What do we do now? Reflecting on pathways in and beyond the academy for early-career feminist scholar-activist-practitioners

Dr Diti Bhattacharya, Dr Nilmini Fernando, Dr Kristy Yeats

What was this event?

This event aimed to foster a critical discussion of the tricky career dilemmas of feminist scholars — those who seek to disrupt, transform, and imagine new worlds. Yet academia can be precarious, exhausting, or simply not the right fit. This event aimed to explore ways to craft livelihoods that might sit beyond the university, to support HDRs and ECRs hoping to pivot or weave together more dynamic or non-traditional scholarly careers.

The following is a snapshot of the conversation with three feminist scholar-practitioner-activists, who candidly reflected on career pathways within and beyond the academy: Dr Diti Bhattacharya, AWGSA’s Vice President as Chair, and Dr Kristy Yeats and Dr Nilmini Fernando.

The event titled “What Do We Do Now? — Pathways in and beyond the academy for early-career feminist scholar-activist-practitioners” was organised by Jane Chen, Samara Kim and Thilina Madiwala, HDR and ECR representatives of the Australian Women’s and Gender Studies Association (AWGSA), following numerous conversations borne from their respective career dilemmas.

“The three of us came up with this event because we had our own conversations and they made us realise that we’re all grappling with some pretty tricky career dilemmas. We’re all at different stages of our career journeys and mulling over some tough decisions and transitions for post-Masters and post-PhD life. And as if the employment market isn’t tricky enough as it is, of course, as feminists, we also hold strong values and political commitments. We have a lot of questions around what kind of challenges or compromises that might mean for different career pathways, in different kinds of sectors and roles.” – Jane

Transcript:

Q1: Decisions and Transitions: Tell us about your current path. What influenced your decisions in relation to where you’re at now and how you made that transition following your PhD. 

[Dr Nilmini Fernando]

Hi, everybody. It’s just wonderful to see you all here, and thank you for inviting me to speak, and to share some of my academic journey. I hope it’s useful. I work in a lot of different spaces, and I have mostly carved platforms for myself—not always through choice, but necessity and the imperative to engage with radical/critical race and feminist analyses and approaches. Importantly, what I really wanted to offer today is to acknowledge these rapidly shifting times and try to inspire people. As feminists, we strongly support and ground ourselves in feminist ethics and principles. And, because many of us believe in these, in the political and social justice that we strive for, we want to put this to use in the world. So, primarily thinking of your degree in that way can really help. To ground ourselves when everything is changing. I just wanted to provide some pathways and ideas while acknowledging each individual trajectory is distinct. I’m not giving advice, but just encouraging people to ground in yourself, your ethics, your vision, your knowledge and principles.

I guess my post-PhD trajectory is so different. I embarked on my post-grad when my son was 9. I started off as a mother, not only that, a single mother, right through the whole journey. I dedicated my thesis to my son, in the acknowledgment I said, “This is in lieu of all the mothering tasks I didn’t do”. And, in my case, I had to move countries; I did my PhD in Cork, Ireland. I had to move back to Australia for family reasons and doing so, I lost all my academic and professional networks. Once I got here that really limited my entry into academia and which postdoc positions, I could apply for. People who were more successful at postdocs would travel; they could relocate to Europe, UK. Especially with what I was doing, which is critical race feminism and decolonial scholarship. Not much on offer in that field here, sadly. It is practised, but in silos, and not always overtly taught, let alone form the basis of a postdoc or a teaching position. I guess my career trajectory has been in and beyond the academy. I don’t say “out of the academy” because there is intellectual scholarly life beyond, and certain freedoms that come with that, so not to be too afraid about that. I research, I educate, I work in Women’s services. I call myself a pracademic.

Post PhD, when I was unable to get an academic position or was only straddling part-time casual bits and pieces of research and teaching, I joined a women’s organisation. It was there I realised that so much of the harm feminism wants to address in inflicted, takes place at the point of service delivery and policy implementation. Intentions, action plans and policy at the Not-For Profit sector can all seem beautiful at the top, but where it goes wrong is how it’s done- at implementation and practice level. People enacting them don’t have the theoretical knowledge. The upper echelons -mostly white- don’t have the critical thinking, and practitioners who may themselves be marginalised know more, have experienced more, but don’t have the support to develop it.

