The Resilient Researcher (BeDo)

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This month, our guest is Purbita Sengupta, an analyst at  Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). She works with the international team at the artificial intelligence (AI) hub that supports Canada's global engagement, both bilateral and multilateral, on AI governance. She is also completing a PhD at the University of Toronto, studying the political economy of policymaking in liberalized India by examining three national urban renewal missions. Purbita and Megan met as research fellows at Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

We chat with Purbita about fieldwork safety and gender dynamics while conducting fieldwork; field research during COVID; her research on urban renewal in India and the public sector push to develop ‘smart cities’; tech policy and responsible use of AI; inclusion, equity, and representation in tech across the Global North and the Global South; evolving definitions of decolonization in qualitative research; structural challenges to decolonizing knowledge production; positionality as a woman of color in academia; ethics in processes of consent; and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the public sector or lack thereof.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review!

RESOURCES:

Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples is available here.

Purbita is a member of the Racial Equality Network.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Do you know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you. Happy listening!

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This month, we chat with Dr. Alex Gapud, a cultural and organisational anthropologist, who received his doctorate in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh, where he was also a Teaching Fellow. Alex is a two-time, University-wide, award-winning tutor, and his mission statement is 'to make work not suck for people.'

In our conversation with Alex, we use the emergent term 'quiet quitting' as a jumping off point for broader discussion around work-life balance within academia. We touch on Alex's doctoral research on legacies of colonialism in the United Kingdom; the challenges of maintaining a healthy relationship to work as a social science researcher; the unhealthy normalisation of unpaid labor in today's economy; the need to redefine productivity; the role of supervisors in encouraging healthy work-life balance amongst their supervisees; and the politics of postdocs and alternative employment opportunities post-PhD.

RESOURCES:

You can read more about Alex's work on his forthcoming website Anthropology at Work (launching late November 2022), or on his LinkedIn where he regularly publishes articles and opinion pieces. He has also published a piece on imperial trade legacies in Bristol, available here.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review!

You can also subscribe to BeDo’s quarterly newsletter for exclusive updates about upcoming episodes and events.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Happy listening!

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Something special for the holidays! In this December's two bonus mini episodes, Daillen and Megan reflect on BeDo's recent workshops delivered in partnership with the Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences (SGSSS).

What does it mean to build rapport with research participants? In this episode, we explore academic and practical understandings of the rapport-building process, and the ethical dilemmas embedded therein. Our original workshop curriculum on Building Rapport proposes a compassionate, trauma-informed approach to data collection, and addresses researchers working in the field as well as those conducting remote research. We look at power asymmetries and the inevitable hierarchy of 'doing' rapport; verbal and non-verbal forms of communication; how our nervous systems influence one another through processes of co-regulation; and applied techniques to establish trust and make participants feel seen and heard, including reflective listening and more.

RESOURCES:

We draw upon King & Horrocks' (2010) defintion of rapport, as well as the power assymetries inherent in the rapport-building process discussed in Heintzman et al (1993). Oakley (1981) addresses the problematic, history of rapport building and its reputation for being hierarchical and non-reciprocal. You can learn more about mirror neurons via this podcast episode from Stuff You Should Know by iHeart Radio.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review!

You can also subscribe to BeDo’s quarterly newsletter for exclusive updates about upcoming episodes and events.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Happy listening!

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Something special for the holidays! In this December's two bonus mini episodes, Daillen and Megan reflect on BeDo's recent workshops delivered in partnership with the Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences (SGSSS).

Research shows that climate change poses a credible challenge to global mental health. 'Climate distress' encompasses a vast range of challenging feelings and psychological responses to our rapidly changing environment—from eco-anxiety, to climate doom, to solastalgia, and everything in between. In this episode, we review our recent workshop on the subject, including manifestations of climate distress and compassionate, mindfulness-based strategies for resilience.

RESOURCES:

We mention The Lancet's recently published study on climate anxiety among youth from around the world, as well as the Climate Psychology Alliance and their treasure trove of helpful resources. Plus, they offer three free counselling sessions to anyone struggling with climate-related mental health challenges.

Megan references Wilcox's (2012) paper on Inuit practices of grief and mourning for environmental loss. You can get a daily dose of positive climate news delivered to your inbox via Harvard's newsletter The Climate Optimist. And last but not least, check out the work of Joanna Macy, particularly her book Active Hope, for a powerful reflection on the necessity of hope and intention as it relates to the climate crisis.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review!

You can also subscribe to BeDo’s quarterly newsletter for exclusive updates about upcoming episodes and events.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Happy listening!

