Rachael Dwyer

This chapter is a response to the impact of the prevailing neoliberal discourse of corporate managerialism in universities. It contains the authors’ communal experimentation with collaborative gameplay as an intentional and collective form of arts-based activism and intervention focused on subverting and unravelling the finite and managerial games at work in their universities. As a way of giving pause to how the pandemic and related workforce crises have intensified power dynamics and precarious work, authors use arts-based and poetic offerings to reflect on the role of power operating in their work/lives. Their creative methodology provides a site for playful protest and resistance to the competitive individualism and win/lose outcomes so treasured across the academy. It also offers space for authors’ realisation that while they desire to be radical, they are mostly compliant in their academic work. Subsequent insights about their ‘playing with power relations’ but also how they are ‘being played’ by succumbing to managerial demands helps them stop and ‘ask questions’ and ‘think outside the game’.

This chapter, authored by the editors of the volume, provides a theoretical frame for the chapters within the book. The chapter begins by exploring the issues that arise when an academic career intersects with caring responsibilities, most intensely felt by (but not limited to) mothers who are primary caregivers. The chapter explores the responsibilities that often confront academic mothers, such as parental leave, negotiating workload, juggling feeding while working, childcare, career progression, managing travel, and more. None of these issues are new, and yet many academic mothers find themselves feeling isolated, with few others within their institutions and networks who have had similar experiences. The chapter then considers the role of social media networks and groups as a form of social support for academic mothers as they navigate these issues. The discussion in the chapter will be considered through a lens of intersectionality, drawing attention to the ways in which these challenges of academic motherhood are magnified for those who identify as people of color, disabled, non-native dominant language speakers, and LGBTQ+.

This chapter makes clear the book’s intentions: the building of a kinder, inclusive, values-driven academy responsive to women’s knowledges, ways of working, and experiences. Dwyer and Black explore the conceptual frame and foundations for their valuing of women’s lived experiences and lived visions, their drawing on the work of feminist scholars, their emphasis on an ethics of care, and the core ideas and concepts they have found helpful in supporting the reimagining of both the academy and revolutionary futures. Identifying the foundational theoretical, philosophical, and methodological underpinnings of this research collection, the co-editors foreground in this chapter the conceptual ‘sparks’ being explored in the book and describe how these situate and support feminist efforts to inhabit the academy differently.

This chapter endeavors to map the terrain of the narrative landscape. In so doing we use two broad categories, firstly methodological questions, which includes the ontological and epistemological basis of the research, the nature of the relationship between the researcher and researched, and whether the research focuses on the individual or on societal contexts and concerns. Secondly method questions, which includes the nature of the evidence, the analytical processes used, and the representation of the research product. We seek to draw attention to the way the same terms are used by different authors in different ways. We hope this assists narrative researchers in the field further develop ideas in a continued commitment to the scholarship of narrative research.

From the very conception of this book project, we have been concerned about the confusion that can arise for novice researchers due to the lack of transparency in the various ways narrative methods are theorised and applied. As we have seen in the previous chapters, research that is informed by narrative can take a variety of forms, and may be called any number of things (narrative inquiry, narrative studies, narrative research, narrative focus). As Rachael and elke pointed out in Chap. 1 (this volume), this can be viewed as either a strength or a weakness; as diverse applications of a flexible approach, and/or as inconsistent interpretations of theory. There are certainly examples of both, and the difference is not always clear. Our intention in this chapter is to explore the current and future perspectives on working with narrative methods, by drawing on the perspectives of leading scholars in the field.

This book is intended to illuminate the experiences of teachers working in higher education, the tensions they face in working in an increasingly complex professional landscape. Higher teaching loads, increased expectations of research output, and changing social and economic structures that shape the way students view their tertiary education have a profound affect on university teachers' work. The pages of this volume are filled with the stories of teachers in universities that allow the reader to look deeply into the complexities of their work. We and the other authors do not pretend that the stories told here are representative of all university teachers, that they are in any way generalisable, but that others may learn from the knowledge that is shared. [Book Synopsis]

This book is intended to illuminate the experiences of teachers working in higher education, the tensions they face in working in an increasingly complex professional landscape. Higher teaching loads, increased expectations of research output, and changing social and economic structures that shape the way students view their tertiary education have a profound affect on university teachers' work. The pages of this volume are filled with the stories of teachers in universities that allow the reader to look deeply into the complexities of their work. We and the other authors do not pretend that the stories told here are representative of all university teachers, that they are in any way generalisable, but that others may learn from the knowledge that is shared. [Book Synopsis]

This book is intended to illuminate the experiences of teachers working in higher education, the tensions they face in working in an increasingly complex professional landscape. Higher teaching loads, increased expectations of research output, and changing social and economic structures that shape the way students view their tertiary education have a profound affect on university teachers' work. The pages of this volume are filled with the stories of teachers in universities that allow the reader to look deeply into the complexities of their work. We and the other authors do not pretend that the stories told here are representative of all university teachers, that they are in any way generalisable, but that others may learn from the knowledge that is shared. [Book Synopsis]