So, for me, I was the pracademic – someone who bridges. If you think of Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa’s canonical feminist of colour text, this bridge called my Back”, as a practitioner and researcher, I am the bridge across all those things. I consult, I do research, and my work focuses on praxis: ‘How do we embed and enact feminist principles, values, and theories?’ But knowledge is important. How can I share my knowledge? And that level of knowledge isn’t accessible to all. It is less and less so. I thought that was quite important to share. One of the turning points, I guess, for me was that I was lucky enough to spend time with Patricia Hill Collins in 2020. I was at the time VP of The Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association (ACRAWSA) and navigating the post PhD waters. She said, “Just keep doing the work, don’t wait for the funding, don’t wait for approval”. That commitment and ethics about ‘doing the work no matter what’. So, I make this distinction between work, careers and jobs. A career is one thing; a job is another. It pays the bills, you know. It is ‘the work’ I focus on, and I centre myself in ‘the work’.

A while back, I was being pulled in so many different directions. I just thought, this is too much, I’m being broken apart, and something had to change. At that moment, I thought, hey, Nilmini, whatever you’re doing [ consulting, researching, workshops], whichever sector you do it, you’re always doing ‘the work’. So, how about, rather than feeling pulled, centre yourself in the work and offer the same work through different channels. So that’s kind of how I have helped myself. To understand and define and ground myself in the work rather than the career. So that’s what I’m encouraging people to do… I’m not saying it’s a be-all and end-all, but it will help stabilise when everything is going to shit. Excuse my language.

So, the idea of carving my own platforms has been supportive. I’ve had to often make my way, as we all know, misfits, others, killjoys, you know, we don’t fit easily into these colonial, racial, patriarchal, hypercapitalist systems, and that’s what all the fear is about. Creating your own platforms that don’t exist is, for me, a way that I have forged ahead, and I create them for myself, but I’m also, at the same time, creating them for others. So, I ask myself… Anytime I feel like, I’ve got my PhD, I’m 10 years in, I’m not a traditional position, but I’m still in there, I’m still intellectually connected, I’m politically connected, a scholar, activist. I ask, what can I and how can I best put my knowledge and skills to work in these conditions, in these times, with which people, for the service of which people. Importantly, I’m also a Buddhist practitioner, so I’m really marrying the wisdom and the understanding of evolution. We can’t just ‘be there’ right from the start. We cultivate. Oh, one more thing that supports. Intellectual courage! Intellectual courage, moral courage, intellectual activism!

[Dr Kristy Yeats]

Thanks, Nilmini. I love the ideas that you spoke about, about grounding yourself in the work, and creating the things that you can’t see, that you see a need for. I’m dialling in from Wurundjeri country. Hi, everyone. My name is Kristy, my pronouns are she/they, um, I’m a white settler Australian, queer non-binary, and currently working as Principal Advisor to the Victorian Commissioner for LGBTIQA+ communities, which makes me a public servant, and I’ve been a public servant for close to 20 years now.

So my journey post-PhD, which I finished in my late 20s. After I finished my PhD, I needed a break from solo work, like many people. I think I was probably a bit depressed by the end of what was quite a long journey. I wasn’t great at self-promotion. I’d say I’m slightly better at that now, but it felt like that part of ‘making it’ in academia, I wasn’t confident in. I didn’t have any academics in my family as role models. I needed to be self-sufficient financially, and I worried about the precariousness of casual work in academia.

And, you know, solidarity with all of you out there, because I know nothing much has changed in 20 years, and that a lot of these problems are what many of you are facing now. I think 20 years ago, there wasn’t a clear pathway into academia, so that is what we’re here to discuss: give you some tips, share our experiences, and hopefully support you along the way.

I also moved for my PhD from Western Australia to Melbourne, so I guess I was also building my own networks, and that’s something I’d really encourage you all to do: build those networks with each other. Don’t just look for mentors and people senior to you, because in 5 and 10 years you will be the leaders of the future. Really invest in each other and support each other; go to each other’s talks, and go to in-person events where you can. I think all of that is really important.

I would also say for me, I guess I’m someone who benefits from a little structure, and I think I’ve found this through the public service, and I would really encourage you all to have a think about your own core values, strengths, what brings you joy, and how you want to spend your days. Because of these things, you know, can inform how you do the work, and the work can take many different forms. So I’ve had a few careers, but I’ve spent most of my time in public service, and I’ll briefly talk about that. In terms of my early transition years, I think I just really tried to stay open to different opportunities, avoid preconceived ideas, and try different things. The first thing that you try might not be the thing that you love, but it might lead to the thing that you love. One of the first things I think I did after my PhD was take a job in gambling policy, which was not, you know, where I really wanted to be. But then the job I got after that was in the legal sector, strengthening programs, working in Vanuatu with the Ombudsman. And that was a really fascinating role that then led to coming back and working in various parts of the public service, including with traditional owners, supporting them to be recognised as the rightful owners of Country, and implementing Royal Commission recommendations, including the Royal Commission into family violence here in Victoria. I’ve worked with 3 commissioners… We’re about to have a parliamentary inquiry into LGBTIQA+ hate crimes, and I’ll be contributing to that. So I think I would really encourage you all to stay open and see what happens… one step might lead to the next, and that’s basically been my experience. Some people have a 5-year plan. That hasn’t been my career, but I have built it bit by bit, and just being really open to experiences as they arise.

