The Doctoral Journey as an Emotional, Embodied, Political Experience: Stories from the Field

The Doctoral Journey as an Emotional, Embodied, Political Experience is the first text of its kind to capture stories of involvement in doctoral journeys from students, supervisors, and examiners. Drawing from experiences across a variety of disciplines in the social sciences, medical sciences, education and the humanities, these stories share a keenness to demonstrate the ways in which this journey is emotional (rather than detached), embodied (rather than separated), and political (rather than having no relationship to politics). The journey metaphor is often adopted to describe and explore the PhD process. However, this journey is usually only seen from the perspective of the doctoral candidate. This implies that it is only the student that learns, develops, and reflects. This is clearly not always (maybe never) the case. The suggestion that the candidate ‘learns’ whilst the supervisors ‘teach’ harks back to traditional masculinist educational approaches and neglects the reciprocal knowledge-sharing process between student and supervisor. Similarly, the prescription that relationships between all concerned remain ‘professional’ and removed, rather than in any way intimate, suggest an unrealistic acceptance of an scientific, detached objective agenda rather than an emotional, embodied, political, and holistic approach to research. The contributions to this book extend the journey metaphor to additionally consider the experiences of supervisors and examiners, including the joint, collaborative journey of the ‘team’ (the candidate, their supervisors, and their examiners). This provides a challenge to traditional understandings of the doctoral process and offers implications for future reflection and practice. This book is therefore an invaluable resource for doctoral students, supervisors, examiners, and readers interested in pedagogy and educational practice. Review 'The contributors to this book take the idea of the doctoral journey seriously, a journey that is generally undertaken without a map or compass and with only a vague idea of the final destination. The doctoral journey is not simply an intellectual process but also a personal and emotional one, for all participants and for their friends and families, and supervisors and students, jointly and separately, engage in autobiographical reflections on their experience of that journey. Contributors highlight the power and uncertainty inherent in the supervisory and research relationships and document the emotional issues that arise in the handling of those emotions. A diversity of journeys is explored, including those in which the destination changes as the journey proceeds and, in some cases, is never reached. These are fascinating, thoughtful, and highly personal accounts that identify the problems and footfalls of the doctoral journey, but in highlighting its joys and elation show what the doctoral journey could and should be like.’ John Scott CBE, Emeritus Professor, University of Plymouth, UK 'Perhaps this book is the missing link in our bid to define best practice higher degree supervision. Privileging emotions and the emotional, usually regarded for all too long as antithetical in academia, this text speaks with candour to the actuality of many, many doctoral practices, from both supervisor and candidate perspective. Finally, an in-depth reality check. Excellent notions to interrogate, long overdue.' Sue Joseph, Associate Professor, University of South Australia 'The relationship between the student and the supervisor(s) is at the heart of the PhD process. This insightful volume consists of narratives, often authoethnographic accounts, which explore the emotional, political and embodied aspects of this relationship through the metaphor of a journey. A great strength of the book is that many chapters incorporate the experiences of both supervisors and supervisees, as they reflect on the difficulties and rewards of the process