Temporality lost: A feminist invitation to vertical writing that shakes the ground

Abstract

Are we, as academics, stuck in a horizontal temporality, organised by the clock, that flattens our work, our words? In reading feminist work by Märta Tikkanen, Hélène Cixous, and others, a rupture strikes, establishing another temporality: vertical time. Is it possible, I ask, to learn from these authors and engage in academic writing in verticality? The answer is: Yes! Through an in-depth reading of special pieces, I see clearly that when we use our scholarly voice to write from within our vulnerabilities, it becomes possible to climb all the way up or dig ourselves deep down. In other words, we can ‘go deep’ in the sense of touching that which is most important, as well as finding ways to ‘fly high,’ through writing. This shows that writing and temporality are always already interweaved with each other because writing produces temporalities just as temporality at play produces writing. In this writing-temporality meshwork, there seems to be no set genre for vertical writing. Rather, it consists of a multitude of practices, written in the instant, from within the urgency of articulating that which matters.

How can I turn my feminist ethnographic engagement into words? A perspective on knowledge production inspired by Audre Lorde

“…Finally, this article is an attempt to give an example of a writing process, to provide information about the difficulties and setbacks of this process, and not simply publish its result (“the ethnography”). In its own way, this text hopefully challenges the academic norm of writing “texts in which all forms of weakness are edited out” (Helin, 2020, p. 2). Many methodological sections of ethnographic articles present the process of analyzing the “fieldnotes” as linear, as applying a “method” of analysis.…”

“…I went through reviewing processes that were incredibly demanding, but that helped me grow as a feminist, that I did not experience as a control mechanism dedicated to reinforce epistemic exclusions, that did “not dictate or teach, but instead invite and evoke” (Helin, 2020, p. 14). As others have underlined (for instance Helin, 2020), I realized how important it is to find a community to be comfortable with, that can be trusted to provide feedback that will not feel like oppression. While I found some of these important people within academia, I also remain accountable mostly to the feminist and social movements that are happening outside academia.…”

Transformative events: Feminist experiments in writing differently

“…Livholts (2012, p. 3), Rhodes (2019, p. 31), and Helin (2020, pp. 8–9) have called for recognizing the modes of writing our research questions demand, and reminded us of being attentive to the forms of writing that may have been excluded by the way we are taught to write.…”

“…As an attempt to work against the increasing demand to publish at an ever‐escalating pace, researchers are exploring slower alternatives to “hurried” and mechanical “assembly‐line” writing (Ulmer, 2017, p. 201). Developing alternative temporalities include crafting “organic” rhythms of inquiry (Ulmer, 2017) and exploring the possibilities of “vertical” time that run counter to the “horizontal” timeline of present‐day academia (Helin, 2020).…”

Writing with rocks

“…Our writing with rocks is situated, embodied, and intimate, a collaborative writing that has been written about by methodologists and feminist thinkers (Cunliffe & Coupland, 2012; Essen & Värlander, 2012; Helin, 2019, 2020; Katila, 2019; Pullen & Rhodes, 2008; Pullen, 2017; Salmela, Valtonen, & Meriläinen, 2020). Such writing is often emergent, unfinished and relational.…”