Dabbling for academic resistance and resilience
With Dr Matthew Cheeseman
Matt talks about himself as someone who is “a Jack of all trades”. It’s true that I have known him involved in so many different types of projects that it could be hard from the outside to define exactly his research niche. As an interdisciplinary researcher and thinker, Matt acknowledges that both his stubbornness and his position of privilege have contributed to his continuing academic career. The need for academic freedom and the desire to understand the world have maintained his motivation to pursue a career in the university environment. The dissonance between institutional policies on wellbeing and the realities of workloads continue to puzzle him.
What is actually needed to gain & retain academic positions?
About Matt
Dr Matthew Cheeseman is Associate Professor of creative writing at the University of Derby (UK). With a background in history from his Bachelor, Matt entered the world of academia from a marginal area of study, a PhD in folklore, studying the history of what it’s like to be a student at the University of Sheffield. His work looked at students’ cultural behaviours and became an ethnography of contemporary students’ life. For example, Matt looked at the consumption of alcohol and how it is used as a product of university life aimed at students.
The transition to his current position took many turns: teaching Erasmus students in an English department, access to bits of funding on various projects, a senior lectureship position at the Solent University in Southampton, then an institutional move to a new lectureship in creative writing in Derby.
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking
Whether dabbling in lots of interests or keeping a sharp research focus is working for you in your research transition
How the politics of your institution align or not with your values and the way you want to live your research life
What resistance, persistence and resilience to academic pressures look like for you
Some reflections and questions to ponder based on my discussion with Matt
Between dabbling and keeping it focused- the building of your research niche
If you are asking yourself how tight you should keep your focus with your research interests, no one can really give you the right answer. The truth is…there isn’t one! You are just going to have to figure out what’s working for you and what is not- sorry to say…Whether you are a Postdoc, fellow or an early career academic, establishing the area of expertise that you want to be yours is both thrilling and worrisome. Matt admits that he was never really that strategic when it came to his research direction. He seems to have followed his interest and instinct in what to get involved in. That was his strategy!
Matt understands that creating a narrative that links all his research interests is important, when applying for positions or research funding. Learning to play the academic game needs the agility to build diverse narratives needed at different points. What I find very interesting with Matt is that he has not let- the game that needs to be played- become his trap. His strategy has been to keep true to his interests, and remain “voracious”. His intellectual curiosity, persistence, and stubbornness are the qualities he has needed to continue his research career.
In some recent coaching discussions, I have had with clients, I have noticed that some academics get themselves all worked up and worried about these terms: strategies, strategic research direction, strategic plans…Some of these words bring up many limiting beliefs and get people stuck in doing what they love doing- research.
If you are someone for whom the term- strategy- sounds like a big monster or gives you the chill, maybe reframing what being strategic is about, could be helpful.
Could strategy for you be about….
o Finding new collaborators who really challenge your thinking
o Pulling together the various strands of your research interests to create a compelling narrative
o Getting rid of some side projects that are draining your energy and are not building potential for the future
o Daring to articulate what really excites you and what you want to explore
o Moving to a new research group/ department/ institution that will be more supportive of what you want to do
Forget the word strategy…think “desire”…saying aloud what you want is one step towards visualising what your research future could look like - that’s the start of your strategy.
How are the politics of your institution shaping your career and impacting you?
Institutional politics and structural values in universities and research centres play a significant role on how researchers/ academics experience their life in research.
As a foreign national, when I first came to the UK, I had no knowledge or understanding of the differences between various types of universities. I came to understand this, years after I had left my Postdoc. Hopefully current early career researchers are savvier than I was then.
For early career researchers/ academics, realising the impact of macro-structures (e.g., expectations, behaviours, opportunities, rewards) from your institution on the experience that you can have in the research environment is an important self-awareness stage. It is so easy to feel disempowered and believe that we have no choices. You may want to consider that your belief in having choices can be greatly influenced by your institutional context.
Matt describes that he has indeed experienced how different institutions promote different types of values. In his current institution, he feels that there is more praise, encouragement, support and positive energy than what he has experienced before. There may be less staff to support research bids, but the experience of feeling supported compensates greatly.
o How are the structural dimensions of your institution/ department contributing to your research/ academic experience?
o What is your zone of influence to shaping your experience?
o How are these structural dimensions hindering or enhancing your career prospects?
Can we do less in manic spaces?
There isn’t a single academic I have met over the years who is at ease with their workload. Should we find some? Matt shares that the many years he had on temporary contracts were fuelled with overwork. He accepts that this had consequences on his mental health. We hear this story, over and over. Matt describes the surprise of his non-academic friends when he explains that he has no time to read and not time to reflect.
Matt describes the academic environment as a space of dissonance between the rhetoric of institutional policies on wellbeing and the ongoing overworked status of academics.
Doing less and having balance in their work-life is a privilege denied to most academics, particularly when they remain on casual contracts.
Much of the realities of researchers’ experiences remain in the hands of the research funders. The “give, give, give” psalm of neo-liberal universities is endlessly discussed, written about, argued about ad nauseum…Aren’t we all sick of it?
What is needed is a revolution of the research system…not just a gentle transformation!
Early career researchers and academics are trapped into the system and rarely feel they can become the Che Guevara of the research system.
For Matt, wellbeing needs to become embedded into research grants. However, the question remains of how we may do this?
o Who are going to be the revolutionaries of the research system?
o What kind of a research environment revolution do we want to see?
o Could we pledge for a culture of “less”, slower pace and kinder environment?
Some may say that we would lose the sense of competition that may contribute to research excellence.
But then, what would we gain with a culture of less- less papers to read or review, maybe slower developments (would this be really a problem?)
Polite conversations, surveys and tamed focused groups are likely to continue without creating the revolution that we need.
Senior research leaders in their roles in institutions and via research funders have such a massive challenge on their hands in reshaping the research environment towards a sustainable future.
o Will they be prepared to take this challenge?
o Are they daring enough to rethink the system?
o Can they apply their innovative thinking to reconfiguring the research environment?
I want to meet some of these revolutionaries and visionaries of a new research system!
“ it’s all about doing less... encouraging growth, which is authentic rather than forced.”