[Dr Diti Bhattacharya]

Thank you so much, Kristy. That’s so fascinating to hear. I’ll share very, very briefly about my experience. So I’m currently right in the middle of the academic system. And, I am someone who didn’t have the courage to think otherwise, and I admit it openly heartedly. And as a result, I’ve had my own set of experiences, and I think I’ll touch very briefly on the prices I’ve had to pay by staying in the system. What are the positive things that I learned, and what, I suppose, do those of us who stay in the system benefit from? I should talk about, you know, the sort of silent benefits, the silent privileges that enable us to remain in the system. I also arrived as an international student from India in 2013, and I completed my PhD on a scholarship at Griffith University. Then, after I finished my PhD, I navigated 3 years of unemployment with bits of work, small contracts in between, sometimes casual teaching, casual research assistance work for 100 hours, sometimes months, sometimes days. I’m sure all of you know the drill of having that kind of precarious work. I also had the start of my ECR period coincide with the pandemic. I mean, you know, the timing couldn’t have been any better. But, amidst all of that, I found my first job in 2023 as a postdoctoral research fellow in an ARC discovery project.

And the group of scholars who gave me that job, I formed a relationship with them at a time when I had no work, I was literally sitting at home doing nothing. I had no contract; I was unemployed, without a salary, for those first 3 years. And when your back’s stuck to the wall, one of the things that you do, that you sort of develop, is a strange kind of fearlessness. So I did not have a very good experience during my PhD tenure. You know, without going into details, my relationship with my supervisors was a bit tumultuous, and I did not, you know, reap the benefits of that relationship as much as I should have. And as a result, I found myself in a very isolated position, not knowing what to do, who to reach out to, or where I wanted to go or where I wanted to find myself. So, as a result, I really started from scratch and began thinking, okay, who are the people I want to associate with? And then reached out to them, emailed them, and told myself the worst thing that can happen is they’re not going to reply to my email, or they’re going to say, ‘hey, sorry, I’m busy’. That’s the worst thing that can happen to you. And through those, sort of networks that I forcefully created, is where I found the group of people that I still, to date, enjoy working with.

So, I made some sacrifices, but I was also very, you know, strict with myself around not compromising on the kind of feminist space that I wanted to be in. So, for lack of a better word, I would say, be selective of the kind of people who you want to be wrapped around you, because that’s gonna take you through difficult times. You want to be with people who will lift you up. And that’s a judgment that, you know, comes to you through failures, through marginalisations, through being on the sidelines, through not being able to get opportunities. But you will develop the skill of recognising what kind of space you want to create, and what kind of people you want to be around.

Second, at the 3-year mark, I also got married, which is wonderful, and my husband came and joined me here. And, up until that time, I was on a postgraduate student visa. After that, because he is in the IT field, I was able to get his citizenship very quickly through his profile. Why am I sharing this with you? Because a lot of the time, those of us in academia, you know, and a lot of people like me, people of colour, who you see in permanent positions, who have important jobs and ongoing positions. We valorise and talk a lot about the struggles we’ve had to get to that position. But we do not talk about the subtle privileges that occur outside academia that help us get there. So, you know, those 3 years I sat at home, publishing, writing, building my track record and citation count while I was trying to apply for postdocs. I did have a financial sort of stability in the form of my husband having a job. So, I think, this is more for those of us who are aspiring to be leaders, aspiring to be feminists that we hope people look up to, we must talk about how we benefited from the system. And we must not romanticise the struggle that we face as women of colour. Because romanticising that struggle often limits us from what Nilmini and Kristy just said, imagining ourselves outside of these spaces. So, I think as an international student who’s now, you know, living and working within academia, I think these are the two very, very important things that I wanted to point out.

Q2: Challenges and Compromises: Having made that decision, what have been the key challenges or compromises that your work, job or career has demanded from you? What has been positive about your career experiences, and what still remains difficult?

[Dr Nilmini Fernando]

Well, I can talk first about the structural and ideological challenges. The death of criticality. You know, the death of critical thinking inside and outside the academy. And that has an impact on how services are done, and, you know, there’s just complete erasure. That’s what I’m finding. More and more erasure of criticality in feminist thought. And to work and to tolerate working against the grain of capitalist neoliberal policies. They only allow you to tinker around the edges, so Kristy, I really appreciate what you do in that space. You know, to actually keep pushing, because some of what we need to do is radical, but we also need to do reform. So, all of these works are important to make change. So, understanding that is important too, that whatever you’re doing, you can’t fix it all. Let’s do what I’m doing.

