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.

Learning from difference and similarity: Identities and relational reflexive learning

“…One way of addressing this contradiction is by arranging solo-reflexive and dialogical-social learning steps sequentially over time. Temporality can also be conceived in contradictory ways (see Weatherall and Ahuja, 2021) and in identity and learning there are advantages to avoiding a purely linear approach which assumes stepwise 'progress' by enabling both reflecting back by analysing experience and projecting forwards in planning for future action. There is also a potential contradiction between support and challenge and there can be a need for different learning spaces where an individual can be selfchallenging and can engage with others to work out how and where to act, resist or conform (or give the appearance of conformity).…”

“…The modes of change discussed in this special issue do not map onto Ligorio's framing exactly, but there are notable similarities in the modes of identity dynamics which are particularly pertinent to management and organization-based learning. These are: first, people changing organizational role in a way which significantly impacts on their identity, for example becoming an academic or a manager for the first time, topics that are addressed by Callagher et al (2021), Weatherall and Ahuja (2021) and Corlett et al (2021). Secondly, a difference that becomes newly experienced with personal impact and emotion within a specific work context, for example, a clash of ethical positions or a fundamental disagreement about purpose, and this is explored with empirical examples later in this introductory paper.…”

“…Secondly, a difference that becomes newly experienced with personal impact and emotion within a specific work context, for example, a clash of ethical positions or a fundamental disagreement about purpose, and this is explored with empirical examples later in this introductory paper. Thirdly, a difference that is experienced as part of broader life, which is reacted to in the workplace, for example, difference experienced through ethnicity, gender, sexuality or because of long-term health challenges, topics that are discussed by Weatherall and Ahuja (2021) and Elraz and Knights (2021). Whether because of the work-identity changing in a significant way, a difference revealed because of an experience at work or part of one's life identity becoming highlighted in the workplace, there is, as Weatherall and Ahuja put it, an experience of being out-of-step or wrong-footed.…”

“…being a senior manager but also being vulnerable; Corlett et al, 2021) or tensions (e.g. being an ECR but having 'absent pasts'; Weatherall and Ahuja, 2021). Answering the questions 'what am I learning about what I want to become, and what do I want to do about it?'…”

“…Two of the papers in this special issue are based upon studies of ECRs. Weatherall and Ahuja (2021), use a collaborative auto-ethnography to understand being different as a temporal issue and utilizes queer time as a concept to consider how newcomers learn (not) to belong to academia. The authors suggest that learning as a newcomer may be better understood as moments of friction and opportunity rather than linear progression.…”