Sometimes students who are considering pursuing a PhD contact me for advice. Is it worth it? What’s it like being a(n early-career) researcher? What are the advantages and challenges? Or people ask about postdoc life, as they are deciding whether to give academia a shot or do something else after finishing their PhD. It has … Continue reading Musings of a Postdoc
Reflections
Pandemic Blues: Lonely New Life
This summer, while Norway was slowly easing its lockdown but cross-border travel was still severely restricted, I relocated from Göteborg to Oslo. Moving across borders during a pandemic posed many bureaucratic and logistical challenges, but these are too numerous to get into here. What I want to write about instead are some of the issues … Continue reading Pandemic Blues: Lonely New Life
Peer Support and Networking (An Introvert’s Perspective)
The last few months, I have reflected a lot on the importance of peer support – so important throughout my PhD journey, but also not receiving enough attention in academia. Of course, formal support, supervisor and mentoring relationships are essential and will greatly affect both the productivity and the well-being of graduate students and junior … Continue reading Peer Support and Networking (An Introvert’s Perspective)
On Difficult Research and Mental Wellbeing
As part of my dissertation research, I carried out two rounds of fieldwork in Colombia, during which my research assistants and I interviewed women active in civil society. Many of these women work very closely with victims of sexual violence and/ or the armed conflict, by providing psycho-social or psycho-legal support or by documenting cases … Continue reading On Difficult Research and Mental Wellbeing
Finding Feminism
Disclaimer: This is a personal essay about how researching sexual violence in conflict has affected my feminist consciousness. As such, it offers but a snapshot of my feminist identity. It is not to be understood as an academic text. Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash Something I have been thinking a lot about this past … Continue reading Finding Feminism