What other countries can teach us about ditching disposable nappies
Kelly Dombroski, University of Canterbury This year, the small Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu announced a plan to ban disposable nappies, as well as other throwaway items such as plastic … Continue reading
Rituals and Sabbaths for Large Family Life
We all have family rituals, whether we realise that is what they are or not. In a larger family these rituals start to take on a life of their own, becoming a sort of adhesive that binds the family together. They might take a little bit of effort to set up, but if the fit is right, I reckon they become the things kids grow up and remember as part of themselves, helping them feel they belong. They communicate a sense of collective belonging that is one of the key ingredients to intrinsic wellbeing.
International Women’s Day: Generation Equality and care work for everyone
Dr Kelly Dombroski Talk for UN Aotearoa International Women’s Day Brunch, 8 March 2020 Introduction International Women’s Day is a time to celebrate the women in your life, and it … Continue reading
How I held it together and reorganized my book manuscript without being reduced to an embarrassing mess (and other lies)
“Oh crap.” I thought, for the six hundred millionth time since I had opened my overdue manuscript. Other common thoughts included: “This is total crap.” “Did I write this crap?” … Continue reading
My new normal: reducing decision fatigue with four kids and fulltime work
I used to think routines are unnecessary. Now I can’t live without them!
Six things I wish I had known before editing my first collection
I am currently working on the introduction to The Handbook of Diverse Economies with the wonderful Katherine Gibson. It is the last chapter of our 58 chapter handbook, and, as … Continue reading
Care-Work on Fieldwork
Reblogging from 2015: Every time I publish an article based on my personal PhD experiences with fieldwork, I tell myself it will be the last. So far, I have four. … Continue reading
Making my own life-work manifesto
Lately I have been feeling very disillusioned with the academic life. I mean, I’ve always intellectually known that our reach is often short, our work ignored and overlooked, and our … Continue reading
Saying yes, saying no: 4 years tracking my voluntary academic activities
Recently in my Twitter circle, I’ve been part of a few conversations about academic workloads, work-life balance, and managing the pressure of early career researcher decision-making. It forced me to … Continue reading
The work of “Life Admin”
I recently read Elizabeth Emen’s 2019 book The Art of Life Admin. Well, perhaps inhaled is a better verb to describe what I did with it. I got it out … Continue reading
Academic Maternity Leave : The shame game
It is a milestone week. My baby is now past the six week mark. We saw our wonderful wise midwife for the last time professionally and were transferred into the … Continue reading
Blogging by phone
So Boochani wrote his award winning book on WhatsApp. And I have been blogging so irregularly: firstly because I have way too many writing deadlines and even when I have … Continue reading
Three Words 2018: Less, Dwell, Write
In the last few years I have been choosing some focus words for each year, rather than a New Year’s Resolution. In 2018, after reflecting on the words and things … Continue reading
Becoming a quality scholar through deep work
How do we become scholars that produce quality thinking and research, and stay sane in an academic environment where bringing in salary recovery dollars and churning out publication ‘fluff’ sometimes … Continue reading
Collective Strategies for Deep Work
In a previous post reviewing Cal Newport’s book Deep Work I promised I would write a post sharing more collective strategies for enabling deep work, in particular for people with … Continue reading
The Invisible Gender of Deep Work
A book review of Cal Newport’s Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, 2016, London: Little Brown. It’s no secret that many of us find it difficult … Continue reading
Arisan (rotating savings and credit group)
Originally posted on Keywords of Community Economies in Asia:
Indonesia Ririn Haryani and Kelly Dombroski Arisan is a rotating credit system that has been present in Indonesia for over one…
Surviving Well Together
KELLY DOMBROSKI and STEPHEN HEALY describe a community economies approach to poverty which seeks to acknowledge what people are already doing in their communities to sustain themselves and then … Continue reading
Three Words 2017: Prepare, Deeper, Joy
Prepare, deeper, joy. For 2017, these were my touchstone words, reminding me of the things I was to ponder and experiment with this year. Choosing a word for the year … Continue reading
An article six years in the making…
I am just so ridiculously pleased to finally have this article out. I first presented the material that became this article in July 2011 in Sydney, Australia. I have … Continue reading
Why diversity matters in Christianity
If you have been around Christian churches long enough, you will know there is often both subtle and not-so-subtle pressures to conform to a certain understanding of Christianity — whatever … Continue reading
Be gone, cruel voices
I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this. I’m thinking of when you have something important to do, to say, but become paralysed by your uncertainty about your ability — … Continue reading
Five things I learned while editing my thesis into a book
It has been some time now since I published the posts on writing your book proposal for an academic book coming out of your thesis (see also this and this). … Continue reading
I know, I’ll wait, I’m here
This is re-post of a piece co-authored with Stephen Healy for The Daily Marinade , first published July 15th 2017. In a post circulating on facebook from 2016, a woman … Continue reading
On (the impossibility of?) settling down
It seems to be thing. Couples who fall in love with each other, commit to a shared life together, then at some point discover their idea of home is — … Continue reading
Slow, painful, rewrite #9
I’m guessing about the #9, actually. I’m pretty sure I’ve completely rewritten this paper more than nine times, it’s just nine for this title. But for what it’s worth, I’m … Continue reading
Thinking-with, Dissenting-within
I am about three chapters in to Maria Puig de la Bellacasa’s book Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds. In the same way that Richard Rohr seems to … Continue reading
The Waiting Day
Another re-blog from The Daily Marinade, a daily devotional I contribute to regularly. This is the time of waiting, the time of not-knowing, the time of awkward looks and sniffles, … Continue reading
Lent as a practice of social change
Reblogged from The Daily Marinade, a daily devotional by a collective of wonderful, thoughtful, spiritual people. Growing up in the Catholic tradition normally meant I at least knew when Lent … Continue reading
Completion: On getting stuff done
Every year, I choose three words and write them on a post-it note above my desk. They help me guide my decision-making for the year in a more intentional way. … Continue reading
Connect: On Making Grown-Up Friends.