But precarious employment, I mean, with a child. I can’t tell you what that feels like. I’m sure some of you know. Ruthless competition for jobs. Ruthless. So, it’s about what people are prepared to do. You just kind of think, ‘oh my god, they did that to get there!’ To get that grant or professorship. You know, taking countering violent extremism money. Fine, do those things if you have to, but don’t pretend that you haven’t done them, is what Diti was saying. Obviously, liberal white feminism drives me crazy, but on a personal level, being invisible, being overlooked, having your ideas co-opted. Grassroots is where all the good work comes through. All the evolutionary work comes from the grassroots, right? And then it becomes captured by institutions. And then the other thing is you publish. I did research. I did an 18-month research project, but then, I wasn’t in the white womens’ club. Research in the not-for-profit sector is considered grey literature; it doesn’t count as scholarly knowledge. It was innovative research on financial abuse and financial capability, really critical, using an intersectional lens, anti-capitalist, the whole thing was there, but nobody liked it, or maybe didnt understand it from the white western feminist lens. As you’re not in the white women’s club, all these white, sort of, middle-class women then setting up their own organizations and charity spaces, ride the wave, taking up the space but not always the radical actions and ideas that were developed.

I’m not saying they’re all mine, I got them from somewhere too, but then you never get invited to their panels or conferences. And so that was painful, very angering, you know… but the main thing is it’s not just white women, it’s women of colour doing that too. We are all trying to survive in a really nasty world. Nasty. Also the deskilling, the dumbing down was painful. We are educated We’ve got intelligence and education. The fact that you can’t have these conversations means we can’t evolve as feminists And that really hurt, and then I just thought, okay, I’m going my own way, I will stay in the game. Whether in academia or not, I create my own spaces. I go internationally, I do workshops, study groups with critical thinkers, and keep my finger on the world pulse, not just Australia. I think that’s something to really be aware of, because I can see that we all, especially as ‘others’, there’s much more radical work happening elsewhere. Yeah, I mean, I could go on and on, race, whiteness, everyday violence, I find them so challenging and painful.

And I suppose I have strong feminists around. Even if I don’t like them. You know, it’s not about, oh, I like you. It’s about picking the ones that… exactly what you were saying, Diti, picking the ones who will uphold the commitment. Then you don’t have to even be nice, you know? You just have to be committed. You could be, like, somebody I wouldn’t normally mix with, but hey, I’m a solid feminist, and these are my principles. So, having a little litmus test of what you will and won’t put up with. I sort of have my gauge around that, so I think that’s quite a lot, you know, of the challenges, and I’ve made compromises a lot, but I know I’m making them. That makes it much less painful, so you don’t fall into the fray. You don’t lose yourself in the journey. Yep, I’ve got to do that. Yes, I’ve got to be quiet in that meeting. Yes, I’ve got to get that… take that contract, because I need the money for my family. But what really works for me, the thing that really works… is the collective. This system forces individualism, so being collective in any way that you defy and refuse that. It can really help tolerate and journey through. We’ve gone through hard times, but people have gone through much harder times, you know, than we are now.

So, I think that, you know, the joy and the power of truthful existence. Stand there for and with the people you serve. You know, to be an authentic person, scholar, educator, activist, you know that you’re standing on the right side. The idea of feminist theory is so powerful. For me, it’s one of the most important theories around, you know, critical feminist theories. When you see them being enacted, applied, witness the transformation, and share that. For me, that’s why I did my PhD. And I would love a job with paid sick leave. Superannuation. I would love to be able to afford more holidays. I can’t always have everything. But I can have a whole bunch of freedom and humanity within what I’ve been given. And I think we ought to… and could live like that, yeah.

[Dr Kristy Yeats]

Thank you both, I completely agree. We’re all trying to survive in really challenging times, with wicked problems and protracted crises around the world… I liked what you said, about making compromises with your eyes open, and that sometimes, these are the choices that we might need to make. I agree with the need for solidarity and collectivism. I really seek to build this through my work, and through things that I undertake outside of work as well. I am actively choosing to work within the system, and behind the scenes as the person behind the person, as an advisor to a commissioner. I understand that’s not for everyone, but I do want to problematise the inside-outside-the-system binary a little. As a queer person, I reject all binaries, and would gently suggest that working for universities probably isn’t necessarily working outside of the system in some regards. Two, I definitely think there’s a need for many of us to be doing the work in different ways, and from radical to reformist and more pragmatic. Hopefully, we can work towards broader goals and shared interests.

