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
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
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
Vulnerability and Learning to be Affected
I’ve been struggling with an article for a long time. This piece of writing has evolved through 5 or 6 complete revisions and framings (and many, many more versions), including … 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
Slow Scholarship starts with Slow Reading
I wonder if you know the feeling: You have a few hours, or a day, to get some writing done — to get it finished, in fact! You have been … 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
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
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
Insecurities as a mum-employee
Today I had a major work-fail moment. I was organising honours students presentations, and had already underorganised that normally-well-attended event. It was first thing in the morning following a public … Continue reading
Writing First Year Geography Lectures
I’ve been very quiet in the blogosphere recently. Mostly because I have been preparing new lectures for a section of a first year course I am teaching. I taught first … Continue reading
Academic mothering: reflections from guest blogger Dr Ann Hill
My friend and colleague Ann Hill has contributed a blog post for me today, inspired by the conversations we have had about managing our academic and mothering practices. Dr Ann … Continue reading
On writing: Spew drafts in the Phd process
I have recently been working through a book with some PhD students in my department. The book is Alison B Miller’s Finish Your Dissertation Once and For All! How to … Continue reading
Managing Maternity-related Gaps in your CV Part II: Upbeat ways to make caring work visible
When it comes to applying for jobs as a mother, there seems to be two approaches to explaining any gaps in your CV. The first approach is to maintain that … Continue reading
Managing Maternity-Related CV Gaps Part I: The ‘ideal fit’
Early career researchers are often applying for a limited number of jobs in a really competitive market. In New Zealand, this is compounded by the fact that universities are partly … Continue reading
Small victory for breastfeeding on campus
Last year I bought a semester parking ticket because, even though I bike or walk in each day, my husband parks near my building and brings the baby up for … Continue reading
Breastfeeding and academic travel
So, I have been the primary income earner in all my 14 years of marriage. And in that time, I have had three children. I breastfed my first two for … Continue reading
Wife of a stay-at-home husband
There seems to be a misconception out there that having a stay at home husband is some kind of pinnacle of feminist achievement. You go out, focus on your rewarding … Continue reading
Throwntogetherness — or the juxtaposition of previously unrelated trajectories
‘Throwntogetherness’ is a term that feminist geographer Doreen Massey uses to describe a particular quality of space that she admires. And by space she means the site where a multiplicity … Continue reading
