What is...Precarity in Academia? - Exploring Migrant Academics' Narratives

00:01.85

Polly

So welcome to the podcast laan and ol yeah and thank you for taking the time to join me today and my first question to both of you and it may seem like a simple and obvious one. But I do think it's an important and revealing question. Nevertheless is what drove you to bring this book into being who would like to start? Oh yeah.

00:27.14

Olga Burlyuk

Um I will jump in on this. Um, thank you for asking Pauline. It's actually nice that we start with that because that allows me to tell you and our listeners that paradoxically ladan and I never met in person until the book was almost finished. And that's not how you imagine academic collaborations to go. Um, so what happened is we met through our work back into thousand and nineteen I published my first effort at you know conceptualizing and put into paper my experience as a migrant academic and I published it in a journal of narrative politics. And a few months later La Dan's essay on similar issues also came out in the journal of narrative politics and I read it and it resonated on every level so I just googled her and sent her an email like dear ladan I just read your essay and I was so excited and thank you so much for writing this down. And I've sent it to all my ph d students and migrant colleagues and by the way here's my essay that I published recently maybe you'd care to read it and I'm thinking to do something about it because there are so many of us you know with these experiences that are completely unvoiced and therefore unheard. Ah, beyond you know, private conversations in the kitchens and such um and yeah ladan responded to yes I'm excited. Let's meet and we met on Zoom because it was in the middle of the covid lockdown we're talking. Yeah early, 2020.

01:56.40

Olga Burlyuk

And we were also based in different countries based on different universities and as you may know from the introduction we are based on different disciplines and departments latin works in sociology and I work in the political science and ir um, so yeah, we we just connected instantly and conspire to work on this and what's also um. Beautiful about this project but also maybe paradoxical is that um it was never really an academic project in a conventional sense in that we had no funding to work on this. We had no book contracts. We were basically sending out the ready manuscript like this is the book. Maybe you'd like to publish it. We had no fixed. Team or assistants to work on this. We had none of us had tenure actually at that point at the beginning of the book I was actually on the way out of academia because my poock was running out and I had no you know professorship position in sight. Um, so yeah, we just. Started working on this because we believed it was necessary to do it and it was worth doing and it was a good um way to spend our time to commit our time. Um and we just got started. Um, and yeah for for a year or 2 I don't know we never really counted how long it took us from start to finish but it was also a joyful process. So I don't think it felt like you know we would count every day a week or month it 2 guys and also we had no fixed deadline right? because this was not a project when the funding would run out. We didn't have to report to anybody on this.

03:24.42

Olga Burlyuk

Um, so yeah, we carried on and we carried on despite I would say unfavorable circumstances right? as I mentioned we started in the covid pandemic and covid lockdown which was a. Demoralize in time for everyone I would say but also not easy to meet not possible to organize author workshops and you know meet at conferences and stuff like that. Um, it was also a time when ladan has just started her new job and I was in between jobs. So for part of it I was unemployed. Actually. Um, we submitted the ready manuscript to publisher in the first months of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and I don't know if the listeners know but I I am from Ukraine and I work on you know Ukrainian International Affairs let's put it like that. So it exploded in both my personal and professional life. Um, and we got the reviews back in the first weeks months of the woman life freedom revolution in Iran and as people who have read the book might know ladan. He's from Iran so also she was you know personally and professionally profoundly affected by that. And of course the 2 of us and all of our contributors have had all sorts of you know, personal and professional circumstances and I think it just speaks to the ah to to the kind of great need for this book to be done and finished and published. You know the commitment we had as editors but also our authors.

04:48.90

Olga Burlyuk

Um, to do this and despite you know all odds and despite you know the yeah despite the circumstances. So yeah, it's It's a project on academic precarity which was a precarious academic project. Um, and I think there's kind of circular natural beauty in that. Um.

05:01.89

Ladan

Nothing.

05:08.68

Olga Burlyuk

And yeah, Lahan would you like to add on to that.

05:12.22

Ladan

Yeah, maybe maybe I will continue here but ah first of all I I want to thank you for having us are your pi cast and I guess this is just something that people say to be polite. But I really mean it that it is quite an honor to be on the podcast with you. Um. And yeah I think Olga explained what I usually call our love story very well I think our friendship and our academic collaboration started as olga explained quite accidentally soga seeing my my essay sending me an email but then there was so much willingness in both of us to. Connect and continue working together and I think that says a lot about academic friendships but also about what drives us actually so your question about drives and I think when it comes to specific drives I think for me there was. Yeah, there. There has always been two sides to the story. The first one is the kind of nice and happy side of the story which is yeah I mean I think I've always been into narratives I have a bachelor in literature. I grew up in a family where stories were part of our daily life. My mother was a great storyteller. She is a great storyteller and she is now in her sixty s and she has kept a journal diary I think for the for the longest time I think since she was 20 she journals every day every single day she never misses this It's really yeah.

