– “Supporting researchers with their career development is always already activism.”
– Is it crass to quote myself? ‘Cuz this one’s from me.
When I started this blog nearly two years ago, I intended it to be a supportive resource not only for doctoral researchers and postdocs, but also for all you smashing people out there who support researchers with their careers. Whether you’re careers consultants, researcher developers, trainers… many of you work with limited resources to equip researchers with the tools and confidence to take their next steps. So, as I step down as co-chair of the AGCAS Research Students and Research Staff Task Group – a group dedicated to supporting careers colleagues across the UK in their work with researchers – this one’s for all of you, in solidarity for everything you’re already doing.
‘Always already’ activism
Back in May 2022, I was asked to give some concluding comments at a researcher careers training event. As I listened to everyone present the work they had done supporting researchers through a time of sustained political, economic, and personal upheaval, one sentence came to mind to sum up everything I heard that day:
“Supporting researchers with their career development is ‘always already activism.’ “
Somewhere in the depths of my brain, this phrase ‘always already’ was still kicking around a decade after I left the academic field of critical and cultural theory. I was as surprised as anyone when it surfaced that day, like finding a fiver in the pocket of a jacket I hadn’t worn for 10 years. In this post, I want to take some time to explain what I meant by this, and what it means for our professional practice.
For starters then, ‘always already’ is actually a legit philosophical term. It means (sort of) that there was never a time when whatever you’re talking about didn’t have a certain characteristic, or wasn’t situated within a certain context or conventions. I think it originally came from Heidegger. Or Althusser.* Maybe.**
(*Lack of attention to detail demonstrating there why I didn’t last in academia).
(**I bet you that lost fiver that Donald Lush will know).
But anyway… what I really meant was that, as I see it, supporting researchers to make career transitions is inherently a form of activism… because in doing it, we are consistently working to empower researchers to challenge what is ‘accepted’ and ‘normal.’
- ‘Think academia is your only option? Let’s challenge that.’
- ‘Feel like you should stay in academia because it’s what’s expected? Let’s deconstruct that idea.’
- ‘You’ve been told that leaving academia would be a failure? Let’s look at where that idea might have come from’
These are all things that crop up regularly in our practice. And all of them? Activism, in my book. And why? Well, the best evidence I’ve found for this is that so much of our work either already does, or quite easily can, embody what Hooley, Sultana & Thomsen (2021) call the five signposts towards socially just career guidance.
1) Building critical consciousness
The first of Hooley et al.’s signposts refers to career guidance’s potential to bring participants to a ‘critical awareness’ that what happens to them in the labour market isn’t ‘neutral.’ It is, in fact, embedded within power structures which serve some in society more than others (p.60).
As a result, what people might perceive as ‘personal failures’ in their career development may not be down to their own shortcomings at all, but are rather the product of embedded structural factors. As careers professionals, we are well positioned to empower researchers to see these power structures at work, and to help them to re-frame ‘failure’ in two different ways.
For example, in the context of the marketisation of UK Higher Education, we see the increased recruitment of Postgraduate Researchers cited as a goal in many universities’ strategic plans. In turn however, the number of academic jobs created does not keep up with this increase. So, there’s one (highly over-simplified) example of how we can re-frame not landing an academic job as the result of structural factors beyond the individual’s control, rather than a personal ‘failure.’
Back in 2020 I teamed up with a few academic and professional services colleagues to run a webinar called ‘Academia in the UK: The Bigger Picture.’ Here, we talked openly about such structural factors and their impact on people’s experiences of the academic job market. Whilst some felt our concept was negative and scaremongery, the event got great feedback from PGRs who attended and who appreciated the transparency, with one even calling it ‘phenomenal.’
Secondly, we can further help to build critical consciousness in our careers work by empowering researchers to re-define what failure means to them, rather than operating within others’ (peers’, colleagues’, supervisors’ etc…) potentially oppressive definitions.
2) Naming oppression
Hooley et al.‘s second signpost speaks to the role that career guidance can play in ‘helping people recognise injustice when they experience it,’ and empowering them to challenge oppression such as discrimination and microaggressions (p.61).
