Critical moments of (un)doing doctoral supervision: : Collaborative writing as rhizomatic practice

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Simone Fullagar, Adele Pavlidis, and Raphaela Stadler, ‘Critical moments of (un)doing doctoral supervision: collaborative writing as rhizomatic practice’, Knowledge Cultures, August 2015. The Version of Record is available online at doi: https://doi.org/10.22381/KC5420173. Published by Addleton Academic Publishers, New York.Despite the proliferation of doctoral training courses within universities, little attention is paid to the complexity of supervision as a process of becoming for both students and supervisors. As post-qualitative researchers we explore how collaborative writing can be mobilised as a rhizomatic practice to open up engagements with supervision that counter hierarchical master/apprentice models of knowledge transmission. Researching-writing through our own knowledge practices and affective investments we reflexively engage with supervision as multiplicity. We created a more democratic learning alliance through an electronic writing forum. These collaborative e-writing practices generated insights into the critical moments that disrupted the doctoral experience (writers block, self-doubt, misunderstanding). We theorise collaborative writing as a rhizomatic practice that refuses ontological assumptions of linearity, causality and rationality, instead following the embodied lines of thought, affective intensities and problematics that haunt the supervision relationship. We recast supervision as an improvisation through which academic dilemmas/possibilities are negotiated and performed anew.Peer reviewe

The pain and pleasure of roller derby:Thinking through affect and subjectification

Writing about pain in roller derby challenges us to rethink old dichotomies that separate mind and body, 'real' and virtual, feminine and masculine. The 'tough' roller derby 'girl', willing and able to endure pain for the pleasure of the game, has become a powerful figure in contemporary western popular culture. Our analysis of roller derby reveals women's complex relation to pain and pleasure, as part of a feminist reimagining of sport. Through an analysis of derby texts we explore how painful affects are mobilized in particular ways: to imagine collective belonging, to invent alternative feminine subjectivities, and to mark out the limits of self and other. In this way we endeavour to think through the affective experience of derby and how sport might become more gender inclusive as a transformational cultural site. The embodiment of pain is not simply one of 'overcoming', but a corporeal relation that is productive of multiple feminine subjectivities.Full Tex

Becoming roller derby grrrls:Exploring the gendered play of affect in mediated sport cultures

This article explores how the global revival of roller derby as an alternative sport for women has been mobilised through online social networks, league promotion and fan sites that create imagined communities of 'roller grrrls'. In the creation of sport culture we argue that the virtual performance of 'derby' identities is as significant as the embodiment of play. Like other sports, derby sites mobilise affect (passion, pleasure, pain, desire to play) through a discourse of 'empowerment' that urges women to overcome limits and reinvent gendered subjectivity. However, within the virtual space of roller derby, complex affects are produced and circulated within power relations that can include or exclude. Through an analysis of the way affect is mobilised in selected roller derby sites, we identify how virtual sport identities are connected through the movement of 'affects' across bodies and leagues. These affects both circumscribe and undermine the notion of a single derby community.Full Tex

Narrating the multiplicity of ‘Derby Grrrl’:Exploring intersectionality and the dynamics of affect in Roller Derby

Driven by an ethos of self-organization and empowerment women involved in the revived version of roller derby have created an embodied and virtual leisure practice that challenges gender norms and invites different identities. However, tensions exist in the way different women negotiate the space of roller derby and the meaning of playing, belonging, and becoming "derby grrrls." This article presents findings from a qualitative study of roller derby in Australia to make connections between feminist theories of affect and the growing body of work on intersectionality. We explore how identity categories intersect to shape the meaning of roller derby for different women. Narratives recount the complex affective relations (passion, frustration, pride, shame) that women negotiate in forming leisure identities in relation to the social context of their lives. The article aims to contribute to the development of feminist thinking about leisure as a negotiated space of transformation, creativity, and difference.No Full Tex

Feminist Knowledges as Interventions in Physical Cultures

This collection explores how feminist knowledges work as interventions in physical cultures and recognizes the considerable contribution of feminist theories and methodologies in understanding the power relations implicated in embodied movement. Our introductory piece weaves together questions about the gendered formation of physical cultures (across leisure, sport, the arts, tourism, well-being, and various embodied practices) with key issues raised by contributing authors, from disciplinary perspectives to theory-method approaches. Exploring questions of digital and physical cultures, more-than-human relations, post- and decolonial ways of knowing, and contemporary onto-epistemologies, this feminist collection aims to contribute to the movement of ideas within and across physical cultural studies. Bringing together diverse perspectives around our common focus we entangle physical cultures with a range of gendered problematizations and interventions that produce different ways of knowing, imagining and doing feminisms.Full Tex