06:37.16

Ladan

Magical, um, my father wrote poetry. Um and I always wrote things and then I kind of buried them in the drawer because I saw narratives as something that you know you you engaged with but but you don't put out and it was only after I moved to Belgium and became a migrant that I really felt this kind of. Urge to share that that story that I shared which oga read and reached out to me so this was ah this was a short um narrative called recyclening my emotions and it was about my and integration experience. The the quote unquote migration migrant and integration experience in Belgium. And ah yeah, magically that brought all and I together and I had actually seen so many other academics using narratives in their work especially in anthropology. But somehow that that was the moment I realized hey I can also bring together my academic work and my passion for writing stories. Um. So this was the first drive which also connects to the second one which is perhaps the less happy side of the story because this project was also born out of frustration and feeling unheard and the lonely experience of being a migrant academic and um. I wrote this in my chapter in the book which is called who deserves a chair when I play the idea of chair as a physical object that you sit on but also a symbolic chair at the table in the academy about how migrants still have to fight almost every day to be taken seriously and to have a seat at that table.

08:11.45

Ladan

And um I have seen this ah sense of frustration that I talk about in a lot of other migrant academics around institutional matters but also about their every everyday interactions in the academy and besides all of the you know the existing problems and precarities of migration. There's also such shortage of recognition as we write in the book and I um I also engage with this in my chapter complaints around migrantancy issues that migrants deal with are dismissed and sometimes even turn against the complainer. So you know you've got to be grateful. You are in this institution you are in Europe things are how they are you have to accept them as such and you know it's not the university's responsibility if borders are hostile or visas are being rejected just to kind of you know deal with it attitude so that was part of the thinking behind this book as well. Um, thinking of a ways in which we can make this migrant experience in the academy with all it's of course diversity known. Um to those who willingly ignore the problems that they see but also perhaps to those for whom these issues. Um. Around precarity caused or exacerbated by Migrancy in academia are genuinely not something that they are informed about.

09:32.21

Olga Burlyuk

But but but also I would also add for the migrant academics themselves to have a sense of community and solidarity because as laan said it's a very lonely experience I mean life is a long experience right? But um, you know to have a sense to recognize yourself in the other's story. To maybe have your story written for you If You don't have the audacity to write your own or if you don't if your precarity is so severe that you don't dare right? So I think this was also you know migrant migrant academics themselves were also an audience of. But this book and I think have a lot to to take from it.

10:15.77

Polly

Brilliant. Thanks so much and I'm I'm going to stick with narratives actually for a minute now and because you both sort of brought the the centrality and the importance of of the narrative as ah also as ah, an academic method right? as a way of getting at some kind of experience. Ah, way of communicating right to to an audience and you're really clear in the book about your choice to focus on on these narratives of migrant academics specifically. But. Can you unpack this choice for our listeners some more sort of why and I'd love to us to talk a little bit more about narratives and why they matter because I think coming from I mean Oa and I are sort of you know in I are in politics and political science. Um, alaan you you know you mentioned of course these are maybe more popular in in other disciplines like anthropology we you know we are increasingly seeing them cross into to I R Um, political science other social science disciplines and maybe we should. Introduce Some of our listeners to the to the importance the strength of narratives. So yeah, can you unpack a little bit why narratives and why they matter.

11:33.34

Ladan

Yeah, of course. Um, if if it's okay I can go first here and let me start by saying that narratives autonography and autobiography like any other methods have limitations and critiques. Um, for different reasons they are not generalizable. They focus on subjectivity they engage with theory in different ways and also like any other method there are good and bad practices in using narratives as methods. So we don't want to glamorize this this type of method. But having said that. It remains a fact that narratives contribute to um, the existing literature specifically on migrancy in a way that other methods just don't so to be able to tell human stories about precarity at the intersection of academia. And Migrancy with all the complex and multidimensional aspects of it explaining the context capturing the very material and embodied experience of being a migrant academic. We believe that narratives were actually a privileged way of delivery. And um, for me having taught classes on coloniality and migration and race these are topics that I teach I can tell you that that 1 reading that my students keep remembering is the one that engages with with autoeththnography so I assign for instance shahra hostavi's auto enography of asylum the the illegal traveler.

