TY - JOUR
T1 - ‘Homeliness meant having the fucking vacuum cleaner out’
T2 - the gendered labour of maintaining conference communities
AU - Burford, James
AU - Bosanquet, Agnes
AU - Smith, Jan
PY - 2020/1/2
Y1 - 2020/1/2
N2 - This article extends examinations of the gendered nature of care and service in academia, with a particular focus on the labour of maintaining conference communities. Utilising empirical data from a cultural history of the International Academic Identities Conference, we draw on interviews with 32 conference organisers, keynote speakers and participants to explore the gendered dynamics of reproducing conference communities. While some participants experienced exclusions, most participants described a conference that felt caring, welcoming and like ‘home’. Following this discussion, we interrogate the idea of the conference as ‘home’, asking questions about the gendered division of ‘academic housekeeping’ practices that underpin such home-making. Engaging with feminist theorising of emotional labour, we argue that academic women undertook significant, and often hidden, care and service labour to maintain a homely conference community.
AB - This article extends examinations of the gendered nature of care and service in academia, with a particular focus on the labour of maintaining conference communities. Utilising empirical data from a cultural history of the International Academic Identities Conference, we draw on interviews with 32 conference organisers, keynote speakers and participants to explore the gendered dynamics of reproducing conference communities. While some participants experienced exclusions, most participants described a conference that felt caring, welcoming and like ‘home’. Following this discussion, we interrogate the idea of the conference as ‘home’, asking questions about the gendered division of ‘academic housekeeping’ practices that underpin such home-making. Engaging with feminist theorising of emotional labour, we argue that academic women undertook significant, and often hidden, care and service labour to maintain a homely conference community.
KW - material feminism
KW - identities
KW - qualitative interviews
KW - higher education
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074470894&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09540253.2019.1680809
DO - 10.1080/09540253.2019.1680809
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85074470894
SN - 0954-0253
VL - 32
SP - 86
EP - 100
JO - Gender and Education
JF - Gender and Education
IS - 1
ER -