ABSTRACT

Through a lens of self-care and wellbeing, this book shares stories of struggle and success from a diverse range of women in academia.

Each story highlights how these women mitigated and overcame various barriers as part of their academic trajectory and provides practical strategies for maintaining self-care and wellbeing. Taken from lived experience, the autoethnographic narrative approach provides a deeper, personal understanding of the obstacles faced by women throughout an academic career and guidance on how these might be navigated in a way that avoids self-sacrificing.

This collection goes further to illustrate the ways that higher education institutions can be more accommodating of the needs of women.

part I|54 pages

Women and the changing academia

chapter 1|14 pages

Of glass ceilings and glass cliffs

Navigating the gendered academy

chapter 3|13 pages

The dancing lecturer

Crafting the strong woman in the academia

chapter 4|14 pages

Carrying the world on your back

The burden of self-care for under-represented women

part II|65 pages

Identity formations and the career trajectory

chapter 5|12 pages

Solitude, sanctuary, and pseudo-mentors

A pandemic lens on an early career transition into doing and being research/researcher

chapter 7|12 pages

Give me wings, and I will fly

chapter 8|11 pages

Navigating fieldwork amidst my menstrual cycle

Being a female ethnographer in a remote Indian region

chapter 9|17 pages

Mentoring practices in higher education

Self-care through the lens of the mentee in the era of remote learning

part III|78 pages

Of well-being and self-care in academia