12:59.96

Ladan

And that is the the text that students connect to very well and I do really believe that this has to do with the fact that it it is telling it telling a story human story narratives are academically underrated while they have the potential to. Ah, be full of individual and historical insights contextual complexities but also theoretical elaborations and I do think that another ah power that narratives have is that they can counter the effects of what um I think in psychology and psychiatry. It's called psychicnoing. Which is really this unfortunate trait that human beings have that they cannot relate to or feel indifferent to large-scale events. So as the large-scale statistical events make make people numb whereas individual stories have the potential to raise empathy. Even if they are talking about that same phenomena that that is impacting a lot of people so surely we need to yeah have those large large scale impacts statistics. We need to know how common they are but we can also benefit from specifying what those events mean for individual lives and life courses. And I also think this is one of the reasons why? ah perhaps social media and influencer culture is booming so much. Um, campaigns that reflect on 1 person's story gains so much attention because yeah I I think we we both strongly believe that narratives can contribute to our understanding of.

14:30.50

Ladan

Issues in a different way whether they are now widespread or not by showcasing the issues and the underlying problems in an illustrative way and besides that 1 thing that narratives have is the kind of the affective aspect of things that they bring in emotions and that is something that. Ah, we have centralized in this book.

14:52.41

Polly

Oh yeah, do you have the.

14:55.95

Olga Burlyuk

Yes, yes I'd like to add on. Um I want to also say a few words on how we were what was the master plan from the start because when we met and we decided to know what we want to bring together many. Narratives by migrant academics. 1 of the decisions we had to make is how many are we talking and early on we decided that we wanted to give the opportunity to as many voices as possible and that's why we worked with more narratives of a shorter length rather than. Fewer narratives of a longer length right? So the reader who will go to read the book will see that there is 21 22 chapters I believe by accordingly 22 people who are all. you know speaking from very diverse positionalities we have people from different academic disciplines from different stages of academic career we actually have people who have you know acquit academia or return to academia after having quit it. We have people representing. Let's say representing. Of course it's not representative. It's not sampling in their kind of posivist science way. But we have people speaking from different ah coming from different countries and based in different countries right? So there is this plurality of voice this plurality of experiences and.

16:17.66

Olga Burlyuk

Whereas as aladen was just saying you know yes narratives are strictly personal. Yes, narratives aren't generalizable. But yes, you do pick up on patterns you know patterns do reveal themselves even if if just each of us sits down and picks 1 aspect of their you know, kind of. Professional personal trajectory to focus on there will be no patterns recognizable. There will be systemic features manifesting themselves and there is a huge value in that now that was what we were going for when we decided to do this book in this particular way. But I'd like to add a few words on the power of narratives as it got revealed after the book was published right? because we've been receiving lots of feedback. I laan knows that my guilty pleasure is to check the website of the book I used to do it every week now I keep myself in check and do it every month but I check there is the statistics page where you can see where the book has beened downloaded because it's published open access and you can download a free copy. Anywhere and right now it's been downloaded in one hundred and twenty two countries I think there's like 13000 downloads besides the you know paper sales. We don't have the numbers for that. Maybe the publishing house does. But ah, you know we received lots of feedback and people would say wow this was super impactful. Just.

17:41.31

Olga Burlyuk

As a reading experience from fellow scholars. Not necessarily migrant scholars but also from scholars of migration. You know who would say no diversity statistics had this affected me. You know? So I think there is a huge power in reading the stories something that you know Ladane was. Begin to and I think in a way everyone recognizes something in the story. You know either. They were a participant or you know they were maybe an observer or maybe they've heard this from a friend. So I think it kind of connects the pieces in people's minds another ah.

18:19.22

Olga Burlyuk

But it wasn't you know I don't want to call it unintentional maybe it was an and and unintentional effect. But what we observed is that this book also has huge power as a teaching tool. We've been da Dan and I have been assigning. Well. Other people's work before we had our own published and now we refer students to this book and we get fantastic feedback from students. They say that you know they've been studying this concept concepts in abstracto now. They finally saw an illustration or. ve never felt seen before because now they relate to their own experience as a bachelor student and a master student. You know, even though they are not an academic but they are in this high education environment. You know they recognize themselves or they you know that they found this relatable or they simply found this understandable or touching and. Just an anecdote from last night last night is morning because I saw the email this morning. Um my outer ethnographic essay is on the required reading list for this friday so I teach a course on the european union and the politics of centralist in europe and on friday we'll have a class on migration. Yeah. And I have various texts on you know migrants within europe and mobility and migration and such and one of the required readings is my essay and I just got an email this morning from and from a student who who just wanted to share her thoughts and ironically probably she's from new zealand

19:48.49

Olga Burlyuk

And she said it was um and that she was struggling to kind of identify or relate to the conversations within Europe you know the east and west the north and south the different you know russianizations here iraqis and you know how to pick up on that because seen from New Zealand it's just europe and she's more familiar with the pacific context. But then having read the assay gave her you know a 20 page illustration of what we're talking about and now she can you know, appreciate and also relate associate to what she knows from her own experience in a completely entirely different context and you know part of the globe. So I think this is also something that we as teachers. Because okay, we're talking today as researchers and scholars. But of course we are also and almost primarily teachers right? and I think there's a huge power in assigning different kind of reading to our students just as a general remark. Thanks so.

