Decolonial and feminist writing workshop for Early Career Researchers

Eva Bulgrin, WWU Münster, Germany; Gunjan Wadhwa, Brunel University, London

Background
Making time for writing in academia remains challenging. As initial studies have shown (Viglione, 2020), it is especially difficult for young female researchers in the current context of the pandemic, with sharp inequalities in knowledge production often at the expense of researchers in and from the global South. This contrasts with the requirement, particularly for early-career researchers (ECRs), to publish fast and in high-ranking journals to ‘develop’ and ‘sustain’ in academia.

Aim
Our workshop for ECRs takes up the conference theme of ‘Partnerships in education: collaboration, co-operation and co-optation’ to offer a shared and collective space for writing and reflecting. More specifically, we draw on the ‘public-private’ aspects of partnership and collaboration to re-conceptualise it as internal and outreach writing (Connell, 2015). Following Connell (2015, p. 12), ‘[a]ny research effort needs different kinds of writing, each requiring skill and judgment. It’s only by combining all of them that a project is brought to fruition.’ Borrowing from her, we aim to introduce participants to two types of writing: internal and outreach writing, engaging creatively with the private and the public self in academic writing (Hunt, 2013).

In taking up of our ‘selves’, we focus on the fluidity and ‘dynamic’ of writing to challenge the fixity of the social world through our work and research in education. Guided firmly by a feminist framework, enriched through post- and decolonial studies, our interest in this workshop lies in the (re)claiming and foregrounding of the ‘I’ or self to acknowledge writing as personal as well as political. By critically reflecting on the centrality of power, researcher positionality and language in writing and ‘doing’ of research, our aim is to understand and discuss the inseparability of the researcher from the writing and the im/possibilities and un/certainties of capturing truth (Wadhwa, 2021).
Approach and schedule
As ECRs ourselves, we conceptualise the workshop as a shared, collective and collaborative space to feel inspired, write, and talk about writing practices, within and beyond academia. We think collaboratively and write generatively from a feminist, post- and decolonial perspective (Ashcroft et al., 1995; Danvers et al., 2019; Griffiths & Tiffin, 2003; Richardson, 2001). The 90-minute workshop will provide balanced input, time to write and reflect, space to exchange, and cover a combination of academic and creative writing techniques for internal and outreach writing.

We begin the writing workshop with sharing and reflections from our own work and research, informed by post-colonial, decolonial and feminist understandings. Here, we tease out the complexities of writing and shaping our work and research as feminist inquiry, followed by a group conversation. We then move to introducing internal or summative writing techniques and create a dedicated writing space for the participants to work on new or existing writing projects. The workshop concludes by offering space for peer feedback and exchange in small groups to encourage ongoing conversation about writing, throughout the BAICE Conference, and afterwards.

30 min
Warming-up

Sharing and reflections on postcolonial, decolonial and feminist writing

Group conversation

30 min
Introducing internal/ summative writing and exercises

Followed by 25 minutes of writing

30 min
Providing space for peer feedback in small groups

Wrapping up

Our contribution
At the end of the workshop, participants will have been introduced to and experienced different forms of writing steered by postcolonial, decolonial and feminist frameworks. They will have produced some form of writing and received peer feedback on how to develop their writing further. Most importantly, they will have considered how to engage creatively with academic writing and topics, demonstrated in the creative handling of the ‘public and private’ conference themes. Overall, the workshop will contribute towards shaping of emergent feminist inquiries by encouraging future partnerships and collaborations around writing in comparative and international education.
References
Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (1995). The post-colonial studies reader (B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, & H. Tiffin (eds.)). Routledge.

Connell, R. (2015). Writing for research strategies. Research Strategies, 1–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0734-3310(97)90002-1

Danvers, E., Hinton-Smith, T., & Webb, R. (2019). Power, pedagogy and the personal: feminist ethics in facilitating a doctoral writing group. Teaching in Higher Education, 24(1), 32–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2018.1456423

Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (2003). Empire Writes Back : Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. Taylor & Francis Group. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/suss/detail.action?docID=4976913

Hunt, C. (2013). Transformative Learning Through Creative Life Writing : Exploring the Self in the Learning Process.

Richardson, L. (2001). Getting personal: Writing-stories. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 14(1), 33–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390010007647

Viglione, G. (2020). Are women publishing less during the pandemic? Here’s what the data say. Nature, 581(7809), 365–366. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01294-9

Wadhwa, G. (2021). Ethics of positionality in capturing Adivasi youth ‘voices’ in a village community in India. In Spencer, G. (2021) (Ed.) Ethics and Integrity in Research with Children and Young People (Advances in Research Ethics and Integrity, Vol. 7, pp. 89-103). Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2398-601820210000007011