Abstract
Using the metaphorical wearing of academic cloaks, this chapter centers on an autoethnographic account of a UK female professor. The narrative account illuminates the ways in which feminism and situated culture and context have coalesced, have defined, and continue to define, the scope and parameters of her experiences as a 51-year-old mid-career professional. The spanning of three decades of professional practice from the basis of how organisational context and culture have and continue to both create and impact upon the challenges faced by female members of staff in the institutions within which she has worked. This is discussed alongside the opportunities afforded by being able to transcend signature pedagogies and disciplines as well as the intersectional variables that temporally frame their everyday personal and professional lives.
TopAn Account From Personal And Professional Practice
I have worked within the context of the allied health professions in UK Higher Education for the last twenty-five years, before which I spent seven years as a senior clinical podiatrist in both the UK National Health Service and in Private Practice. Being able to reflect and analyse my personal and professional experience as an educator and academic and to place my own narrative synthesis within the bodies of literature on Higher Education is both a privilege and a challenge, not least because autoethnographic research design and methodology is one which necessitates incorporating what is personal and consequently, a degree of self-disclosure that other approaches do not permit (Boylorn & Orbe, 2020; Jones, Adams & Ellis, 2016). Applied to the context of pedagogy, within which I gained a Personal Chair (UK Professorship) then from a personal perspective the transformational capacity of education in practice has a particular resonance to me, in terms of facilitating and enabling others to make fundamental changes in their own perspective lenses of the world (Belbase, Luitel and Taylor, 2008). Being able to extend the sociological perspective of a lived experience through the lens of a first-person narrative was the basis of my reasoning for choosing to adopt an autoethnographic approach to my account for a two main reasons. Firstly, I wanted to convey the level and degrees of intersectionality in professional practice, which have framed my career trajectory to date (Findlay-Walsh, 2021) and secondly to provide a point of perspective that others might be able to reflect upon and apply in their own lives and career aspirations (Bochner & Ellis, 2002). What I had not expected to provide was quite the range of debates that my own narrative bore testimony to – for example the significance and influence of ecological systems, structure and agency and the dynamic context of change that podiatric medicine, my native discipline has seen over the last thirty years (Mulisa, 2019). Defining and framing success and the temporal fluidity of success became another key focus, which I hope might inspire others to consider in their own professional and personal lives. I have deliberately opted for the traditionalist autoethnographic approach of aligning anecdotal experience with its interrogation against a published evidence base - not least to challenge my assumptions and presuppositions about UK Higher Education (Hernandez, 2021). This methodological approach, in addition to being able to contextualise, frame and reference my experience within the time I have worked within HE and the perspective on life that this has provided me with are sources of connection, to which I can relate my academic and professional practice (Ngunjiri, Hernandez & Chang, 2010). I was also acutely aware of the spectre of self-indulgence that can often accompanies autobiographical narrative and deliberately decided to avoid overly philosophising. This avoidance enabled me in being constantly aware of the need for a robust methodological execution of my account.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Context: The situational specificity or backdrop to an event, statement, or idea, which is provided so that it can be fully understood.
Equality: Is the state in which all individuals within a given society or community have equal rights, freedoms, and status, incorporating freedom of expression, civil rights, autonomy of expression, and equal degrees of accessibility to certain public goods and social services.
Culture: Pertains to the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.
Autoethnography: Is an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyse personal experience to understand cultural experience.
Professionalism: The specific competencies, proficiencies and skills which ought to be expected of a professional working in a designated field of specialist practice.
Feminism: Is a term covering a wide range of socio-political movements and ideologies, which seek to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality on the basis of sex. Feminism encompasses the idea that societies, by default, prioritise male perspectives and standpoints and that as a consequence of this, women are treated unfairly within the contexts of their lives.
Temporality: Is defined historically as the impact of the chronological and linear progression of the past, present, and future, which can also pertain to maturation.