20:46.17

Polly

And great. Thank you Both I mean so much discussion about sort of you know the way in which your book you know brings to the fore these shared patterns these systemic issues things that are made visible visible to people who Perhaps. You know have not experienced these things and I think that's you know one of the huge values of this book to to render visible often invisibleized experiences to to institutional power or to shall we say I mean I'm talking from a European context right? A European academic context which. Yeah, doesn't take the time um to notice these things and so you know in the book you're you're really clear to make the links between these different forms of precarity right? You know precarity I Think that's what's so beautiful about it. Precarity is is rendered complex right. Um, So for instance, housing increasingly and unfortunately increasingly structural material precarity of of the University and in ah in this sort of neoliberal context in which we live that of course fosters Job Insecurities Intersex with you know? yeah.

21:52.69

Ladan

Um, and then you need me.

22:04.47

Polly

These processes of neoliberalization these processes of sort of this notion of promoting resilience right? that everything would be fine if we just focused on our well-being and did um yoga with puppies. Not.

22:21.49

Polly

You can edit this out you did but that was actually something that the Ufo once suggested we did yeah edit that out.

22:24.74

Ladan

I got.

22:27.38

Olga Burlyuk

I If I if I may add my previous employ gant University was running in workshops on yoga in your chair. We weren't even supposed to get out of our chairs.

22:36.56

Polly

Oh no, we had that too. We had that too. Oh no, we had that too before you? Yeah yeah, we had that like 2018 there would be like Thursday lunchtime chair yoga session.

22:48.22

Ladan

I Mean just the unbearable whiteness of yoga. You know I'm just gonna leave that thought.

22:50.91

Polly

The unbearable whiteness of well-being yeah someone should write that. Okay, that's the next book right? If you if you want to do that I will totally I will totally offer a chapter I have a lot to say about this shit.

23:00.12

Ladan

Yeah.

23:01.64

Olga Burlyuk

I Um there you go.

23:05.79

Ladan

Really okay.

23:08.52

Polly

Oh yeah I mean somebody wants asking me if they could write a Ph D with me because they wanted to talk about this project that was about going to lesvos and doing yoga with refugees and I was like fuck off no because that's what they need. You know they don't need legal status.

23:08.68

Olga Burlyuk

Um, ah one minus one

23:17.36

Ladan

So like God Oh my God Yes I didn't get so direct.

23:28.51

Polly

They need yoga. Sorry oh I Love that that one's great.

23:28.76

Olga Burlyuk

A be a bit off of the of the track. But my favorite. My face is a there's a Facebook account called man who has it all anonymous call doing like yeah flipping the patriarchy and there was 1 you know I'm a full-time working father of 3 and just eating 5 almonds a day releases hormones that counter structural inequalities.

24:01.63

Ladan

Dip.

24:02.70

Polly

Um, ah yes, exactly oh my god okay back to the question that promotes resilience and various forms of racism and gender equality that I am sure have residents with many of our listeners in at least 1 or more ways.

24:15.80

Ladan

Touch.

24:20.57

Polly

Now if our listeners were to take 2 key things away from the collection of chapters in the book. The 22 chapters as as olier says what would they be and perhaps you could each provide us with 2 key takeaways.

24:29.45

Ladan

4

24:39.94

Ladan

I'm sure you're used to this poly but I will be the and the ultimate academic and say it it really depends. It's not this question is almost unanswerable because um, so even now after having edited the book and um obviously having you know read the chapters. Multiple times I still sometimes find myself you know learning discovering new things in the chapters and you know these are narratives and are very different from conventional academic articles that start you know with very set goals and and objectives and you know methods and so on. So. I think narratives can take you to places that that even the author did not necessarily intend you to end up in so I do struggle finding 2 takeaways I have to admit. But if I take a step back and try to remember our goals with this book before it was materialized. Um, I think we had definitely multiple important goals I will name 2 of them and then I will leave the rest to to oga. Um I think the first was um, an epistemological goal and this connects to what I was saying before about narratives. So really revealing the everyday. Impact of structurally caused precarity so making it really tangible because um I think luckily we are at a time in history where we do talk about gender discrimination misogyny racism power abuse and all kinds of contexts um, but.

