ABSTRACT
Research students endure significant challenges, yet I never anticipated challenges so demanding in their press for personal transformation. I came to realise that progressing my thesis in a way that nourished mind and body required I journey out of the androcentric false consciousness of the academy and the world I was born into. Through Foucauldian and feminist lenses this meant transforming an entrenched androcentric institutional self that was timid and deferential to the institution. Intrinsic to this process has been embracing the identity of a female scholar, an identity that fosters personal power to pursue authentic female academic flourishing.
