Writing together
In the very beginning of my career in academia, I was afraid of working with fellow humans and writing with them. My PhD supervisor plagiarised my work. He copied the literature review section of my PhD thesis, added his name and sent the file to me requesting that I went through the file and added the references. I didn't do it. Instead, I asked him to meet. I told him that I saw it as unethical. In response, he said that my work would not be published, that no one would read my work even if it did get published, and that I needed him for my work to be published. I complained about his misbehaviour and used his original email as evidence. It was a scary thing to do in England, where universities are still hierarchical and feel old-fashioned. The supervisor, who was a senior lecturer, retained his job. He claimed that he was not going to publish that work. The university removed him from my supervision. Though it was the very minimum they could do, I was glad they did this. This situation resulted in my PhD journey taking a year longer than it would have done and in awful mental health outcomes. For this reason, most of my early works are single-authored. It was difficult for me to trust fellow humans in academia after that experience.
Then I started writing with my now-partner. We work well together. Many fellow academics warned me against writing with my partner. One male professor said that he would never give a job to a woman who co-authors with her partner. I think it's a bad piece of advice. It assumes that a woman is clueless and benefits from a smart and charitable man, which is offensive. Writing together with my partner feels safe, meaningful, and our work benefits so much from thinking together. This experience of writing with my partner encouraged me to feel safe and not be afraid of thinking and writing together with others. I've written several works with my fellow humans, and those have been beautiful experiences.
This morning, I had a meeting with a PhD student. She is incredibly talented and such a kind human being. We are planning to write an article together. After the meeting, I was thinking about the state of academia and strategic writing. Writing with big names does not feel appealing to me. Oftentimes, fellow humans in academia say that academia is male-dominated and hierarchical. But it is not enough to say these things. It's important to work with early-career researchers, especially women. The meeting with the PhD student didn't feel like work. It felt like a safe and creative space. Recently, I've been taking so many notes about slowly academia and my awakening whereby I so clearly felt that I no longer wanted to contribute to overwork and perpetual busyness in academia. My decision to exist the mindset and practice of overwork and busyness (and their normalisation, glorification and celebration) does not mean that I would step away entirely. But it does mean setting boundaries and becoming more intentional with my time and the quality of academic spaces I dwell.