26:12.88

Ladan

What that exactly and concretely does to individuals ah to an academic to their sense of self to their confidence and something that is usually quite quite and actually missed in the discussions to them exercising their academic freedom. Um. Power relations can impact the way that they that that academics actually feel encouraged to to talk about things to write about things. So in general how it makes them feel how it changes their life course. Ah, these are things that we don't always see in a conventional academic work which are of course. Very valuable again. As I said we're just talking about the added value that narratives have um so we believe that this was very valuable so this was one of our main goals and um I think the second was kind of ah in the lack of a better word. Um, the activist aspect of things. And I already did mention emotions answering the previous question. um and um I think this was also quite important for us. Um, we wanted to have this kind of activist impact in two ways and 1 was really to make an emotional impact. So um. When you read the book you you realize that these stories are sometimes quite quite moving. There are heartbreaking stories. There are shocking stories. There are also funny and awkward stories. So just to add that there's a lot of humor and this emotional impact even though we did not directly.

27:46.91

Ladan

Intended in this way but it has caused a lot of um, productive tensions I would say in departments and institutions to basically turn and have a good look at themselves. So we have heard stories from our authors but also from readers that our book. Has made a contribution to ongoing discussions or new discussions in their departments in their academic environments about power relations about problems and issues that they didn't think about previously and the second aspect of this activism was. And I think Olga and I are both quite sensitive about this one that we wanted to contribute to the normalization of narrative-based academic work so we really wanted to make a statement about what we think is left out of the academic inquiry which is first the emotional aspects the effective aspects. And the second narrative-based academic work so we really do see this volume and the correct people if they don't yeah, they don't refer to it as such as as an academic piece as an academic volume. Um, that eventually the question of. You know what can be done what what comes out of all of this work is I think an open question so this is not a book of solutions of course although we get the the question a lot and and we do really like to think with organizations with people about.

29:16.84

Ladan

Ways that they could improve their academic environments but eventually ah we don't see that the responsibility of the migrants or migrants stories to to solve those existing problems that are actually quite complex and require different kinds of yeah different kinds of solutions depending on the context as Well. So. Yeah, we provide the insights although not comprehensively and and we hope we hope that this yeah, both Ah, both as I said emotional and narrative-based nature of the book helps. Contribute to discussions in academic environments in a very concrete way.

29:55.33

Polly

Oh yeah.

29:56.79

Olga Burlyuk

Yes I have thought really hard which too for me Pauly and I want to thank you for allowing us to each not one each because and it is difficult to pick but I first want to add a recent example also to the point La Dane just made on activism to. Legitimized narratives as a methods in academia um, both of us are actually extending this to our other work and I just wanted to mention an example in December last year so December Twenty Twenty Three a special issue came out that I was co-editing with viosa ruslu. On the responsibility to remain silent question Mark you know the debate on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and in that collection of academic texts. There are 4 narrative pieces actually and it was part of. Our editorial policy to also you know make sure journal editors would accommodate that and in fact of these narrative essays too that are most you know, personal and biographic they actually went viral. They were trending papers in I r in the weeks that they came out both of them and. Why I'm saying that not that hey I'm doing cool work I'm only saying this hey there's huge demand for this. The readership wants it. The academic community wants it. We need it in order to understand other things and in order to contextualize other science.

31:27.71

Olga Burlyuk

So it's not only that this is you know, enjoyable to do or important to do but there is huge demand for this if we can tell anything you know from the from the the readership of our migrant academics book. But also you know from the readership of those. You know our technographic assets that I managed to include in the other project now on my 2 points. 1 point is something that we already talked talked about via via through other questions and that's um, you know the takeaway that I hope the feeling a reader gets having read this book that there is lots of. Labor being done continuously by migrant academics. It's often invisible to their institutions but also to their non-migrant colleagues and even to migrant colleagues who have different positionalities citizenship status in your cultural linguistic proximity. Ah geographic proximity to the place they're at. And by labor here I mean intellectual labor but also emotional administrative and physical and if poly not if I may elaborate if we have time to elaborate. Um, yeah by by intellectual labor I mean as a minimum migrant scholars are working in the foreign language It's often their second but sometimes. Third or fourth personally for me english is my third language right? and Dutch is my fourth and these are the working languages of my institution and I always have to think of Gloria character for modern family series I don't know if anybody's seen it, but there was this one episode where she loses it and she starts shouting. You don't even know.