Diti made this point, but I want to restate that we don’t all have the same choices to decide for ourselves, and need to make different compromises that hopefully ultimately align with our own personal values. But sometimes working outside the system might be a privilege for some who can afford it. Sometimes, others aren’t able and don’t have the same opportunities to work within the system, people of colour, people with disabilities. There are fewer people of colour and people with disabilities in the public service, for example. And there are, you know, programs in place to address this, but I just wanted to note those structural inequities that affect many of us when we’re making decisions and forging careers.

In terms of compromises that I’ve made, I want to first talk about a couple of things that I haven’t compromised on, so I was speaking with an ex-aid worker turned public servant recently, about her transition into the public service. She said she expected the public service to be working with people wearing cardigans and undertaking lots of meaningless tasks. She was surprised to find that it was more dynamic and collaborative than she expected. And I would say that that has also been my experience. And that being a public servant does meet many of my core values and needs. And again, I’d encourage you to think about what those are for you. So for me, it’s working with others, and obviously, this can take different forms, but by that I mean working with colleagues. I met Jane, in the public service. And also working with communities. I’ve always taken on roles that have involved a lot of stakeholder engagement.

I get to work on shorter projects than a PhD, which I really needed after that time, and lots of different projects. I feel like my work is meaningful in making a difference. I’ve got good working conditions and a reasonable work-life balance. I still work with academics, and I really enjoy this part of my role, so I wouldn’t say that I’m a practising academic, but certainly the skills are very transferable. I have a PhD in politics, and in terms of doing policy work, trying to solve real-world problems, they’re very transferable skills, and I think they’re looked on really favourably in the public service. And I would say it’s taken me a while to get there. Still, I’ve got a reasonable amount of autonomy in my role, which means I can do things like follow researchers, read articles and research, follow people on LinkedIn, and reach out to people. I’m working on a couple of projects with RMIT at the moment. I recently invited a couple of academics to a workshop between the Gender-Based Violence and LGBTIQA+ sectors, so it’s something you can do in government, but it’s… I would also say I probably do more of that off my own back, rather than being guided to do so in my role.

In terms of the compromises that I’ve made. I work for the state government, and that doesn’t mean that I agree with 100% of the decisions that the state government makes. But I guess, what I would say is, I feel like that’s a very high bar to set for an employer, and I would say the same thing might be true of a university that you choose to work for as well. What I would say, though, is that values alignment is so important to mental health and wellbeing for us all, and so what… What I would do is, if I felt I wasn’t aligned with the people in my work area or the projects I was asked to work on, I would definitely look to change roles at that point. I guess working in the public service, too, has meant I’ve given up more time with books and ideas, for more practical pursuits, so that’s another compromise I’ve made. However, I would still say that I read a lot and engage with books and ideas at writers’ festivals and conferences; you can still continue to do those things… maybe I’ll just leave it there for now.

Q3: How do you use publications, and other academic work, to position yourself outside of the academy? Does it “count” for anything when working in other sectors?

[Dr Nilmini Fernando]

I think they actually do count. I think one of the most liberating ideas is being an independent scholar. As trained researchers with a PhD, you can do your own research. I know you may not get paid for it through an ongoing academic position, but you can still publish. I think it’s good to keep publishing in academic journals, and sometimes co-publish, co-edit. I have done both from within and beyond the academy. Its such a rigorous process to publish in academic journals, your work may not come out for months or years. I’ve been really thinking about other forms of publication- I have a Substack for example. Think about other ways to publish your work, but if you want anything in academia, it’s all about publications and having a social media presence. But just know that only a few people will ever, ever get there. You have to work so hard at promoting yourself. So, don’t feel like it’s you, or your personal worthiness, right? Never, ever feel like it’s you. You’re entirely worthy. There are so few that get to the top, it takes time and as a feminist of colour especially, you work against the grain.

[Dr Kristy Yeats]

And just to add to that, I absolutely think, it counts, and you know, showing your research skills, as I said, are absolutely transferable to policy roles and other work, it shows discipline, it shows critical thinking, these are really important skills. It’s been a while since I’ve had to engage in academia, but I understand that the scoring system means that some publications count and some don’t. But, you know, I’ve got friends who are really, forging their careers in terms of being more of a public intellectual and engaging by being on podcasts or writing for journals that might not count towards your academic career, but I think it’s all building community, it’s building awareness and understanding of the areas that you work in, so I would, encourage you to think of all of that work as meaningful work.

But with limited resources, you know, we do all have to ask questions, about where we put our scarce energies, and some of that for me, when I’m feeling overwhelmed, and I know it’s really hard to stop, I’m a single parent with two young kids, I totally get all of the frustrations that I’ve been reading about in the chat. Sometimes for me, when I can pause and slow down a bit, I get greater clarity about where I really want to invest my scarce energies.

