Reflections From the Feminist Methodologies Early Career Researcher Panel

by Dr Kayleigh Charlton

Kayleigh is a Research Associate based in the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) at the University of Strathclyde. Kayleigh is currently working on a Nuffield-funded project titled ‘Challenging Justice Inequalities: Co-producing Change with Children in Conflict with the Law’, working with colleagues in CYCJ, Education and CELCIS.

Every year, the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science and the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities run the Spring into Methods workshops, inviting applications from doctoral students across Scotland. As part of the Feminist Methodologies Spring into Methods workshops this year, hosted at Queen Margaret University, I took part in an Early Career Researcher (ECR) panel. The Feminist Methodologies workshop was initiated by Strathclyde, and is now run collaboratively with partner institutions, this year between the University of Edinburgh, University of Stirling and Queen Margaret University. Throughout the two workshop days, there were a range of rich and interesting talks, including zine making, drawing and generative listening. Instead of a predefined talk about a specific method, the ECR panel offered an opportunity for doctoral students to be in direct conversation with Early Career Researchers who are doing feminist work.

The panel was chaired by Professor Yvette Taylor, who opened with a quiz for the audience. Yvette prefaced the quiz by saying that there were no right answers. Rather, the quiz served as a tool to get the audience thinking about the definition of an ‘ECR’ - what exactly is an ECR? Someone in their first paid employment? Someone 5 years post-PhD? Or perhaps, a forever status? Then the question came: what does it mean to have an ‘established career’ status? Is it reaching your first permanent academic post or, said with a smile, when you get to retire? These questions led to a poignant opening remark about academic precarity and how we, a panel of ill-defined ECRs, manage and negotiate academic precarity.

I reflected on being a working-class kid from Edinburgh and not expecting to go to university in the first place. I shared the story of how I came to study Psychology and Sociology BSc at QMU. After trying to leave school in my final year, and one teacher refusing to sign the permission slip, she sat me down and helped me apply to university courses I might be interested in. My grades weren’t great, but I knew I could get what I needed If I stayed for another year. I moved from my undergraduate straight into my Masters’, and then immediately into my PhD. By the time I started my PhD (a fully funded position), I was earning more money than I had anticipated I would in my life and so I shared that sometimes I forget that academia is in fact considered so precarious. In other words, what is precarious to one person is security to another. But now, age 28, in my first postdoctoral role and with a mortgage to pay, I recognise how my life has changed and how that precarity, despite my working-class mindset (but also, because of that?) does impact my decisions and does scare me a little bit.

As we move along the speakers, a similar theme of gratefulness for a career in academia, reflections on becoming an ‘accidental academic’, the ability to pursue our intellectual curiosity, and our joy of realising we can in fact do ‘it’ was evident. Despite this, the panel collectively return to the fear of ‘what’s next’. One of the panellists reflected on the difficulties of doing feminist and queer research in a time of renewed scrutiny over LGBTQ+ rights and reflected on her concerns over the direct attack on funding for research related to LGBTQ+ issues, gender and diversity and inclusion. The panel paused to reflect on how and where we continue to do feminist work amid this.

Following on from this, we talked about our feminist mentors, the people that introduced us to feminist scholarship and the people that continue to support us to this day. For some people, it was an undergraduate lecturer, for others, their PhD supervisors. It was touching to hear these stories and to collectively reflect on who introduced us to feminist work. Then, Yvette asked us what advice we would give to ourselves 5 years ago and what our future hopes are. Everyone on the panel was quick to respond to our past selves, with various versions of ‘trust yourself’ and messages of ‘you can do it’. Discussions about imposter syndrome or a general lack of self-confidence during our respective postgraduate courses/PhDs dominated. Heads nodded with agreement in the room. Others felt this too, many of them in the thick of their own PhD programmes. As we looked forward, we each had our own goals and ideas of the future but what was clear was our passion for our respective fields, our curiosity and our desire to keep on going. I was filled with gratitude to be in a room with others who are doing feminist work, those who will make space, whether in the academy or not, to continue doing this.

In all, the panel offered a fruitful, varied and captivating discussion about what it means to be an ECR, our introduction to feminist work, and importantly what our hopes and goals for the future of this work are. So, while the definition of an ECR is still up for debate, we can reframe it, perhaps, as a space of becoming. It is the shared stories, quiet nods of recognition, the determination to keep going, and dedication to not give up that binds us together as a community of feminist scholars, regardless of career stage and contract type.

Published 03/06/2025