32:58.16

Olga Burlyuk

How smart I am in spanish you know I often like have that but like you don't even know how smart I am in ukrainian um, but yet besides the different you know foreign language. There's also the intellectual labor of working in a context where different background knowledge package applies. I mean people have been taught different things at schools. They've been taught different. You know histories geographies literatures. But also you know train differently at their universities right? And yeah, just an anecdotal example I hate quiz nights I never enjoy quiz nights because I simply don't know the answers. And that makes me appear stupid. But I know lots of other things you know I've seen lots of other movies and read other books and I know other singers and you know and I appear stupid just because it's not my you know cultural package. It's not my standard knowledge. Um. And of course then you know the the intellectual labor of working in a different culture here iraqi you know, constantly picking up on the clues and cues and and things like that by emotional labor. The things that you know are kind of obvious to mention would be. You know the work of bouncing off the micro and not so microaggressions that are happening on the everyday and as ladan was saying part of our epistemological goal was to reveal the everyday impact of this right? and the you know the the work that goes into this but also the work of fitting in the effort to belong.

34:26.10

Olga Burlyuk

Providing support and care to fellow migrant academics because we tend to kind of click together and in whatever work environment, especially um, the fewer. We are the more we click from my experience of having been I don't know in five six different institutions. Um, and also the emotional labor of um. I don't know it will sound dramatic but you know processing the loss processing the loss of the life you had. Um, even if you didn't quite you know cut the ties if you didn't quite. You know if it's not even if it's and not ah a complete loss but there's still some grieving going on. And even if you were happy to leave you know even when it was your choice to leave and you were happy to leave and had no you know, particular pressures to leave even then it's a loss of life and imagine if you if this was not a free choice to begin with um, administrative labor. Think of all the visas residents permits recognition of diplomas and such and and then you know dealing with ah unfamiliar administration in a foreign language right? and this is the kind of intersectionality of it and the physical labor I mean just the sheer moving from place to place.

35:36.46

Olga Burlyuk

We've been trying to invite a scholar to write an essay. She's moved 26 times and when she was moving 27 s times she just put a picture you know on Facebook of her line on the floor like I can physically not pack I cannot pack anymore I've packed 26 times. Ah, right? The physical work of moving and doing that without you know your father and cousin and third uncle who put it all in the work when and when and took you places right? but doing it by yourself. So yeah, the first main takeaway is that there is a lot of labor being done. On the background for you but on the foreground for these people. So I'm hoping that you know this carries through and of course this labor can be exhausting but also demoralizing and depressing and we have ah anonymous contribution on the mental health struggles. And yeah I guess each of us could write. Something about that now the second takeaway which is in a way a mirror to that is um, sense of humor as a major coping tool and technique I don't know if it's a tool or technique. What's the better word. Ah. But you know we started with a book on precarity. We never had an intention to write a book on resilience but then having reading stories as they were coming in. We realized we need to update the title and that this is a story of resilience. Not in a happy way. But in a way like how do we cope with this How do we bounce back against this How do we.

37:04.63

Olga Burlyuk

Persevere and continue despite a lots. Um and I think a sense of humor personally for me but it so appears for everybody else as well because Humor is all low with the book. Um I think a sense of humor is kind of an important feature to have. And you know once the book got published and people started Posting. You know the impressions on social media One I saying I came across it really caught my attention somebody wrote that this is a book of funny horror stories and and I was thinking then that like yes, you know these are funny, funny horror stories. That's a good way to.

37:31.14

Ladan

Are.

37:40.54

Olga Burlyuk

caption the caption the book um so yes, they are very moving and touching and painful to read but at the same time you know there's lots of irony sarcasm jokes anecdotes in which you know. Through which people try to process all this. So yes, those will be my 2 points.

38:05.59

Polly

I This isn't a question and this is not going in the podcast but I the funny. The humor thing is yeah sometimes I wonder if I move to a country that doesn't have a sense of humor.

38:23.56

Olga Burlyuk

They are the funny ones you should try Belgium ah they really are really are.

38:24.59

Ladan

Feel my God yeah.

38:24.71

Polly

Written really because I think belgians I think belgians are more funny than dutch people. But maybe that's me I maybe I haven't spent enough time in Belgium but I remember arriving in Amsterdam and I was like what the fuck have I done.

38:35.80

Olga Burlyuk

They are kind of um between.

38:40.76

Polly

Like these people have no sense of humor like and I'd make a joke and I'm like it's a joke and then they got really offended and I'd be like oh my god like what and I don't even understand it because I met you people like you grew up watching British Tv like do you.

38:46.57

Olga Burlyuk

Like you need an aesthetics to everything. Yeah now.