[Dr Diti Bhattacharya]

And finally, as someone who’s putting in my DECRA application, I’ve just gone through several drafts of my ROPE (Research Opportunity and Performance Evidence), which is really just such an embarrassing summary of everything that I’ve done, to quantify yourself, and I have to say, I am noticing that everything you do outside of just publishing in those Quartile 1 (Q1) journals or books, or whatever… More and more grants are also going to look at your real-world impact. Now, I know as precarious academics, that’s extra pressure. Because someone who doesn’t have a contract or is writing for free, and that pressure to show yourself somewhere in a podcast, it’s more unpaid work. Granted, but if you are feeling a bit bowed down by that constant, you know, being vending machines where you’re expected to spew out articles every 3 months, everything else that you do, if you can create a narrative around the purpose of the work, of your work, it counts, and it does have an impact. So also be very mindful about the narrative you’re creating. So, just from my experience of writing my ROPE… I was very honored to be invited to the Queensland Parliament to do an inquiry on volunteering work, and migrant women in volunteering is a big part of my research. And I was very embarrassed that I was called and didn’t sort of know what to do in that environment. It was a lovely Senate inquiry. It was a very interesting experience. But that sort of writing a report, writing a letter to the government, you never know what part of that outreach you do is going to resonate with which stakeholder, and you’re going to be called to sort of come and give your expertise or your knowledge.

So, if you’re inside academia like I am, if you do get these opportunities to sort of showcase your research and translating your research for the wider public, don’t miss it. It’s important, and it will value you. You know, that whole narrative of, look, I’ve got several articles in Q1 journals, that is slowly moving towards, at least I hope so, sort of more wider acceptance of, you know, the greater work that we do, and how funding should be given to people who can reach out to a wider audience, and not just at this sort of ivory tower of academics. So, very, very important.

Q4: In universities, the PhD makes available higher level/more stable jobs; is there any stock placed in a PhD qualification outside of academia or is it only really valuable in the academic space in your experience? (skills aside, just talking about the formal qual).

[Dr Kristy Yeats]

It depends on the role and sector. It’s good to speak to others in the work area about this and seek their counsel about how you may be perceived (but also take their advice with a grain of salt). I’d say that it demonstrates highly desirable skills including critical thinking, research and analysis, written communication, dedication and perseverance. In other instances, you might be seen as over-qualified, or not used to working in teams, etc. I think knowing this may be the case, make sure that you emphasise the times you’ve worked with others in your application, and give a really good succinct three point answer about why you want this particular job and why you’re the right person for it. You can counter potential negative perceptions in applications and at interview.

[Dr Nilmini Fernando]

In certain roles if you are already established and have an ongoing role/visibility in the industry or organisation, a PhD is respected in executive/leadership roles in the upper echelons. It’s also the case for sitting on boards, although most board roles are about legal/financial/governance expertise. Subject matter expertise is valued. I have found it useful to frame my academic achievements through subject matter expertise/relevance. Also, as Kristy said, there are imaginary preconceptions and prejudices about what an ‘academic’ is, and the framing is vital- make the links between your knowledge on offer and the work at hand explicit. I also agree- people tend to speak/give advice from their own individual experience at the time they went through it. The times are shifting rapidly and pay attention to that just as much as what worked for others.

Q5: How do you navigate power dynamics and support yourselves and your well-being and survival. Would be really fantastic to hear some reflections on that.

[Dr Nilmini Fernando]

We’re living in an invisible interlocking power system, where racism and capitalism are invisible. Yes, we see the impacts, the materialisation of them. It’s very important to belong to a group. I am a big fan of feminist collective work. Yes, while you do have to pick carefully who you are confiding in, sharing our experiences with other women of colour, professional women of colour, with PhDs, really helps you to make those systems visible. So, one of the main strategies is to make it visible; otherwise, you’d go home, and you suffer alone, right? The systems so attack your sense of confidence, the de-skilling, when you can’t work to your expertise or skills, systems of capitalist, gendered racism are designed to make you just small. So, being with other people. Working these things out, taking a collective approach, and talking to and sharing your situation with people you trust are vital survival tools. Because you learn so much, and you really know, it’s not just me. So, it’s reconciling the individual punishment versus the collective. Bringing to light that, hey, this is the system, you know? And it’s not me, and eventually being able to push aside the self- blame in the absence of systemic accountability. Otherwise, you’d go crazy. Otherwise, you just put your head down, and you roll up and die. And I’m not gonna do that. And none of us wants the other to do that. So that love and the collective care… That’s what I mean as well, not just, hey, we’re all being feminist, and we’re flying the flag. We are going to be there for each other in a trustworthy, kind of agentic way that really respects our intellectual contributions, as well as the political conditions that put us in these positions. So, it’s a little bit about pushing back through the collective force as one of the things, I think, that could be helpful.

