My previous connection to AG Queer STS
Author in the Queer-STS-Forum #7: Strong reflexivity and vulnerable researchers. On the epistemological requirement of academic kindness. https://queersts.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Forum-7-2020-25-38-Ploder.pdf
Spreading Like Wildfire: Visions for Queer-Feminist Academia
How I became involved with AG Queer STS/Queer-Feminist STS Forum…
Back in the winter of 2021/22, I encountered a call for a panel at the STS conference in Graz. The topic was “Towards Academic Kindness – Queer-feminist working cultures in academia” and I was immediately convinced by the call. I got in touch with the awesome Dani Jauk, one of the session chairs, whom I knew from our shared connections to the sociology department in Graz. I put forward an abstract and got the chance to be on the panel. The panel (and the audience!) at the May 2022 conference were full of great people who felt that academia could and needed to do better than it currently does. We developed visions for kinder working cultures, and I started to see that there is a strong political community outside of my department, my research interests, and other academic connections. I realized that this community is important to me, to others, and to academia as a whole.
What happened since my contribution…
I had a blast turning my conference presentation into a paper for the Queer-STS Forum. The editorial team of the Queer-STS Forum showed me how a thorough, thoughtful, and kind review and editing process can go. I learnt a lot from you, and I hope that my own reviewing and editing style gets closer to yours every day.
The idea of kindness filled a conceptual gap in the work on strong reflexivity that my colleagues Angela Kühner, Phil C. Langer and I are doing for several years. Everything I wrote later on is connected to it somehow, and there is no taking it back.
Thinking about the future from a queer-feminist perspective, I…
…am convinced that we need to create more alternative spaces for research, teaching, and scholarly community beyond academic institutions. A lot of the current structures in academia are broken and hard to repair. To keep doing our scholarly work and thrive as scholars and people, we need structures that allow us to grow. And we’ve got to build these structures together.
My personal wishes to the AG Queer STS / for the Queer-Feminist STS Forum…
I hope your work gets more visibility and impact every year. May your spirit spread throughout academia like a wildfire. May your lives and work be filled with inspiration, happiness, health, and good relationships – academic and non-academic. Cheers to many more decades of queer-feminist STS!