Creating good knowledge together: heartful-communal storytelling at the intersection of caregiving and academia

• Date: 21 September 2023
• Pages: 764-783
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-08-2022-0207
• Published date: 21 September 2023
• Author: Nina Winham,Kristin S. Williams,Liela A. Jamjoom,Kerry Watson,Heidi Weigand,Nicholous M. Deal

Creating good knowledge together:

heartful-communal storytelling at

the intersection of caregiving

and academia

Nina Winham

Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada

Kristin S. Williams

Department of Innovation Management,

University of Eastern Finland—Kuopio Campus, Kuopio, Finland

Liela A. Jamjoom

University of Business and Technology, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Kerry Watson

Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada

Heidi Weigand

Rowe School of Business, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, and

Nicholous M. Deal

Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Canada

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore a novel storytelling approach that investigates lived

experience at the intersection of motherhood/caregiving and Ph.D. pursuits. The paper contributes to the

feminist tradition of writing differently through the process of care that emerges from shared stories.

Design/methodology/approach–Using a process called heartful-communal storytelling, the authors evoke

personal and embodied stories and transgressive narratives. The authors present a composite process drawing

on heartful-autoethnography, dialogic writing and communal storytelling.

Findings –The paper makes two key contributions: (1) the paper illustrates a novel feminist process in action

and (2) the paper contributes six discrete stories of livedexperience at the intersection of parenthood and Ph.D.

studies. The paper also contributes to the development of the feminist tradition of writing differently. Three

themes emerged through the storytelling experience, and these include (1) creating boundaries and

transgressing boundaries, (2) giving and receiving care and (3) neoliberal conformity and resistance. These

themes, like the stories, also became entangled.

Originality/value –The paper demonstrates how heartful-communal storytelling can lead to individual and

collective meaning making. While the Ph.D. is a solitary path, the authors’heartful-communal storytelling

experience teaches that holding it separate from other relationships can impoverish what is learnt and

constrain the production of good knowledge; the epistemic properties of care became self-evident.

Keywords Care, Autoethnography, Motherhood, Storytelling, Academia, Writing differently

Paper type Conceptual paper

EDI

43,5

764

© Nina Winham, Kristin S. Williams, Liela A. Jamjoom, Kerry Watson, Heidi Weigand and Nicholous M.

Deal. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons

Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works

of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the

original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.

org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Since acceptance of this article, the following author have updated their affiliations: Kristin S.

Williams is at the UEF, Acadia University and Kerry Watson is at the Fanshawe College.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 11 August 2022

Revised 24 February 2023

29 May 2023

26 July 2023

Accepted 24 August 2023

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 43 No. 5, 2024

pp. 764-783

Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-08-2022-0207

1. Introduction

“Wouldn’t it be cool if we could just say, ‘Maybe you don’t think you fit into this neoliberal

academic model. But think again. We have done it differently –and we are part of the

academy too’” (member of the author group, in discussion).

This paper offers the findings from a journey in writing differently. However, it is not the

paper we set out to write. As a group of five mothers and one father, we planned to take up the

challenge of this special issue by analyzing our experiences of pursuing a Ph.D. while

attempting to be engaged parents at home. We expected to identify and problematize the

challenges of mixing parenthood with academia, which has been described as a neoliberal site

that demands productivity outside the home above all else (Huopalainen and Satama, 2019),

and we planned to offer a critique of this tension. Instead, a curious experience unfolded as we

shared our stories. Talking about care—the challenges and commitment—led us to see and

discuss our experiences differently. Although we started with stories of parenthood,

we began to tell stories about care for, and from, partners, colleagues and selves. The more we

talked about this different realm of our lives, the more we understood new things about each

other and the more we began to offer back (to each other and ourselves). This became an

epistemological journey, one that increasingly stood in juxtaposition to the way of knowing

and seeing we were taught in the Ph.D. classroom. This paper, then, is a story of how

knowledge itself—what we know and how we come to know it—may be constrained by the

neoliberal tendencies of academia. Its purpose is to offer our gleanings from this experience as

a possible epistemological insight. We have named our pr ocess heartful-communal

storytelling, which we see as a contribution to the emerging feminist tradition of writing

differently (Gilmore et al., 2019;Ahonen et al., 2020;Pullen, 2018;Grey and Sinclair, 2006;

Valtonen and Pullen, 2021). And while mothers and parents tend to be embroiled in care, you

do not need to be either to consider how the relational experience of care can enrich the lens

with which you view the world.

We proceed as follows. First, we situate our paper within relevant literature: (1)

motherhood and caregiving in the academy, (2) care and (3) the emerging feminist tradition of

writing differently. We then explain our storytelling process before we present six stories that

resulted from that process. In the discussion, we share insights from our experience with

storytelling and meaning making. Three themes emerged through the storytelling

experience, including (1) creating boundaries and transgressing boundaries, (2) neoliberal

conformity and resistance and (3) care as epistemological practice. Finally, we conclude with

remarks about the implications we see for academia.

2. Relevant literature and theory building

2.1 Motherhood and caregiving in the academy

The so-called standards of academic excellence have reified a work-centric model that

reinforces masculine norms through the “cultural imperative of total commitment”(Rosa,

2022, p. 62). This neoliberal governance model means that academics are required to act as

individuals unencumbered by nonwork demands (Rosa, 2022), thereby partitioning parts of

ourselves so we can fit in or better yet, belong. Fleming (2020) describes neoliberal academia

as an individualized process, which alienates us from the values, processes and identities that

define what we do. Therefore, the neoliberal academic becomes a subject bereft of

vulnerability (Fineman, 2008). (It was against this backdrop that we met, as students in the

same Ph.D. program working to complete our degrees on different schedules. Not until later,

when we became friends, did we learn more than the conversational minimum about each

other’s lives outside the classroom.)

The neoliberalization of academia must be discussed against the background of gendered

organizational structures that expect total dedication to work (Rosa, 2022). More specifically,

Storytelling in

caregiving and

academia

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