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This month, we're joined by Lisa Abramson for an illuminating conversation around the pitfalls of perfectionism. Lisa is a speaker, coach, and leading authority on mindfulness, burnout prevention, and developing a resilient mindset. Her book Permission to Fail: The Overachiever’s Guide To Becoming Unstoppable breaks down the challenges facing overachievers and introduces five key strategies for developing a resilient mindset. We chat with Lisa about the pressure to succeed for academics and researchers; the downsides of perfectionism and how it inhibits action and blocks creativity; self-compassion and its role in developing resilience; the pain that comes from invalidating our own suffering and obstacles to compassion when working in environments where one is exposed to extreme forms of suffering. Listen all the way to the end where Lisa shares few easy exercises that you can try at home!


RESOURCES:

You can learn more about Lisa and her book on her website. Lisa's TEDx Talk on her experience with postpartum psychosis is available here, and her book Permission to Fail: The Overachiever’s Guide To Becoming Unstoppable is available on Amazon, in paperback or audiobook format.  Megan references F*ck Up Nights, venues where people can share their mistakes in a forgiving and supportive environment. Lisa mentions a similar exercise around 'Oops Moments', introduced by Sarah Blakely at her company Spanx.


If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review!

You can also subscribe to BeDo’s quarterly newsletter for exclusive updates about upcoming episodes and events.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Happy listening!

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This month, we're joined by Axolile Ntsika Mandaba Qina, or ‘Ax’ as he also goes by. Ax is a South African researcher currently doing his PhD at the University of Edinburgh; among many other achievements, he was the first African Black Male President of the Student Representative Council and received the  Mandela Rhodes Scholarship in 2016. 

We cover a lot of topics in this episode, including colonial legacies; the politics of language in university settings; pressure to be a revolutionary; cross-cultural approaches to mental health and well-being; race; spirituality and mental health; the value of traditional healing; the emotional labour of reporting issues of race; and how to make universities more informed and inclusive.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review!

You can also subscribe to BeDo’s quarterly newsletter for exclusive updates about upcoming episodes and events.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Happy listening!

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This month, Daillen and Megan share some key takeaways from BeDo's latest digital course Successful Relationships with Academic Supervisors, available now on Udemy! In this conversation, Daillen and Megan divulge more about their own experiences with academic supervisors; common challenges to supervisory relationships; the importance of managing expectations for both supervisors and supervisees; strategies for maintaining clear channels of communication; how to set healthy boundaries. They further touch on the process of changing your supervisor and the unfortunate reality of bullying and abuse in supervisory relationships.

RESOURCES:
Woolston, C. (2019) 'PhDs: the tortuous truth', Nature, 575(7782)

For further information and resources, check out our course on Udemy!

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review!

You can also subscribe to BeDo’s quarterly newsletter for exclusive updates about upcoming episodes and events.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Happy listening!

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The PhD Defence: Staying Well Before, During, and After the Viva

This month, we're joined by Dr. Kamau Wairuri.  Kamau is a Kenyan researcher, educator and policy consultant with expertise in the politics of policing, violence and criminal justice in Africa. Presently, he is a lecturer in criminology at Edinburgh Napier University and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Policy and Governance at the Strathmore University Business School (Nairobi, Kenya).  

We discuss anxieties around the PhD viva; the importance of a supportive community; strategies for staying grounded during academic examinations; dealing with ‘post-viva blues’; and life after the PhD.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review! You can also subscribe to BeDo’s quarterly newsletter for exclusive updates about upcoming episodes and events.

Check out our latest Udemy course on Successful Supervisory Relationships.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Happy listening!

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This month, we have *two* very special guests—Lois Shaw and Mary Lou Keller—with whom we discuss the pains and gains of being a ‘mature student’ and returning to higher education later in life. After 30 years as a family welfare attorney in Colorado, Mary Lou chose to pursue a Master’s in Human Rights and Democratization at the Global Campus of Human Rights in Venice, Italy. Lois trained as a journalist before moving to Kenya with her family and, at the age of 70, finished her PhD in Transformational Leadership at Africa International University in Nairobi. 

In this episode, we chat about lifelong academic journeys; why our guests chose to pivot and the challenges of going back to school; navigating loss and grief, as well as feelings of isolation and geographical removal from one’s support system when studying abroad; and the challenges of maintaining work-life balance as a mature student with an established career and home life.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review!

You can also subscribe to BeDo’s quarterly newsletter for exclusive updates about upcoming episodes and events.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Happy listening!

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In this episode, we speak with Jens Augspurger, PhD candidate in Religious Studies at SOAS and a doctoral fellow of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (German Academic Foundation).  Jens takes us through his curvy research journey looking at ‘spiritual tourists’. He speaks about why we connect to certain places; self-discovery and ‘belonging’; the complexities of ‘cultural appropriation’ and acknowledging privilege; the challenges of researching your own communities; when research leads to cynicism; and why he chose to walk away from his yoga practice and finding contentment in stripping away ‘disillusionment’ through his research.

You can find more out about Jens and see his publications here.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review!

