Dear colleagues,
Upon reading Danielle's original post, it resonated, so I made a few
exchanges with Dr. Paul Craddock on LinkedIn to discuss this article and
extract further insights.
My personal experience coming from India into Europe as a student was
something we discussed.
I have some alignments with Renata's insights from the Soviet Union context.
I think sometimes folks coming into academia from emerging non-western
economies into rich western economies suffer obliquely ending up as "double
cripples" - economically disadvantaged and non-western.
My case, upon reaching Italy from India, I simply lacked the cultural and
social references of the "first world".
15 years ago India was a country of very humble means, which is not the
case anymore.
Many references such as design pieces and creative works of western
designers which came naturally to my classmates were unknown to me simply
because in my "3rd world" background one simply never saw such expensive
elite artifacts in daily life much less own one.
Entering Doctoral studies, I found operating in academia was not easy at
all for me mainly because I lacked many of the general knowledge
references, visits to talks and museums which my colleagues had absorbed
since childhood and continued to participate in their daily lives.
"Western" general knowledge cannot be built overnight.
Working a fulltime commercial day job to support my research added its own
layer of entropy.
My research unit in the university understood my difficulties and guided me
immensely to win scholarship grants to enable my journey.
10 odd years in European academia now I feel I have the needed intellectual
capital to operate on par with native European colleagues as a university
professor.
I do not think its only a class issue (as per Dr. Paul's thesis) but also a
cultural and economic issue of haves vs have nots.
Anyway my journey made me sensitive to financially challenged working class
university students and their difficulties here in Portugal, of which there
are many, and this is a big issue in my university at least.
I try to help by giving them extra guidance, motivation and attention in my
teaching.
I encourage them to enter research and consider academia and not quit.
That's what Paul and me discussed this week.
I hope its a constructive contribution.
*Com os Melhores Cumprimentos,*
*-------------------------------------------*
*With Best Regards,*
Shujoy Chakraborty
University of Madeira (UMa)
On Tue, 1 Mar 2022 at 04:47, Danielle Wilde <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Renata, Mariana, David,
>
> It’s great to hear your voices here, and Renata, your experience. I also
> had some contacts off-list.
>
> This is definitely a discussion to be had around a table. Perhaps we, with
> others who are interested, can make a virtual table here, which anyone can
> join – whether for a quick bite or the whole meal.
>
> best, Danielle
> __
> www.daniellewilde.com
>
> > Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2022 09:45:52 +0100
> > From: Ren Dez <[log in to unmask]>
> > Subject: Re: ‘Coming out’ as working class in academia
> >
> > Dear Danielle,
> >
> > The working class in Academia is an interestingly different discussion
> here
> > in east/central Europe, especially if I view the Academic system all
> across
> > Europe as a shared pool of researchers, not to mention
> > 'international researchers in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and
> > STEM' as written on the website https://www.lexacademic.com/team/.
> >
> > Historically here in central/east Europe, the working class had better
> > access to Academia under the Soviet Union than the privileged ones
> before.
> > It happened for not even a very short period of time, which might affect
> > today's situations as well. Therefore coming from a working-class family
> is
> > not much an exception here, although I see some differences in
> disciplines
> > such as medicine etc. From my personal experience, 'not having the
> > background, and thus understanding of culture and politics that so many
> > take for granted' sometimes brings advantages for not having constraints
> > and it supports my freedom of choices. Not to misunderstand my addition
> to
> > the discussion, it wasn't easy, wasn't granted to be part of Academia
> just
> > to come from the working class, lots of hard work, economic difficulties
> > sometimes to the extreme, cultural misunderstanding my choices in the
> > personal environment etc. I am speaking from personal experiences. As I
> see
> > it, it wasn't an exception while it also wasn't a traditional academic
> > pathway, more like a shared experience with others here. I can not agree
> > more with Dr Paul Craddock’s article ' I’m now an Early Career
> Researcher,
> > but I have never succeeded by going through the front door.'
> >
> > My intention here is to add some views into the discussion that relate
> > closely to the working-class and maybe it can support to see diversity
> and
> > an interesting comparative experience exists now. I would love to discuss
> > it more.
> >
> > Warm regards,
> > Renata
> >
> > _
> >
> > MOME tárgyalkotás alapképzési szak szakvezető I The Head of the Object
> > Design BA programme
> >
> > Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest | https://mome.hu/en
> > +36 30 317 5363 | http://renatadezso.com/
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2022 08:59:24 +0000
> > From: "Mariana F. Braga" <[log in to unmask]>
> > Subject: Re: ‘Coming out’ as working class in academia
> >
> > — snip —
> > This is a complex and necessary discussion.
> > I would love to discuss it more as well.
> >
> > With best wishes,
> > Atenciosamente,
> > Cordiali saluti,
> >
> > Mariana Fonseca Braga
> > https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariana-fonseca-braga/?locale=en_US
>
>
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