Rising from the Research Fringe: A PhD Saga

In this fourth episode of season 6 of the Mawazo Ideas Podcast, the team explores how women scholars pioneer, research, and generally exist on the margins of academia.

 Scholars explore the gendered experiences of women academics through the feminist intersectional lens. The discussion focuses on sexism and misogyny within the academy and other critical intersecting identities like race, ageism, and disability which create and reproduce structural inaccuracies, impede academic freedom, and sustain structural marginalization of African women academics (Phaswana-Mafuya, 2023; Tamale & Onyango, 1997; Sougou et al. 2022; Madikizela-Madiya & Mkhwanazi 2024). For women doctoral candidates, advisory relationships, childcare for student mothers or lack thereof create a world of difference between who succeeds, who merely survives, and who abandons the academy altogether (Tsephe, 2021), and as Mose (2019) observes, such structural inequalities have a ripple impact on women professors who often shoulder the bulk of the care work by directly supporting their own families, the students, and their male colleagues. Finally, disability inclusion in the academy invites us to go beyond the physical infrastructure by considering the intangible but critical structures that foster disability justice and inclusion.

Join us, as we unpack the layers of gendered experiences and how the academy can leverage into the existing feminist work to create more inclusive spaces which will ultimately improve the quality of research.

Further Reading

1. Madikizela-Madiya, N., & Mkhwanazi, S. T. (2024). Academic identities and socio-spatial exclusions of academics with disabilities: A capabilities approach. Disability & Society, 0(0), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2024.2311357
2. Mose, C. (2019). Towards a (more) gender-responsive model of collaboration. Journal of African Cultural Studies, 31(3), 283–286. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13696815.2019.1633284
3. Phaswana-Mafuya, R. N. (2023). Navigating Academia: Women’s Stories of Success and Struggle - A Call to Action. UJ Press. https://doi.org/10.36615/9781776447497
4. Sougou, N. M., Ndiaye, O., Nabil, F., Folayan, M. O., Sarr, S. C., Mbaye, E. M., & Martínez-Pérez, G. Z. (2022). Barriers of West African women scientists in their research and academic careers: A qualitative research. PLOS ONE, 17(3), e0265413. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265413
5. Tamale, S., & Oloka-Onyango, J. (1997). Bitches at the academy: Gender and academic freedom at the African university. Africa Development/Afrique et Développement, 22(1), 13-37. https://www.africabib.org/htp.php?RID=163203989 
6. Tsephe, L. (2021). A capabilities approach to African women’s success in doctoral programmes in South Africa (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria (South Africa). https://www.proquest.com/openview/ce864c9591568b272a3ead50a1db85db/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2026366&diss=y

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