Outrider 37 - Use the difficulty

Bad stuff happens to great people. Right now - in our schools, universities and workplaces - bad stuff happens to everyone. But how do we use these difficulties, and make meaning from the discomfort? Most importantly, how do we learn about ourselves, our research, and our context from this difficulty?

[balsam_M]

Happy birthday, Tara! Please allow me to offer a slightly different perspective. When I did my PhD on ISIS during its capture of the north of my home country, Iraq, I used the difficulty of this troubling time, which had an emotional toll on me, to write on the groups' discourse and narratives and media responses from the perspective of an Iraqi woman and scholar. I believed this was an important intervention on a scholarly and personal level. However, I couldn't finish within three years. Not because I was lazy or any less brilliant than my colleagues who finished earlier. Rather, there were days when it was impossible to think or write- not to mention the fact that articulating ideas in a second language is difficult in itself. I was overwhelmed by the tragic news coming from Iraq, my constant fears and concerns about my family, who in 2016, survived a suicide bomb that took the lives of 400 Iraqis in the heart of Baghdad. All this was compounded by health issues that both my daughter and I had at different points during my five-year journey writing the thesis. Towards the end, I had to request a 6-month extension because I suffered from a rare eye infection (ocular toxo) that caused blurred vision and permanent floaters. It has reactivated three times ever since. In the end, I submitted my thesis, managed to turn it into a book published by a reputable publisher last year, was awarded an Early Career Leverhulme fellowship in 2021, and in Dec 2023, I started a permanent lecturership position at Cardiff University. Sometimes, we do try our best, but life gets into the way.
Love and respect.
PS: please accept my apologies for the imperfect English prose. This is an ongoing difficulty that I endeavour to work throuh.

Balsam

[dougboothey]

Happy birthday, Tara! See you Friday for more interesting facts and words of wisdom. cheers, doug

[Leacoxman]

Thank you Tara, very powerful video. Absolutely right that the toxic and bullying context we are in is terrible and it shouldn’t be happening but it’s the reality we need to survive in. I try to put a stand to it by not perpetrating this behaviour but when you talked about those who thrive, I feel it characterizes the behaviour of many senior and famed academics. As much as it damages those down at the bottom chain like us PHD students and early career researchers, it has enabled them to thrive and achieve that glory that universities so love, and it validates their behaviour even more like an ever worsening nasty cycle. So there is an incentive to behave this way for one’s own career success. I find it sad and disturbing that this is what it has come to and hope that one day we see a kinder academia where senior academics will support us to flourish as PHD students and early career researchers

[MosesSBass-kj]

Thanks Tara and have a wonderful birthday.

[pamw]

Happy birthday, Tara! It's your birthday yet you give us a gift of this great and important talk.

[lcusslus]

Happy Birthday, Tara, Happy New Year and thanks for the wisdom~

[ronti]

Tara! What a brilliant, logical, common sense precision distance strike straight at the centres of complacency and downright emotional immaturity that languish at the heart of most ( ?all) universities! That is a superb birthday present from you to 'Us'! Go well and best in 2024!

[damienomeara]

Can I just add, COVID meant I could push for interviews over Zoom, and it meant I was able to access senior people in locations I would never have been able to get to, otherwise. Suddenly no one had to travel somewhere. The 45-60 minutes I asked for was literally just that, because an interviewee could just click a link from the comfort of wherever they were. I don't know if that is using the difficulty. But the ability to move away from in-person interviews gave me more and more diverse data, that I probably wouldn't have if I had stuck to the idea of in-person interviews, rather than Zoom.

[SAM]

Happiest of birthdays, Tara.
The Michael Caine story reminds of an experience I had in an acting class in 8th grade. It’s so important to reframe the difficulty, act aptly during the difficulty, and develop learned optimism.
Work is work! “Success emerges when we get uncomfortable with the uncomfortable.” Ouch. May it also be my mantra that “nothing and no one frightens me”. I am inspired by the example that some PhD students even change their methodologies during Covid, demonstrating innovation, and got hired before they even finished their PhD due to their flexibility in difficulty.
Thanks for the sharing. Susan A. Muir

[raymondukaegbu]

Thank you so much Prof. Tara. Happy New Year and happy birthday to you. You are such an amazing gift. Keep it up.

[najmehalyasin]

I wake up wanting to be a clinician, a job that researchers don’t appreciate 😅😅😅