Engendering belonging: thoughtful gatherings with/in online and virtual spaces. Issue 1 (2nd January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Black, Alison L.; Crimmins, Gail; Dwyer, Rachael; Lister, Victoria
• Is Part Of: Gender and education. Volume 32:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 115
• Page End: 129
• Publication Date: 2020-01-02
• Subjects: Women in academia -- autoethnography -- academic conferences -- online gatherings -- Conferring; Sex discrimination in education -- Periodicals; Sex role -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Women -- Education -- Periodicals; Discrimination sexuelle en éducation -- Périodiques; Rôle selon le sexe -- Périodiques; Femmes -- Éducation -- Périodiques; 379.26
• DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2019.1680808
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0954-0253

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Conference attendance is a feature of contemporary academic work and an accepted way of building academic identities and networks through the dissemination and promotion of ideas, achievements and research. However, our personal experiences have caused us to problematise the traditional conference and consider alternatives which mitigate its associated problems yet achieve its aims. In this paper, we use collaborative autoethnography to engage in inquiry about the roles of conferences, and their inhabited notions of representation, membership and inclusion/exclusion. We use personal experiences of virtual confer -ring to highlight that many agreed-upon purposes of attending conferences can be effectively achieved through other means. We explore how particular ways of engaging with technologies enable responsive gathering spaces, relational knowledge production, kinship and community; and facilitate the development, and promotion of scholars and scholarship. We offer a view that confer -ring interactions in online/virtual spaces can support collegial, feminist and egalitarian sharing and knowledge exchange.