Writing Through Tears: Women, Grief and Hope in the Academy

Cecile Badenhorst; Heather McLeod; Abena Omenaa Boachie; Bahar Haghighat; Julia Halfyard; Haley Toll

doi:10.25071/1916-4467.40778

Authors

Cecile Badenhorst Memorial University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8089-155X
Heather McLeod Memorial University
Abena Omenaa Boachie Memorial University
Bahar Haghighat Memorial University
Julia Halfyard Memorial University
Haley Toll Memorial University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9683-471X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25071/1916-4467.40778

Keywords:

grief, loss and hope in universities; academic subjectivities; academic identities; neoliberalism in universities; women in academia; COVID pandemic

Abstract

Grief shatters the body, at once collapsing inwards while simultaneously tearing apart. Is there room for grief in the neoliberal academic body? Is there space for small everyday losses as well as large life-changing losses? What do we do when our workspaces silence our grief? As academics, we are subject to a competitive, pressurized working culture resulting in increasing stress, anxiety, exhaustion. We have also experienced a devastating global pandemic. Yet, grief and loss are not emotions we readily acknowledge in our workspaces. Inspired by Shelton and Sieben (2020), we focus on this very topic and emotion, which has affected us in different ways. We bring grief (deep sorrow from death or loss) centre-stage as a way of speaking-back, stepping away from the competition and the success narratives. We use Hendry et al.’s (2018) notion of narrative as being which shifts methodology from a mode of production to a way of being in the world. Our narratives show that loss, even while experienced individually, is felt communally. Grief matters and in writing about grief, we resist neoliberal knowledge, an act which gives us hope.

Author Biographies

Cecile Badenhorst, Memorial University

Cecile Badenhorst MA (UBC), PhD (Queen’s) is a Professor in the Adult Education/Post-Secondary program, Faculty of Education, at Memorial University. She conducts research in the areas of doctoral education, doctoral writing, graduate writing, thesis/publication writing pedagogies, academic literacies and faculty writing, and engages in arts-based and post-qualitative research methodologies.

Heather McLeod, Memorial University

Heather McLeod MA (SFU), PhD (UVIC) is a professor (arts education) in the Faculty of Education at Memorial University. She previously served as Associate Dean. She is Director of Publications, Canadian Society for Education Through Art (CSEA) and has won national, university-wide and faculty teaching and curriculum development awards.

Abena Omenaa Boachie, Memorial University

Abena Boachie is a doctoral candidate at Memorial University, specializing in Art Education. Abena holds a BA. in Communication Design and a MPhil. in Art Education. She is the managing editor for the Canadian Review of Art Education (peer reviewed). Her interest in art-based research includes visual arts, studio pedagogy and art hives.

Bahar Haghighat, Memorial University

Bahar Haghighat works as an international student advisor and intercultural trainer in the Internationalization Office with Memorial University. Bahar got her master’s from MUN in Education. For her research project, drawing on her own experience as a fat woman, she discussed the importance of including weight-based oppression in multicultural counselling education.

Julia Halfyard, Memorial University

Julia Halfyard is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education of Memorial University and also works in Student Affairs. As an established professional actor and singer, Julia’s passion for beauty and community building through music and singing influences her work, studies, community and home.

Haley Toll, Memorial University

Haley Toll, Ph.D. Cand., CCC, RCAT, RP (inactive) is the Editor in Chief of the Canadian Art Therapy Association Journal, Canadian Art Therapy Association Past President, and Ph.D. Candidate in the Faculty of Education at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She is a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Doctoral Award Recipient (2019).

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Writing Through Tears: Women, Grief and Hope in the Academy

Authors

DOI:

Keywords:

Abstract