As career professionals working with researchers, we offer an impartial space for researchers to discuss their lived experiences, including those of discrimination and microaggressions. We can help researchers to understand how they are impacted by these experiences, to validate their feelings towards these experiences, and to help rebuild confidence.
These experiences may come from interactions with peers, supervisors, or managers, BUT… as careers practitioners, we can also help researchers to work through microaggressions from employers, too. How many times have we seen PhD graduates on the receiving end of comments like ‘PhDs are difficult to work with,’ or ‘do yourself a favour and leave your PhD off your CV!’? Comments like these don’t just portray employers’ preconceptions about candidates with higher degrees; they represent microaggressions, which systematically dent researchers’ confidence.
Consequently, our work to build relationships with employers, to support knowledge exchange activities (internships, consultancy projects, enterprise challenges, etc.), and any other similar activity can help to build awareness of the skills and value that researchers can bring to the workplace. In turn, this can work to counter such oppression by challenging attitudes in the labour market which lead to such microaggressions being aimed at researchers.
3) Questioning what is normal
In this third signpost, Hooley et al. draw attention to how career guidance can expose seemingly ‘natural’ or ‘immutable’ institutions and practices not ‘social facts,’ but as heavily socially constructed (p.61).
Part of challenging ‘what is normal’ therefore, they argue, is achieved through language. For example, the language we use to talk about career experiences and decisions can trace deficit back to individuals… here, think instances such as calling job hunting beyond academia a ‘Plan B’ (implying ‘less than’ ‘Plan A’), or even using phrases like ‘non-academic careers’ or ‘alternative careers.’ As tricky as it is to avoid these terms, such ‘positional’ language implicitly re-establishes academia as ‘the norm’ by defining everything else according to its relationship with academia.
Often, what we really mean when using this terminology is something far more akin to ‘finding options that are meaningful for, and compatible with, a person’s priorities.’ We can empower researchers to find these, but can also contribute to training academic colleagues (supervisors/ researcher managers) in this as well: to deconstruct ideas of ‘what is normal’ by making colleagues aware of the language they use, and the implicit messages this can convey to researchers.
4) Encouraging people to work together
This signpost recognises that some struggles require collective as well as individual action (Hooley et al., p.63). Encouraging shared exploration of career issues in communities and groups, advocating collective action, linking users with similar issues, and helping our clients to form networks are all actions that careers practitioners can support here.
This can be difficult in a culture like academia which often pits researchers in competition with each other. However, as careers practitioners we are in a place to counter this: in the programmes and activities that we run with researchers, we can create cohorts – and hence communities – where researchers can seek solidarity and initiate collective action. Examples here include the University of Liverpool’s ‘Prosper’ project for postdocs, open access courses like the Career Management for Early Career Academic Researchers Futurelearn ‘MOOC’ , or even signposting and contributing to groups and resources such as ‘Alt Ac Careers UK’ on Facebook, and ‘Research Careers’ , which create opportunities for researchers to come together with others facing similar situations.
5) Working at a range of levels
Hooley at al.‘s final signpost appeals to careers practitioners to work not on one, but on all of the ‘micro (individual and group), meso (institutional and organisational), [and] macro (social and political system) levels’ (p.63). This implies that we can advocate for change and address structures that are the source of clients’ problems, by working in alliance with colleagues in related professions.
Indeed, I think it’s fair to say that research careers folk are by nature sharing, collaborative people. We are often the only ones in our careers service (or our immediate team) focusing on working with researchers, so we are compelled to model collective action by seeking out collaborations with others. We have the opportunity to work with colleagues such as researcher developers, those supporting research culture, and academics, to support the evolution of a research culture and environment which values professional development and career outcomes of all kinds.
So, as we begin a new term in the world of researcher careers, know that you’re doing a great job… and if you’re tired sometimes? Well, it’s because you’re always already an activist. So let’s pick up our strengths cards, our RDFs, and our alumni panel events, and… Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.