Feminist Knowledges as Interventions in Physical Cultures

This collection explores how feminist knowledges work as interventions in physical cultures and recognizes the considerable contribution of feminist theories and methodologies in understanding the power relations implicated in embodied movement. Our introductory piece weaves together questions about the gendered formation of physical cultures (across leisure, sport, the arts, tourism, well-being, and various embodied practices) with key issues raised by contributing authors, from disciplinary perspectives to theory-method approaches. Exploring questions of digital and physical cultures, more-than-human relations, post- and decolonial ways of knowing, and contemporary onto-epistemologies, this feminist collection aims to contribute to the movement of ideas within and across physical cultural studies. Bringing together diverse perspectives around our common focus we entangle physical cultures with a range of gendered problematizations and interventions that produce different ways of knowing, imagining and doing feminisms.</p

The supply of steroids and other performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs) in one English city: Fakes, counterfeits, supplier trust, common beliefs and access

As with other illicit drugs, such as heroin or cocaine, illicit steroids and other performance and image enhancing drugs (PIED) have for some time been assumed to involve an inherent degree of danger and risk. This is due to the unknown and potentially dangerous substances present in them; fakes and counterfeits are of particular concern. Many of these ‘risks’ are unknown and unproven. In addition, a tendency to abstract these risks by reference to forensic data tends to negate the specific risks related to local PIED markets, and this in turn has led to much being missed regarding the broader nature of those markets and how buyers and suppliers interact and are situated within them. This article reports on research that sought to explore each of these issues in one mid-sized city in South West England. A snapshot image is provided of what the steroids and other image or performance enhancing drugs market ‘looked like’ in this particular city in 2013: how it operated; how different users sought out and purchased their PIED; the beliefs they held about the PIED they sourced; and the methods they employed to feel confident in the authenticity of their purchases. A forensic analysis was undertaken of a sample of user-sourced PIED as a complementary approach. The results showed almost all of these drugs to be poor-quality fakes and/or counterfeits. The level of risk cannot be ‘read off’ from forensic findings, and poor-quality fakes/counterfeits cannot simply be considered an attempt to defraud. Users believed they had received genuine PIED that were efficacious, and employed a range of basic approaches to try to ensure genuine purchases. Many, if not most, transactions at the ‘street’ level were akin to ‘social supply’ rather than commercial in nature.Arts, Education & Law Group, Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and GovernanceFull Tex

Cancers of unknown primary origin: current perspectives and future therapeutic strategies

It is widely accepted that systemic neoplastic spread is a late event in tumour progression. However, sometimes, rapidly invasive cancers are diagnosed because of appearance of metastatic lesions in absence of a clearly detectable primary mass. This kind of disease is referred to as cancer of unknown primary (CUP) origin and accounts for 3-5% of all cancer diagnosis. There is poor consensus on the extent of diagnostic and pathologic evaluations required for these enigmatic cases which still lack effective treatment. Although technology to predict the primary tumour site of origin is improving rapidly, the key issue is concerning the biology which drives early occult metastatic spreading. This review provides the state of the art about clinical and therapeutic management of this malignant syndrome; main interest is addressed to the most recent improvements in CUP molecular biology and pathology, which will lead to successful tailored therapeutic options

Collaborative writing as rhizomatic practice:Critical moments of (un)doing doctoral supervision

Despite the proliferation of doctoral training courses within universities, little attention is paid to the complexity of supervision as a process of becoming for both students and super-visors. As post-qualitative researchers we explore how collaborative writing can be mobilised as a rhizomatic practice to open up engagements with supervision that counter hierarchical master/apprentice models of knowledge transmission. Researching-writing through our own knowledge practices and affective investments we engage with supervision as an assemblage that produces multiplicity. We created a democratic learning alliance through an electronic writing forum. These collaborative e-writing practices generated insights into, and movements through, critical moments that disrupted the doctoral experience of progress (writers block, self-doubt, misunderstanding). We theorise collaborative writing as a rhizomatic practice that refuses ontological assumptions of linearity, causality and rationality, instead following the embodied lines of thought, affective intensities and problematics that haunt the supervision relationship. We recast supervision as an improvisation through which academic dilemmas/possibilities are negotiated and performed ane