Abstract
We are a collective of academic women engaging in decolonial inquiry and slow scholarship. Through our research focus of ‘Art and Wonder in Education (AWE)’, we are valuing and promoting aesthetic ways of knowing in education and research. Art, wonder, and imagination support our expression of the relational and cultural characteristics of our being and knowing in the world. Our research offers a challenge to accelerated grind culture. Our experiential and creative research approaches offer ways to inhabit our university, our academic work, our academic identities, and our academic bodies, differently. Our research writing uses arts-based and autoethnographic fragments of our lived experiences of the academy. Theorising with slow scholarship, we engage a relational ethics which guides our collective writing and supports our building of community. Engaging with a spirit of listening and responding, our poster shares a series of aesthetic-relational explorations, experiments, and reclamations from our embodied and storied inquiries together. Our research and writing together offers us alternatives to the competitive counting and output driven culture that drives universities and promotes individuals. Functioning more like an ecosystem rather than isolated silos of people and projects, we use our writing to create spaces of healing, generativity, and kinship in our workplace. Our research writing is conducive to ‘life’, providing opportunities for joy and connection. It is guided by a more feminine and circular ethic of care, an ethic that values meaning-making, relationship, collaboration, emergence, wonder, creativity, and wellbeing.
We also connect to the SDGs in the following ways:
SDG 4: Quality Education: Incorporating deep philosophical inquiry into education supports SDG 4 by ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education. It fosters critical and creative thinking and broadens the scope of learning to include ethical and existential dimensions.
Cultivating a sense of wonder and curiosity in education can drive lifelong learning and innovation. Our work aligns with SDG 4 by fostering an engaging and stimulating educational and research environment.
SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being: Encouraging individuals to explore their passions and ethical responsibilities can enhance mental health and well-being. Our work together aligns with SDG 3 as we are promoting holistic well-being through our co-creation and ethical behaviours.
SDG 5: Gender Equality: We write against a cultural backdrop where we have each experienced gender-based discrimination, inequality, sexism, and harassment. Collective attention to persistent gender inequality and the emotional and psychosocial experiences of masculinized and patriarchal work cultures is necessary if we are to reimagine universities. Valuing philosophical and existential inquiry alongside ethical callings encourages an academic environment where gender equality is discussed, leading to greater awareness and action towards achieving gender parity.
SDG16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions: Establishing environments for reflection and dialogue can promote peace, justice, and strong institutions. By encouraging the exchange of diverse ideas, research can contribute to more inclusive and responsive institutions, aligning with SDG 16. Through incorporating and honouring the arts (and alternative ways of knowing and communicating knowledge) we strengthen capacities for inclusion and understanding, moving forward towards peace and justice and away from managerialism’s neoliberal operations where push and shove, competition, and ‘winning’ reign.