Follow us on social media (@gowithbedo) and subscribe to BeDo’s quarterly newsletter for exclusive news about upcoming episodes and events.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you

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This month, we sit down with Dr. Kathy Dodworth to discuss emotional expression in research. We explore various types of emotional expression; which emotions are often seen as are welcome or unwelcome, accepted or unacceptable; how to navigate emotionally taxing subject material; and the emotional toll that such fieldwork takes on researchers and their collaborators.

Kathy is a Wellcome Trust research fellow at the University of Edinburgh's centre for African studies and her current fellowship critically reviews contemporary community health work in Kenya. She completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2018 and subsequently won the school's Oustanding Thesis award for her thesis-'Legitimation as practice: Crafting space to govern in Tanzania'. Before academia, Kathy worked for several INGOs in Sub-Saharan Africa on education and health and is also a published author having written the book ' Legitimation as Political Practice: Crafting Everyday Authority in Tanzania' out with Cambridge University Press.

RESOURCES:

Dodworth, K. (2022) Legitimation as Political Practice: Crafting Everyday Authority in Tanzania, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review!

Follow us on social media (@gowithbedo) and subscribe to BeDo’s quarterly newsletter for exclusive news about upcoming episodes and events.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you.

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In this episode, we chat with Otilia Meden to discuss her research on peace. Otilia looks at the relationship between inner peace and geopolitical peace, surveying young people from across the world about their exposure to the concept throughout their schooling. We explore definitions of peace beyond the absence of violence, and peace practice through both self-awareness and activism. 

Otilia is currently a research fellow at the Laidlaw Foundation with the University of St. Andrews where she is part of their Leadership in Action and Visualising Peace projects. During her six-week summer research project, she conducted primary research on the connection between inner peace and geopolitical peace, looking specifically at the role of peace education in school programming across three countries—the UK, Denmark, and Argentina. Her survey asked young people aged 18-25 across all three countries to reflect upon their own peace education and related subjects such as wellbeing, communal care, and conflict mediation. 

Resources:
Victor Jara - Al Derecho de Vivir En Paz 

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In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Hannah Allen, an Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi, in the Department of Health, Exercise Science, and Recreation Management. Dr. Allen is also Director of the Substance Use & Mental Health Research Lab. 
We discuss her research which is broadly focused on substance use in a developmental context, examining the relationship between substance use and both mental health and achievement throughout college and young adulthood. She looks at a range of sedatives and stimulants, and their impact on graduate (postgraduate) wellbeing.

Dr. Allen received her PhD in Behavioural and Community Health from the University of Maryland and completed a National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded postdoctoral fellowship at Penn State University. 

Resources:

Graduate student burnout: Substance use, mental health, and the moderating role of advisor satisfaction (2022).

Substance use and mental health problems among graduate students: Individual and program-level correlates (2022).

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This month, we delve into the unsettling evolution of 'incel' philosophy with Dr. Filipa Melo Lopes, a respected lecturer of Sociology and Political Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. Filipa grew up in Portugal and received her B.A. from Simon Fraser University, in Canada.

She completed her PhD at the University of Michigan and joined the University of Edinburgh as a lecturer in 2019. Filipa’s areas of research include feminist philosophy, social theory, sexual ethics and the work of French philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir. 

'Incel’, short for 'involuntary celibate', refers to an online subculture of predominantly men, who desire a romantic or sexual female partner but claim to be unable to find one. Their vitriolic language in online forums has fuelled a series of violent acts against women in recent years, including the 2014 shooting carried out by Elliott Rodger in Isla Vista, California.

In this episode, we chat with Filipa about how she came to study incel ideology and what fascinates her about its portrayal of modern masculinity. We explore Filipa’s in-depth analysis of Elliot Rodger’s misogynistic manifesto, Kristen Roupenian’s sensational piece Cat Person, modern misogyny and how lives in digital spaces, critical compassion for ‘difficult’ groups, processes of ‘othering’, victimisation and male fragility, and more!

References:
 My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger

'Half victim, half accomplice’ : Cat Person and Narcissism (2021)

Incel violence and Beauvoirian otherness (2023)

Cat Person -Kristen Roupenian (2017)

The Second Sex- Simone de Beauvoir

Filipa Melo Lopes' Website

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Join us for a brand new episode to bring in the new year!

This month, we sit down with Shivanka Gautam to discuss her research on ecological grief.  Shivanka recently completed her MSc in Global Mental Health and Society from the University of Edinburgh. Her research focused on experiences of ecological grief and the politics of mourning beyond the human.

She is interested and passionate about the climate change - mental health nexus as well biodiversity conservation, climate resilience and justice.

In this episode we cover the definitions of ecological grief; how ecological grief differs from regular grief; anticipatory grief in relation to climate change; mourning and how it manifests; ‘othering’ nature as non-mournable & colonialism and capitalism in regards to climate change and nature.

Resources:

Aldo Leopold Quote

Val Plumwood:-Feminism and the Mastery of Nature

Amitav Ghosh- The Nutmeg’s Curse

Sidney W. Mintz- Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History

Shivanka's LinkedIn Profile

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