{"id":45578,"date":"2018-10-09T13:01:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T20:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=45578"},"modified":"2018-10-09T13:01:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T20:01:10","slug":"a-voice-from-the-precariat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/a-voice-from-the-precariat\/","title":{"rendered":"A voice from the precariat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

You can often find me on the edge of things. For the most part it\u2019s where I choose to be. When you do find me in the thick of it, it\u2019s invariably when thinking and speaking collide fuelled by feeling and I really ought to remain silent. But my current state of in-betweenness feeds on silence.<\/p>\n

I am a postdoctoral researcher.<\/p>\n

I am one of the lucky ones. I moved from PhD to postdoc with relative ease. An ease that sometimes made me feel guilty when I found myself paralysed by the uncertainty of what lay ahead. This was my third, fourth or fifth career depending on one\u2019s definition. I\u2019ve held senior positions in industry and raised two small people while starting again.<\/p>\n

I am an immigrant.<\/p>\n

I am one of the lucky ones. We qualified for permanent residence in Australia because my husband had skills on the Migrant-Occupations-in-Demand List. But the relative ease with which we secured permission to enter masked the challenges associated with starting again. I have lived on four continents, studied on three, and worked on two.<\/p>\n

I am a grown up.<\/p>\n

Why then do I feel so powerless? I chose to return to university and I want to contribute\u2014so why this disquiet? I am a postdoc at a research-intensive university on a government funded fixed-term contract and when the funding runs dry I will simply evaporate in the system.<\/p>\n

I am part of the\u00a0precariat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spent seven years training as an educational researcher. But having enjoyed the privilege of full-time research I haven\u2019t done \u2018enough\u2019 teaching. I\u2019ve also spent too much time working across disciplines, so I don\u2019t have an obvious \u2018home\u2019, and the effort I\u2019ve put into service, leadership and industry engagement has eaten into time I \u2018should\u2019 have been writing. Whatever I have demonstrated there is always something I have failed to demonstrate, and it is this constantly shifting horizon that feeds my sense of powerlessness.<\/p>\n

I could remain silent and maybe I should.<\/p>\n

But there it is\u2014the thing that keeps us silent\u2014the fear of jeopardising the infinitesimally small chance of securing an ongoing position. Reading from a safe distance as peers unravel online I\u2019ve caught myself wishing someone would stop them from speaking their hearts. We are trained to speak our minds and leave our hearts out of it. But I worry that if I don\u2019t add my voice to the chorus rising then maybe it won\u2019t swell to reach the ears of those who have the power to change things.<\/p>\n

And, despite the complex nature of this problem, it does not absolve those in positions of power from responsibly considering the future of those they train. Why do we have to tread this path alone or vainly emulate outdated formulae for success? What is an educated, adult, and humane response to the current state of affairs?<\/p>\n

Silence is not option, and ignorance is not a legitimate defence.<\/p>\n

Rather than staring into the headlights of the oncoming train or failing to draw attention to the not so temporary road closure ahead, I have chosen to share my thoughts with those who silently walk with me, and those who will come after us.<\/p>\n

To stay sane, I needed a way of framing my (academic) career as a unified whole. Something I could build that would have utility even if I ran aground. Looking for the underlying structure I imagined I was building a catamaran, a twin hulled vessel that could make the most of the prevailing winds with not one but two sails. For now, I am putting all my efforts into keeping it intact. But should I run aground I will repurpose one of the hulls and find my way to calmer seas in a canoe.<\/p>\n

Learning to frame my work in this way required wrestling my divided heart into submission. Forcibly taking a breath and working out what motivates me as researcher.\u00a0Mark Reed describes this as having many dreams in which doing what you love is possible<\/a>. Pausing seemed counter intuitive. But I had spent way too long running on hope that was waning and fear that was rising and I wanted to avoid the tipping-point of desperation. This wasn\u2019t about retreating into contemplation and avoiding action. It was an acknowledgment that extended periods of cortisol induced action don\u2019t normally precede moments of clarity.<\/p>\n

Having thought long and hard I decided to extend my contract by reducing the number of days I was being paid to work. I had gone from the final throes of the PhD straight into the postdoc and hadn\u2019t slowed down. This isn\u2019t an option for everyone, and there have been times when I\u2019ve resented reducing my income and not my hours. But it did fix one problem\u2014I now make a point of taking weekends!<\/p>\n

In practice this strategy has only delayed the inevitable. But it has given me time to:<\/p>\n