As regular readers of this blog know, I am undertaking my bicycle PhD with Griffith University, School of Professional Studies. I am using Feminist New Materialisms (FNM) to explore how bicycles enable or constrain rural African girls’ access to education. I need to better understand FNM (which is essentially Quantum Physics applied to Social Science/Education). To do this, I want to read, talk, process and write about FNM with others who know what the heck I’m on about as a way to bounce ideas around and learn more.
So in August, I teamed up with Dr Sherilyn Lennon (who is also my PhD Supervisor par excellance) and we established a Feminist New Materialism Special interest Group (FNM SIG) and had our first meeting. It went really well!
We meet once a month and the time came around pretty quick for our September meeting.
I was delighted!
2nd Feminist New Materialisms Special interest Group (FNM SIG) Meeting
In keeping with the ethical intent of
This means that, as our meetings progress, we will be showcasing research from experienced (academics) and emerging researchers (candidates). So we invite all the participants to let us know if they would like to present their research ideas/dilemmas to the group for some open and honest feedback, or as a way to process and work through areas of research ‘stickiness’.
At this FNM SIG meeting, we have a guest presentation by Prof Simone Fullagar and Dr Wendy O’Brien (and Dr Adele Pavlidis who unfortunately could not make it) whose book, Feminism and a Vital Politics of Depression and Recovery, has just been published. See more about the book at the end of the post.
Congratulations!
After their presentation, we had open question/discussion time before moving into a group activity in order to collate some key terms that have emerged thus far.
The stimulus materials (see 2 attachments) for this meeting were provided by Prof Fullagar. The materials are an extract from their new book (Introduction) and an article that is structured around an interview with Karen Barad – a much quicker way of accessing her ideas than reading Meeting the Universe Halfway.
In their informal presentation, Prof. Fullagar and Dr O’Brien shared insights about what it was like to conduct the research, how the process impacted them and some ‘moments of rupture’ they experienced.
The discussion was super interesting as different people were triggered by different aspects of what was shared. I am very keen to hear more about how people are actually applying FNM approaches in practice. This is one of the first opportunities I have had to read FNM work (readings) and then directly question the researchers who have undertaken a full-scale FNM framing. Insightful and inspiring!
We all felt the time went too quickly – we could have talked another 2 hours at least!
It is an aim of mine as co-convenor of the SIG to have an activity that collaborately produces some sort of output for each meeting. For this session it was a Wordle – Word Cloud.
We wanted to capture some of the key terms or concepts that the participants are aware of – or that came out of the readings. Here is what we created:
It was a very moving, inspirational and generative session.
Like many other who attended, I went back to my desk and made copious notes about what had bubbled up for me and what aspects has resonance with my own bicycle PhD research project.
Here is more info about their book: Drawing upon insights from feminist new materialism the book traces the complex material-discursive processes through which women’s recovery from depression is enacted within
Rather than reducing experience to discrete biological, psychological or sociological categories, feminist thinking moves with the
By pursuing the affective movement of self through depression this inquiry goes beyond individualised models to explore the enactment of multiple self-world relations. Reconfiguring depression and recovery as
Incredible work!
I can’t wait for the next SIG meeting!
Dr Natalie Lazaroo’s notes 
Dr Sherilyn Lennon 
Dr Natalie Lazaroo’s notes 
FNM SIG discussions 
Dr Natalie Lazaroo’s notes