38:53.42

Ladan

Ah.

38:59.12

Polly

Did none of the cultural stuff rub off on you like no anyway in yeah, there wasn't your mind's on silent.

39:01.69

Olga Burlyuk

You know, yeah girls since we're on a break somebody's phone is bieping is is that Laan could that be yours because mine is like on playing modes. No more just like it happened like it.

39:03.38

Ladan

And.

39:09.88

Ladan

Is it. At this very moment.

39:17.72

Polly

No, it did it before.

39:20.00

Olga Burlyuk

Once or twice before like to room to long and I see it did and I see Ju didn't go like like how will I add that up.

39:20.17

Ladan

Yes I think it was mine and then I put it on silent. Yeah.

39:28.38

Polly

It's a widow. So I mean we will manage doesn.

39:31.80

Ladan

Yeah, no sorry it was mine but um, but but now it's unmute.

39:34.67

Polly

Furniture. Okay, back to back to do I I mean I could talk about this all day I mean if this is not going to become a ah complaining about the dutch but session but it could be That's for an alternative podcast.

39:47.10

Ladan

And.

39:47.89

Olga Burlyuk

Group singer.

39:54.90

Polly

Um, okay so I'm moving to the final question now. So yeah, Eisa is a professional academic organization. We're a collection of so.

39:59.30

Ladan

Yes.

40:08.96

Polly

Scholars working on in and around international relations in Europe and as such I hope we try to provide support for and foster academic knowledge production and professional development. But I think what's so important from your book from the narratives in your book is that perhaps organizations like the eisa can do better right? So what's in your opinions or in your your your opinions there your opinions or your yours. Your expertise based on both your own experiences of being migrant academics. But also your experiences of editing this book. What can academic organizations like yeah eisa learn from the narratives collected in your book.

40:52.50

Ladan

A.

40:58.59

Polly

And what can we do better.

41:02.72

Olga Burlyuk

Um I will jump in with this if you allow me. But first maybe a remark it was never our intention to end with a manifesto. We are often approached by you know, diversity officers. So what should we do? you know What's the checklist. What's the action what are the action points and we always return to that like that's not our job. You know it's your job to read this and make something of it and we are happy to you know, have the conversation and think in each specific context because you know institutional and country contexts of course a right a lot but to to entertain the question and to think along with you. What could the. Yeah, say and similar associations do better differently I mean the first thing that jumps to mind is conferences as the meeting and networking points and actually ladan and I already took a minute to sit down and write a blog on this for conference inference platform earlier this year zooming in on how conferences transpired from the book. You know what were the different mentions. What were the different you know dimensions that they came up and a few things to mention. Maybe for the eisa and other listeners to this podcast. You know what could be considered. First would be to choose locations based on access and visa requirements I mean personally as a non-ehu citizen I simply do not consider conferences that take place in the Uk Ireland Usa and Canada because it requires half a year of paperwork and lots of money to get the visa and sometimes I'm simply out of.

42:30.83

Olga Burlyuk

Pages in my passport and so on right and often scholars are denied visas or visas do not even do not come in time you know, even if they are granted they are too late to make other arrangements or you know to catch your flight. Um, so yeah, and you know sometimes it's really a structural problem I have to think. I mean not so much for eisa. Okay, it's the study of international studies in Europe and it happens somewhere in Europe. Okay, that's clear, but there are for example, area studies in the field of you know centralist european eurasian post-sov studies and the 2 big conferences take place in the Uk and Usa you know the 2 big associations and I'm like you basically. Don't want any scholars of the region from the region to participate or even scholars from the region based you know in Europe because they would need different kind of paper right? So this is you know it's not only like a practical question. But also you know a st structurectural one. Um, another thing. To consider what to would be to provide funding support right? conference feevaors in travel grants I think all ofessations are trying to do this and you know with the limited budgets that they have you have to make choices. Okay, do I support. You know, early clear curious scholars. Do I support scholars from certain countries and so on but just to for the point. For the sake of you know, articulating this again. There are are huge economic disparities already within the eu europe you know you don't even need to look global. You just look in the eu europe um, ah you know the stories I hear from colleagues based you know and the universities and Czech Republic Poland Bulgaria they sometimes have 0 research funding 0.

