Abstract
Many university scholars, including the authors of this article, acknowledge that they feel like they are riding an emotional roller coaster with academic success, as well as many project failures. Except for our PhD thesis, many of us complete our research tasks in relatively established research groups. However, little research has examined the potential these groups might have to mitigate feelings of academic isolation. To fill in this gap, we designed two methodological steps. First, we adopted the Woolfian metaphor of a room of our own, where we composed individual vignettes regarding our feelings of isolation. We read each other's texts and then, in a second step, moved to a “living room” to negotiate our emerging ideas, echoing a Collaborative Autoethnography. Two full professors and two early-career researchers reflected on and talked about their feelings of academic isolation, from their personal and professional standpoints. Despite the differences in job stability, the four participants acknowledged having felt isolated and abandoned. We argue that viewing research groups not as a community of practice, but a community of care is a more humane and desirable framework to model university research groups in these current times of exacerbating neoliberalism.
Keywords
academic practice, communities of practice, collaborative autoethnography, ethics of care
Author Bio(s)
Asunción Martínez-Arbelaiz (ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3784-2266) is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Education Education, Philosophy and Anthropology of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU (Spain) and a member of the Elkarrikertuz research group (IT1586-22). She has been the language coordinator for University Studies Abroad Consortium and a Spanish language teacher for more than twenty years. After COVID-19 she jobs and started teaching at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU full time. Her research focuses on language acquisition, particularly in study abroad contexts, educational technology, literacy, and language pedagogy in general. Please direct correspondence to asuncion.martinez@ehu.eus
Aingeru Gutiérrez-Cabello Barragán (ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6841-1170) is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Education, Philosophy and Anthropology of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU (Spain) and a member of the Elkarrikertuz research group (IT1586-22). His research activity focuses on youth learning, arts-based research and new materialisms. He has participated in projects related to the construction of the identity of Early Childhood Education teachers during initial training and the first years of work (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, EDU2010-20852-C02-02), as well as the learning of pre-school and primary school teachers (Ministry of Economy, Enterprise and Competitiveness, EDU2015-70912-C2-2-R). His latest project focuses on the learning trajectories of young university students (TRAY-AP, PID2019-108696RB-I00). Please direct correspondence to aingeru.gutierrez-cabello@ehu.eus
Estibaliz Aberasturi-Apraiz (ORCID ID: 0000-0001-7827-0850) has a BA in Fine Arts and a PhD in Educational Sciences. She is a full professor and researcher at the Faculty of Education, Philosophy and Anthropology of San Sebastian, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU (Spain). The research and teaching career is mainly associated with teacher education, pedagogical innovation and research and learning of the visual arts in educational contexts. She is the principal Researcher at Elkarrikertuz (IT1586-22), the consolidated research group in the Basque university system researched in the present article. Please direct correspondence to estitxu.aberasturi@ehu.eus
Jose Miguel Correa Gorospe (ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6570-9905) is full professor at the Faculty of Education, Philosophy and Anthropology of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and one of the funding members of the Elkarrikertuz research group (IT1586-22). His teaching and research activity focuses on initial and ongoing teacher education, inclusivity, and digitalization from a posthuman and new materialist perspective. Like Aingeru and Estitxu, he has been part of the project TRAY-AP, PID2019-108696RB-I00, focusing on the learning trajectories of young university learners. He belongs to the REUNID network of educational innovation and research. Please direct correspondence to jm.correagorospe@ehu.eus
Acknowledgements
We thank Wendy Baldwin for her editing help and particularly for making sure that the English translation kept the same register and tone as the original vignettes.
Publication Date
4-1-2024
DOI
10.46743/2160-3715/2024.6627
Recommended APA Citation
Martínez-Arbelaiz, A.,
Gutierrez-Cabello, A.,
Aberasturi-Apraiz, E.,
&
Correa-Gorospe, J.
(2024).
Juggling Academic Practice and Care: Collaborative Autoethnography within a Basque University Research Group.
The Qualitative Report,
29(4), 968-985.
https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.6627
ORCID ID
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3784-2266)
