ABSTRACT
In this chapter we reflect on our experiences of the supervisor-student relationship. We focus on (auto)biographical and emotional dimensions of this interpersonal dynamic relationship illustrating how this shaped our experience of each other and the thesis. We trace and remember how our relationship evolved by drawing on memories of meaningful places and times in co-creating the thesis and furthering our bond. The thesis’s substantive topic (medical professionalism) and analytic lens (anthropological imagination of cultural forms and moral practices) inform our analysis of how we experienced our relationship. We demonstrate how we bonded with each other through our connecting to our common academic professionalism’s transcendent value.
Using the metaphor of journeying and the concept of covenant, we describe our commitment with one another, the doctorate endeavour, and its transcendent value. As covenanted learners joined together in our doctoral journey, our supervisor-student “covenant was not a matter of transactions, but a flowing of love, a movement of infinitely generous giving and receiving”. With this covenantal ethic, our supervisor-student relationship embodied a professionalism claim and a moral reason for dissenting from managerialism and consumerism in our pursuit of the intellectual life.