44:03.94

Olga Burlyuk

Not that it's not enough to go to San Francisco it's just 0 total and they are like you know they they do these trips on their own expense. They have the money. Um, and then you know going global. Of course the the trend is the same or gets worse. Um, something else. That's ah, maybe not yet explored and. Um, has more to do you know with the power of western northern institutions in this is to allow people with budgets to pay for their colleagues. So for example, I'm not based at the very rich institutions. The university of amsterdam I have a generous research budget that I would like to direct. To in you know enabling my research collaborators from elsewhere to come and meet me at a conference but unfortunately it's not an eligible expense right? I could bring them to Amsterdam but I cannot bring them to a conference so that's maybe something that we could so think about you know each in our own institution. But also you know, setting up a trend. Setting up a trend on this um program selection right? but we can talk about this indefinitely. So I think I'll just like throw it in and and leave it there right? What are the valid topics. What are the big names. So what are the interesting scholars to have at the conference and you know why are some topics on the. Saturday the morning 9 am m slot and others on a Thursday afternoon and you know what kind of you know epistemic inequality and epistemic politics goes into that and finally general conduct.

45:33.74

Olga Burlyuk

Right? Yes, It's at the individual Level. We are each our own individual. But yes, also organizations and conferences can have their own kind of workout work environment or you know atmosphere and. And also you know through reading books like ours and similar and you know other accounts that are published elsewhere. You know we can all familiarize ourselves with those needs and just start to to be a little bit more more aware and not ask certain questions or you know not assume certain things and. I Mean this is already happening in the field of you know, gender and sexism rights and the the conduct at conferences, etc and we could extend that also to racism and other things. So yeah. La them. You want to jump in.

46:22.56

Ladan

Um, yeah I have to admit I am a bit hesitant about about talking about this because I'm not a member of your academic organization I'm also kind of yeah, not very close when it comes to the ah to your discipline. So all guys closer to you. um and because of that um I don't know what practices you already have so of course I know quite a few of you I know board members so I don't want to sound arrogant and you know prescribe things that you may already be doing so I will formulate this as you know things that I think perhaps all organizations should be aware of. Um, and Olga has mentioned some very important things I think what I can add or emphasize to this is first of all I think it is it really basically starts with not making precarity and afterthought. But making it central to the way that we we practice things from the very beginning whether it is you know organizing a conference or selecting members or board members or or so on and um. Yeah, speaking of memberships on board selections for instance to keep in mind but you know to representation aspect who gets represented who is left out thinking about membership fees ogar also mentioned the the kind of huge economic gap. Um, and I think yes reduced fees are already being.

47:48.69

Ladan

Practice by many organizations and I don't want to be very cynical by the twenty Euro discounts on one hundred and twenty Euro part ya membership fee is sometimes ridiculous. It's no way helpful for many scholars from the global south. Um, so we have to take inequalities into account in a realistic way not in only symbolic ways that would be really the first step and I would say the same thing goes for visa procedures and financial support. Um, sometimes financial support is provided up to a specific limit. But. Um, vis-a-fi can be astronomical for academics in the global south um visa fees for european countries I can tell you for someone who is traveling from Iran is equivalent to a month or sometimes two months of salary. So. Ah, we do keep you know we keep talking about diversity but we will never truly be diverse unless we are willing to invest and bridge the unfair economic gaps that exist between countries another thing that I was thinking about is specifically. About the current times and this defers of course depending on the period of time that your organization is you know, addressing issues. But for instance at the moment palestinian scholars are being displaced if not killed.

49:14.96

Ladan

Academic organizations can think about can think really seriously about different ways in which they can perhaps facilitate precarious scholars short or long research visits. Of course you know statements or um, pledging to certain um ideals and principles is good. But we really need action from organizations and of course this is 1 example of many things that can be done to um, alleviate a very small part of the pain that the palestinian scholarly community is suffering to at the moment and to um, perhaps um. Step away from the practical and think about epistemological aspects of things a bit more indirectly organizations can also um and again here I know many of you are doing this right because I know colleagues in aisa I know that very good work is being done but I'm using you as an example here. Um I think it is really important to also think about harmful myths or production of knowledge for instance in your case about europe what is Europe who is considered european and how sometimes scholarly work. Perpetuates the othering of different populations including migrants and I think lastly um I personally am inspired a lot by the work of Sara Ahmed regarding institutional injustice and complaint and I think our book is like 1 big book.

50:47.97

Ladan

Book of complaint and um I think really opening space in the organization for complaints and taking them seriously as productive tools is something that we can all do.

51:03.46

Polly

My goodness brilliant I I think we just ended there that was that wasn't that was it was kind of a manifesto and I loved it I I Love it.

51:17.97

Ladan

Um, we eventually we eventually wrote and.

51:18.70

Olga Burlyuk

Ah, that's the way to do I I need to ask say it's not 1

51:23.37

Polly

I Love it and I I Absolutely I mean yes economic disparities Passport privileges. Yeah I mean why on Earth or all of yeah why Why have these area studies cops like hey.