 15(3): 315–330.
King A (2016) Queer categories: Queer(y)ing the identification ‘older lesbian, gay and/or bisexual (LGB) adults’ and its implications for organizational research, policy and practice. Gender, Work & Organization 23(1): 7–18.
Knights D, Clarke C (2014) It’s a bittersweet symphony, this life: Fragile academic selves and insecure identities at work. Organization Studies 35(3): 335–357.
Laudel G, Gläser J (2008) From apprentice to colleague: The metamorphosis of early career researchers. Higher Education 55(3): 387–406.
Lave J, Wenger E (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Liu H (2019) An embarrassment of riches: The seduction of postfeminism in the academy. Organization 26(1): 20–37.
Love H (2009) Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Lund R (2012) Publishing to become an ‘ideal academic’: An institutional ethnography and a feminist critique. Scandinavian Journal of Management 28(3): 218–228.
McCallum EL, Tuhkanen M (2011) Queer Times, Queer Becomings. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
McDonald J (2013) Coming out in the field: A queer reflexive account of shifting researcher identity. Management Learning 44(2): 127–143.
McDonald J (2016) Occupational segregation research: Queering the conversation. Gender, Work & Organization 23(1): 19–35.
McDonald J (2017) Queering methodologies and organizational research: Disrupting, critiquing, and exploring. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management 12(2): 130–148.
Molisa P (2010) White business education. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 21(6): 525–528.
O’Shea S (2018) This girl’s life: An autoethnography. Organization 25(1): 3–20.
O’Shea S (2019a) Cutting my dick off. Culture and Organization 25(4): 272–283.
O’Shea S (2019b) My dysphoria blues: Or why I cannot write an autoethnography. Management Learning 50(1): 38–49.
Oswin N (2012) The queer time of creative urbanism: Family, futurity, and global city Singapore (Report). Environment & Planning A 44(7): 1624–1640.
Parker M (2002) Queering management and organizations. Gender, Work & Organization 9(2): 146–166.
Parker M (2004) Becoming manager: Or, the warewolf looks anxious in the mirror, checking for facial hair. Management Learning 35(1): 45–59.
Pitt R, Mewburn I (2016) Academic superheroes? A critical analysis of academic job descriptions. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 38(1): 88–101.
Pratt M, Rockmann K, Kaufmann J (2006) Constructing professional identity: The role of work and identity learning cycles in the customization of identity among medical residents. Academy of Management Journal 49(2): 235–262.
Pritchard K (2010) Becoming an HR strategic partner: Tales of transition. Human Resource Management Journal 20(2): 175–186.
Pullen A, Thanem T, Tyler M, et al. (2016) Sexual politics, organizational practices: Interrogating Queer Theory, work and organization. Gender, Work & Organization 23(1): 1–6.
Ravasi D, Rindova V, Stigliani I (2019) The stuff of legend: History, memory, and the temporality of organizational identity. Academy of Management Journal 52(5): 1523–1555.
Riad S (2007) Under the desk: On becoming a mother in the workplace. Culture and Organization 13(3): 205–222.
Robinson S, Ratle O, Bristow A (2017) Labour pains: Starting a career within the neoliberal university. Ephemera 17(3): 481–508.
Rumens N (2012) Queering cross-sex friendships: An analysis of gay and bisexual men’s workplace friendships with heterosexual women. Human Relations 65(8): 955–978.
Rumens N (2016) On the violence of heteronormativity within business schools. In: Köllen T (ed.) Sexual Orientation and Transgender Issues in Organizations: Global Perspectives on LGBT Workforce Diversity. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 389–404.
Rumens N (2017) Queering lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identites in human resource deveoplment and management education contexts. Management Learning 48(2): 227–242.
Rumens N, de Souza M, Brewis J (2018) Queering queer theory in management and organization studies: notes toward queering heterosexuality. Organization Studies 40(4): 593–612.
Scanlon L (2011) ‘Becoming’ a professional. In: Scanlan L (ed.) ‘Becoming’ a Professional: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Professional Learning. Dordrecht: Spinger.
Sedgwick E (1990) Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Sedgwick E (1994) Tendencies. Milton Park, UK: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
Shaw S, Cassell C (2007) ‘That’s Not How I See it’: Female and male perspectives on the academic role. Women in Management Review 22(6): 497–515.
Steyaert C (2015) Three women. A kiss. A life. On the queer writing of time in organization. Gender, Work & Organization 22(2): 163–178.
Sturdy A, Brocklehurst M, Winstanley D, et al. (2006) Management as a (self) confidence trick: Management ideas, education and identity work. Organization 13(6): 841–860.
Thornborrow T, Brown A (2009) ‘Being regimented’: Aspiration, discipline and identity work in the British parachute regiment. Organization Studies 30(4): 355–376.
Thwaites R, Pressland A (2017) Being an Early Career Feminist Academic: Global Perspectives, Experiences and Challenges. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tienari J (2019) One flew over the duck pond: Autoethnography, academic identity, and language. Management Learning 50(5): 576–590.
Trethewey A (2001) Reproducing and resisting the master narrative of decline. Management Communication Quarterly 15(2): 183–226.
Turner L (2013) The evocative autoethnographic ‘I’: The relational ethics of writing about one-self In: Short N, Turner L, Grant A (eds.) Contemporay British Autoethnography. Rotterdam: Sense, 213–229.
van Amsterdam N (2015) Othering the ‘leaky body’. An autoethnographic story about expressing breast milk in the workplace. Culture and Organization 21(3): 269–287.
Vostal F (2016) The pulse of modern academia. In: Vostal F (ed.) Accelerating Academia: The Changing Structure of Academic Time. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1–10.
Walker J (2009) Time as the fourth dimension in the globalization of higher education. The Journal of Higher Education 80(5): 483–509.
Wall S (2016) Toward a moderate autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 15(1):
Weatherall R (2019) Writing a doctoral thesis differently. Management Learning 50(1): 100–113.
Williamson IO, Cable DM (2003) Predicting early career research productivity: The case of management faculty. Journal of Organizational Behavior 24(1): 25–44.
Zerubavel E (1981) Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Cite article
Cite article
Cite article
OR
Download to reference manager
If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice
Information, rights and permissions
Information
Published In
Article first published online: November 17, 2020
Issue published: September 2021
Keywords
Authors
Metrics and citations
Metrics
Article usage*
Total views and downloads: 649
*Article usage tracking started in December 2016
Altmetric
See the impact this article is making through the number of times it’s been read, and the Altmetric Score.
Learn more about the Altmetric Scores
Articles citing this one
Receive email alerts when this article is cited
Web of Science: 7 view articles Opens in new tab
Crossref: 0
-
I, strategist
-
Subtle activism: Heterotopic principles for unsettling contemporary ac...
-
‘Maybe one way forward’: Forging collective collegiality in the neolib...
-
An Autoethnography of “Making It” in Academia: Writing an ECR “Journey...
-
“If a (queer) revolt is to come”: Toward a sensuous pedagogy for dis/o...
-
In Their Experience: A Review of Racial and Sexual Minority Experience...
Figures and tables
Figures & Media
Tables
View Options
Get access
Access options
If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:
loading institutional access options
Alternatively, view purchase options below:
Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.
Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.
