Homo Academicus as Becoming Nomad: Reflections Through a Journey of Pregnancy and Motherhood

Abstract

This chapter builds on personal experiences and reflections of a transition from a static scholarly position toward a freer, self-acceptingly different, academic positionality of the Nomad. I share how my experiences during pregnancy and early motherhood catalyzed a transition in my academic identity. Exploring my journey as a reflection over my past and my becoming self, I start from a positionality as embedded but on the margins of the dominant and rational ideal academic, accepting a marginalized space for myself as a woman academic. Drawing inspiration from Braidotti’s Nomadic Subject and Nomadic Ethics, I work through awkward encounters which occurred because I so blatantly no longer fit the mold. Through reflection of these encounters between the dominant logic and that which did not fit, I share the story of how I construct an identity as Academic Nomad, both rooted and on the move, and in becoming.