[Dr Kristy Yeats]

I completely agree with you. I couldn’t have said that better. Yes, the only way forward is together, and peer and community support is so important. If I can add to that point, I would say I’m in a lived-experience role in government. I work with a queer team rolling out equality policy across Victoria. LGBTIQA+ specialist services are essential for our communities. But something I also think about a lot in my role is how to build solidarity across identity-based communities. One of the criticisms of government is that it can be very siloed. We work in ‘portfolio areas’ (LGBTQIA+, multicultural, youth, older people, people with disability), and that doesn’t reflect the beautiful diversity of our communities. And so many (all?) of us hold multiple identities. So, I try to think across identity categories too. Some writers who have influenced my thinking here in the last 12 months are: firstly, Ash Sarkar and their book ‘Minority Rule: Adventures in the Culture War’. Ash talks about the need for us to unite across identity categories against those with real power. And the need to interrogate what can then become cultural relativism – i.e. my lived experience is as relevant as your lived experience – with material analysis. Another is Torrey Peters, a fiction writer out of Brooklyn in the US. Torrey talks about how, as a trans person, she’s come to realise that being trans is a sense of having a set of feelings: you see yourself one way, and the world sees you another, and you want to close that gap, and how many of us can relate. I think about this a lot in my work. Minority and oppressed groups are all persecuted and controlled by different hateful stereotypes. And if we can look to each other, you know, look across those lived experience categories and recognise our shared humanity through shared feelings around this, perhaps this is how we build bridges and solidarity. We find common ground more broadly as well as in our own, smaller communities and sub-cultures. That’s another really important part of my work and something I seek to do in broad terms to build community. But, yes, I think in terms of challenging power structures, peer and community support is key.

[Dr Diti Bhattacharya]

Just as a final thought, I think a lot of the time, especially those of us who identify as women of colour and from, you know, various ranges of marginalisation. We are encouraged to call out and to speak up. Just remember that for some of us who are in the margins, calling out or speaking up also comes at a price. So, whether or not you want to call up, or you want to challenge the system, it’s completely dependent on your gauging of where you stand. That’s the kind of autonomy you need, and when you struggle, to sort of find yourself in that position, that’s when, as Nilmini beautifully summarised, your solidarity group. That’s where you go and confide, that’s where you go and speak. But be very careful about, you know, when and where you want to speak up. And this is not an encouragement to swallow your pain, but to be more strategic with your positionality. We have to protect ourselves. And that’s the most important thing when you find yourself in precarious situations like this, too. 

Q6: One nugget on how to practice self-care and self-preservation in this tormentful world that we live in, in 3 words.

[Dr Nilmini Fernando]

Well, apart from being with a strong, authentic, loving, creating community, creating things… My Buddhist practice of metta. Authentic non-ego-driven love. And generosity. That’s my secret weapon.

[Dr Kristy Yeats]

Go easy on yourself, go easy on others, assume goodwill. Rest is political, joy and play are political, it’s resistance. Make sure that you’re accessing all these things, and I think it also just gives us a bit more resilience to buffer the hardships and the challenges that we face.

[Dr Diti Bhattacharya]

Thank you so much. I really don’t think I should speak after those two wonderful nuggets of advice. For summarising some of the very, very difficult questions, and I’m sure we haven’t solved any of the problems today, but I am, you know, hopeful that we have created friendships and spaces of warmth. And care for each other, we feel that. Reach out to each other, and I sincerely hope that we can do so in the future.

And carrying on from that, this is really the essence of AWGSA. I hope that our future events resonate with this sort of solidarity and love, and again, going back to Nilmini, a non-egotistical helping hand, an olive branch that we can lend to each other. Remember, care is always relational. If you don’t give care, care doesn’t exist. So care is always about doing something good for yourself and others. So, we can create more events in the future with a similar feel and a resonant effect.

Speaker bios:

Dr Kristy Yeats (she/they) is Principal Advisor to the Victorian Commissioner for LGBTIQA+ Communities. They live in Melbourne on Wurundjeri Country and identify as a white settler Australian, bi+, non-binary, a proud single parent of Rainbow kids and a late-diagnosed neurodivergent. Kristy has 24 years of experience in the public, humanitarian/development and university sectors in Australia and Asia Pacific, and a PhD in History and Politics. They have worked in LGBTIQA+ focused roles for the last decade, building inclusion and supporting systemic change.