Every year I choose three words, put them on a post note above my desk, and use them to help me prioritise my day-to-day decision-making. In 2016, one of those … Continue reading
How much is enough? Setting some limits on ‘voluntary’ academic work for the new year
Every year, I try and do some work on being more intentional about the things I say yes to.
How to do slow reading
My previous post ‘slow scholarship starts with slow reading’ prompted some questions around slow reading. What do I really mean by slow reading, and how do we do it? It … Continue reading
Writing your Book Proposal II: What happens after submitting your proposal?
After submitting your proposal, it’s time for the waiting game. It will go to peer review, then you will need to respond, then it might go before a board, all … Continue reading
Writing a book proposal I: From concept to submission
Publishing an academic book is a bit different from publishing a novel, I’m told. All I can do is tell you the process I went through, and offer suggestions on … Continue reading
Turning your PhD into a book
As I was racing to the submission finish line with my PhD thesis in August 2012, I constantly doubted whether certain sections were ‘done’ or ‘good enough’. One of the … Continue reading
A Just City: Book Review
I had a quiet weekend not feeling well a few weeks ago, so I decided to binge read Jo Walton’s A Just City, chosen for me by my husband and … Continue reading
Quiet: A book review
Recently I was recommended Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. My first reaction to the recommendation was ‘but I’m not an … Continue reading
The Beautiful People Collection
Many of you will know I am an avid amateur people reader – that is, I often try to work out people’s temperaments and sometimes even full blown personality profiles … Continue reading
Writing for Research II: Writing as an iterative process
Yesterday, I wrote about writing as a learned skill. Today we move on to thinking about writing as an iterative process. One of the biggest mistakes that graduate students make … Continue reading
Writing for Research I: Writing is a learned skill
I recently gave a class on writing for research to a wonderful group of health science postgraduate students. It was a great opportunity to gather some of my ideas … Continue reading
Beyond public intellectualism: moving from ‘matters of fact’ to ‘matters of concern’ in research
Last week I posted on being a public intellectual, or someone who engages with communities and society outside of academia, communicating research directly and also being influenced by communities in … Continue reading
Being a Public Intellectual
Today I was interviewed by a PhD scholar researching ‘public’ geographers and public intellectuals more generally. I’m not sure if I was being researched as an actual public geographer, or … Continue reading
What I learned about emailing students… from my two-year-old.
I recently posted about writing emails to lecturers in New Zealand universities. I made some suggestions for appropriate email etiquette in NZ based on deconstructing a few representative emails and … Continue reading
You Won’t Believe How These New Zealand Undergraduates Email Their Lecturers
My tongue-in-cheek clickbait title is meant to illustrate via awkward engagement how inappropriate the norms of social media are to academia. Nowhere is this more obvious than when students try … Continue reading
Domestic Activists?
Women still do the majority of household caring labour. But not only this, women’s caring labour has expanded to include care not just for families and their needs but also … Continue reading
Update: Getting Kids to Do Stuff
So most of you have probably worked this out well before me, but once your kids can read LISTS ARE AWESOME. My blogposts this time last year were about the … Continue reading
‘Potty Pauses’
I normally avoid talking about toilet-training and elimination communication on my blog — not because it is not interesting and worthwhile, but because it has become so much part of … Continue reading
Commoning in a post-quake city
As part of a new area of research, I’d love to share my new mini-doco with you all. It’s about the new forms of ‘commoning’ that have arisen since the … Continue reading
Enacting a postcapitalist politics
So it has been quite a long time since I blogged — mostly because the second half of 2015 was taken up with intense teaching and a return to fulltime … Continue reading
