‘Birth work’ accompaniment and PhD supervision: an alternative feminist pedagogy for the neoliberal university

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss how 'with-woman' midwifery and doula care provide resources for rethinking the theory and practice of academic supervision from a feminist perspective. We identify how the tradition of accompaniment in both birth work and academia is under threat given the economic reforms facing public sector education and healthcare. Despite these pressures, we suggest that the practice of focusing on the pregnant woman as an 'expert' on her pregnancy rather than on the foetus or the delivery -that is, the 'product' of her pregnancy -would help transform how we theorise and practice academic supervision. The aim of the supervisory relation would mean supporting the student's direct relation to the intellectual, embodied and emotional process of completing the PhD. Such an approach suggests ways in which the pedagogical practices of contemporary midwifery and doula care can inform academic supervision in the neoliberal university.The labour of both academics and health care professionals is increasingly subject to drives towards greater efficiency and productivity that shape the contemporary 'neoliberalising' practices of institutions like hospitals and universities (England and Ward 2007; Thiem 2009; Benoit et al. 2010). Health care professionals are increasingly governed by pressures to reduce the time of their relational encounters with others. PhD supervision is similarly governed by structures of accountability, time pressures, and objectifications of the supervisory relationship through calculations of workload, the quantification of supervisor time and other measures of 'audit' culture such as the increasing use of progress monitoring,and a production-line process of generating PhDs. The outsourcing of services to the private sector is also a hallmark of neoliberal reforms in both universities and healthcare settings. In both the corporate university and the hospital, the student and the patient are constructed as consumers of services, shifting responsibility onto the individual who is now faced with the imperative to assume greater responsibility for their education or care. In the educational sector, the student is increasingly asked to become an entrepreneur of the self and to demand 'value for money' from their institutions (Servage 2009). Ways of practicing that resist these pressures to prioritise efficiency, productivity and contractual exchange are often seen as illegitimate, professionally risky or otherwise marginalised.In this paper, we argue that models for developing alternative relational forms in healthcare settings could productively inform practices in academic institutions. Responses to

Anti transcarceral grief pedagogy for pandemic times

“…A grief pedagogy that seeks to disrupt transcarcerality recognizes that our work as educators who teach during COVID-19 is not to train students for work, but to shape life-long learners for social justice, human emancipation, and the creation of a meaningful life (Saunders, 2010;Servage, 2009). Moreover, we reject the model of education that positions students as customers for whom we provide an educational product that reduces the relationship between us to a transactional exchange free from the duties of deeper connection (Fannin & Perrier, 2019;Servage, 2009).…”

Research Supervision at Distance in Higher Education: A Review

“…One study (Fannin & Perrier, 2019) has posited the idea that when the supervisor and learner are from the same professional discipline, there could be an added impetus within that relationship, which they have described as an alternative feminist pedagogy of "birth work accompaniment and PhD supervision" (p. 136). They suggest that when the research learner and supervisors are both midwives, there is a unique synergy between them: for the supervisor, assisting a research student with the 'production' of a thesis holds some resonance with working as midwife alongside a birthing person to 'produce' a baby.…”

Untitled

“…One study (Fannin & Perrier, 2019) has posited the idea that when the supervisor and learner are from the same professional discipline, there could be an added impetus within that relationship, which they have described as an alternative feminist pedagogy of "birth work accompaniment and PhD supervision" (p. 136). They suggest that when the research learner and supervisors are both midwives, there is a unique synergy between them: for the supervisor, assisting a research student with the 'production' of a thesis holds some resonance with working as midwife alongside a birthing person to 'produce' a baby.…”