Dr Nilmini Fernando (she/her) Nilmini Fernando is a Sri Lankan Australian transdisciplinary feminist scholar, researcher, educator, and pracademic with expertise in Black, Third World, postcolonial/decolonial feminism and racial literacy. Holding a PhD in Women’s Studies from University College Cork, Ireland in 2016, she is increasingly recognised for her work in applying decolonial/critical feminist of colour knowledges to bridge theory and praxis in and beyond the academy. Her interests are to develop critical feminist pedagogies and research/praxis methodologies that enhance decolonial paradigms, move beyond ‘giving voice’ or ‘increasing visibility’ to unsettle coloniality and dominant powers.  As Senior Research Fellow at Griffith University, she co-edited the publication  Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies with Prof. Debbie Bargallie, and educates and consults  within the Women’s sector (particularly Gendered Violence /Domestic and Family Violence), multicultural services, community services and not-for-profit organisations. She has developed education modules for educational and professional development, policy making, and practice-based, context-led applications of racially literate intersectionality. Her public work creates platforms for feminist of colour work through creative and performance projects that have included Loving Feminist Literature, Seat at the Table and Incantations. She publishes and performs poetry as The Blue Sapphire. She is the proud mother of a young adult son who is currently living it up in London.

Dr Diti Bhattacharya is an emerging leader within human geography with a focus on the study of leisure studies, migration, and sporting cultures. Diti is a Research Fellow in an ARC Discovery Project with the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University. Her research interests include fitness cultures, sporting geographies, migration, heritage and mobilities. She is currently investigating the ways in which sporting practices and fitness cultures can be used as a social conduit through which marginalised communities experience a sense of belonging and community in Southeast Queensland. Diti is recognised for her interdisciplinary research on women, physical cultures, migration and belonging. Her research has advanced novel theoretical and conceptual frameworks for addressing new challenges arising from the increased attention on migrant women, intersectionality, belonging and leisure activities. Trained as a human geographer Diti specialises post human critical feminist theories, non-representational theory, mobilities and affect and in her work. Her work aims to bring a fresh and intersectional lens on the development of critical postfeminist analysis in the fields of leisure studies, migration and mobilities, specifically within the Australian context. Diti’s research has been published in top-ranking academic journals, including Australian Geographer, Social and Cultural Geography, International Journal of Heritage Studies.

Organising Committee bios:

Samara Kim (she/her), PhD Candidate, Flinders University

Samara, also known as Soo Im (수임) and Ji Yoon (지윤), is a researcher, writer, and community organiser living on stolen Gadigal and Wangal lands. She is a PhD candidate at Flinders University, whose research focuses on race, whiteness and forced displacement with a particular focus on transracial–transnational adoption – a personal and political topic. With a background in international development and grassroots advocacy, her work bridges decolonial feminist theory, diaspora solidarity, and intercultural praxis. Her current research also explores the racialised aspects of dignity among African Australians and has contributed to the development of the Racial Dignity Framework (RDF). Samara is also a founding member of KADS Connect, an adoptee-led collective advocating for the rights of Korean adoptees in Australia – calling on the Australian government for a full inquiry into illicit and illegal adoptions to Australia.

Jane Chen, PhD Candidate, University of Melbourne

Jane Chen (she/her) is the daughter of Hokkien-Chinese immigrants, born and raised as a settler on unceded Wurundjeri lands. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, where she is exploring how the concept of intersectionality is (and is not) understood, deployed, embedded into process and otherwise applied by public policymakers in so-called Australia. Professionally, she is a public servant, with expertise in gender equality policy, anti-racism and multicultural affairs, and strategic planning. She is also a writer, public speaker and non-executive director, and has held various advocacy and advisory roles across the youth and multicultural sectors. 

Thilina Madiwala

Thilina Madiwala (she/they) is a Sri Lankan feminist peacebuilder, an accredited mediator in Australia and a Post-Graduate in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Queensland. She is AWGSA’s ECR representative. Her undergraduate dissertation was on the impact of NGO-based Microfinance on women-owned small businesses and the socio-economic aspect of their households in Sri Lanka. Her Master’s Thesis was on Feminist Visual Politics of Tamil Women’s Online Contestations of Memorialisation in Post-War Sri Lanka based on which she presented a paper at the AWGSA conference in 2024. Before arriving in Australia in 2022, she was a founder-director of a Sri Lankan registered women’s organisation, a freelance trainer, facilitator, researcher, counsellor, fundraiser, a lobbyist and an activist for gender justice for over a decade. She continues her online activism through #WeVoice (a facebook group) for women-in-all-their diversities to voice their lived experiences. Currently, as a South Asian feminist peace activist, she is an alumni member and serves on the boards of various Sri Lankan, South Asian, Australian and international member-based peace movements and organisations. Her research interests are on intersectionality, militarised masculinities, First Nations women’s access to justice, feminist peace research, post-war memorialisation, conflict-related sexual violence, and visual politics of women in non-violent resistance. In her spare time, she writes feminist poetry and does street photography.