Conference Agenda

This presentation draws from an ongoing inquiry between the two authors about feminist ethics and collaborative scholarship in the academy. Together, we have asked “How do we live a ‘good’ life in the academy?”, and “How might feminist theory provoke questions about this life?” In this paper, we consider authorship practices as a cluster of factors implicated in the mundane environment of academic life, what Berlant (2011) might describe as a scene of ‘slow death’. We enter into collaborations with pre-defined scripts about what constitutes authorship, and what this entails. These scripts are part of a cluster of factors: citation metrics, author order and logics of production and scarcity that obscure the relational, ethical, generative aspects of collaborative scholarship. In our own academic practices, we have wrestled with these questions of authorship. We have noticed how conversations and assumptions about authorship reflect and produce particular geometries of power and structural conditions. In this presentation, we put Berlant’s theorization of slow death in conversation with the work of adrienne maree brown (2017) and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s (2015, 2024) writing on scarcity logics to think about how co-authorship might serve as both a site of tension and an opening for interference in academic economies. We situate our inquiry within our own stories of navigating authorship as feminist scholars positioned simultaneously as mentors, colleagues, and co-authors with one another, as well as with students, etc. We open up authorship as a question, something relationally negotiated that ebbs, flows, and shifts in response to needs and situations. As we do this, we find that these questions have implications for how we think about qualitative methodology and pedagogy. In other words, to ask about authorship, is to ask how we want to live and relate separately-together in the academy.

There is an urgent need to promote scientifically literate individuals who possess knowledge and skills in science to thrive in these scientifically advanced yet globally challenging times (Sjöström et al., 2023). This paper discusses the development of scientifically literate British women who left science education in their teenage years but have returned to learning scientific knowledge and skills in middle-aged phases of life, to address their personal needs and professional demands in science learning. We are focused on the under-researched group of women between 35-65 years (Etaugh & Bridges, 2013) because, although this age group comprise the largest percentage of the overall British population, they are highly underrepresented in the science fields (British Science Association, 2020). Drawing on the theories of transformative learning in adults and scientifically literate identity development, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with our participants, these interviews were analysed using narrative and thematic analysis, highlighting (i) how and why our middle-aged women participants re-engage with science learning, (ii) they develop scientifically literate identity, that (iii) intersects with their other identities, such as being middle-aged women. Our key findings reveal the importance of (i) emotions, including self-determination and self-efficacy belief, in passing through the liminal transformative tunnel of becoming a scientifically literate person, (ii) informal means of learning, including smart devices, (iii) assimilating, accommodating and refuting scientific information and misinformation to survive in the scientifically demanding personal and professional environment. We suggest that more research and practical implications be explored to support the development of scientifically literate adults.

References:

British Science Association (2020). APPG on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM. https://www.britishscienceassociation.org/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=d7899dce-22d5-4880-bbcf-669c0c35bda6 [Accessed 02.10.2025].

Etaugh, C. A., Bridges, J. S. (2013). Women's Lives: A Psychological Exploration. United Kingdom: Pearson.

Sjöström, J., Yavuzkaya, M., Guerrero, G. & Eilks, I. (2024). Journal of Chemical Education 101 (10), 4189-4195. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c00452.

In the Muslim world, there is a slow but powerful movement happening amongst men who are challenging the negative stereotypes which depict them as abusive, misogynistic, and violent. Instead, these men are actively involved in gender justice initiatives and violence against women (VAW) prevention. This article presents findings from Qatar’s portion of our international study on Muslim Masculinities. Grounded in a Transformative Learning (TL) theoretical framework (Brookfield 2012), the study includes qualitative interviews with Qatari men, exploring their motivations for engaging in VAW prevention and gender justice initiatives. The findings underscore key life trajectories shaping men's perspectives on gender justice and VAW prevention, such as: (1) Family legacies and generational impacts, (2) Sense of personal responsibility for sisters, (3) Positive influences of religion on participants, and (4) Transformation within small social circles. These findings have important implications for policy development in Qatar and beyond, highlighting the need for VAW prevention strategies that engage men as allies within their cultural and religious contexts, leverage existing traditional social structures, and emphasize grassroots, community-based change over top-down systemic reform.

What happens to qualitative data when it travels—geographically, culturally, and linguistically—beyond the context in which it was first produced? This paper explores the generative potential of such movement through my participation in thel Many Minds data-analysis group held at the University of Susses, UK. As part of this collaborative series, I shared two interview excerpts and a reflective fieldnote from my PhD research on mother–young adult daughter relations in marginalized communities in Israel, originally collected in Hebrew and later translated into English for the group.

Drawing on Lorenzer’s (1986) concept of the scenic, I examine how these narratives were heard, felt, and re-interpreted by a multicultural group of scholars. The group process included emotional, associative responses, and line-by-line reading, creating a space where my own interpretations were both expanded and unsettled. The emotional and embodied reactions of others opened up fresh interpretive possibilities, revealed blind spots, and reframed taken-for-granted assumptions about young adulthood, gender, marginality, and intergenerational ties.

Rather than seeking a single consensus or “final” meaning, the Many Minds process embraced multiplicity and tension. In doing so, it generated insights that speak not only to the specific narratives of Israeli young women and their mothers but also to broader questions of researcher subjectivity, translation, and the ethics of working across difference.

This paper demonstrates how collaborative, transnational data analysis can function as a form of dialogical knowledge-making—illuminating how globally circulating data can foster deeper reflexivity, produce more nuanced interpretations, and contribute to transformative qualitative inquiry in challenging times.

I would like to tell you a story. A story about Madness and memories lost. A story about being silenced, being alone and stuck in the moon-shadow. It is a true story about a girl, who was deemed Mad and treated as such, but later wrote a book about her experience. The book connected her to a group of people, people who read, people who had also suffered. People who had no voice, but felt as if she was speaking for them; as if they were now a little bit less alone.

In spite of all the people who thanked the girl, in spite of her realizing that she indeed had given voice to many, she felt more alone than ever. She wanted to understand. So she set up on a journey. She returned to the ivory tower, where she had before explored Fine Arts, and knocked now on a different door. The door to Academic Research. To Mad Studies.

Through the methods of qualitative inquiry, the girl called out to others. Others who had also been deemed Mad, but refused to stay silent. People who had written books, books about Madness and becoming whole, in spite of it all. In joy she gathered them around her and asked: How did it feel to tell your story? Why did you do it? What did it change? And she listened to their voices, she listened and she felt, and she thought, and she tried to understand.

The girl is I. I invite you to come and listen to the story of the stories. The story of how, through my reserach, through other peoples‘ stories, I became myself. A little bit less alone, than before.