Archive Projects
Dear Diary
Equality implications for female academics of changes to working practices in lockdown and beyond
The Project
Related Publications/Presentations
Carruthers Thomas, K. (forthcoming). Casting a long shadow: COVID-19 and female academics’ research productivity in the United Kingdom. In S.Acker, O-H. Ylikoki and M.K. McGinn, The social production of research: perspectives on funding and gender. Routledge.
Carruthers Thomas, K. 2023. Fast, slow, ongoing: Female academics’ experiences of time and change during COVID-19. Area. July. DOI: 10.1111/area.12894
Carruthers Thomas, K. 2022. Five Survive Lockdown: A graphic novella. Sheffield, Mensa.
Carruthers Thomas, K. 2022. Dear Diary: An Illustrated Digital Archive. www.deardiaryresearch.co.uk
Carruthers Thomas, K. 2021 Diaries of a Pandemic. COVID-19: An Unequal Impact, 9 July, Birmingham City University. Email for copy.
Carruthers Thomas, K. 2021 Collecting Diary Data. Blog. MethodSpace. [online]. Available at: Collecting Diary Data | MethodSpace
The Project
Principal Investigator: Dr Kate Carruthers Thomas
Research Assistant: Dr Bally Kaur and Hannah Malpass
Project Duration: March 2021 – March 2022
This research project is the recipient of a SRHE Research Award 2020.
Project aims
- investigate female academics’ experiences of working practices, career progression and academic identity during and post-COVID lockdown,
- identify ways in which remote working and other shifts in higher education (HE) practice may have impacted existing gender inequalities in the sector,
- highlight overarching challenges/actions for the sector (and SRHE) in terms of HE practices and gender equality in the short and longer-term.
Project Description
This project focuses on female academics’ experiences of living and working in lockdown. It investigates longer-term impacts of recent changes to working practices in HE, exploring implications for productivity, career progression and precarity in the contexts of continued restrictions, uncertainties and remote working. It applies Massey’s concept of ‘power geometry’ (1993, 2005) to interrogate the distinct positioning of female academics within a sector in flux.
The project used a hybrid methodology to capture rich, subjective data, combining diary research and semi-structured interview, an approach building on the foundational anthropological tool of DDIM (the diary, diary-interview method, Zimmerman and Weider 1977) since updated in multiple forms (eg: Latham 2003, Milligan et al 2005).
In 2022, the researcher published Dear Diary: An Illustrated Digital Archive featuring multiple illustrated accounts of living and working through 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The website was created by designer Ben Robertson.
