Reflections on the Workshop ‘Who cares? The (in)visibility of caring responsibilities and working in Geography’

By Ros Porter, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics

Reflections on the Workshop ‘Who cares? The (in)visibility of caring responsibilities and working in Geography’

The ‘Who cares?’ workshop hosted by the Department of Geography at Oxford was an inspiring and thought provoking series of talks and round table discussions focusing on caring responsibilities and life in academia, in particular in Geography, although many of the issues discussed are relevant across disciplines.

In particular the keynote speaker Parvati Raghuram explored three takes on ‘Who Cares’. Vandana Desai and Sally Lloyd Evans spoke about ‘Balancing work-life in academia’, Katy Jenkins spoke of her personal experiences of ‘Juggling motherhood and fieldwork’, Natalie Ross reflected on ‘The visibility and invisibility of a sandwich of caring responsibilities’. Marie-Pierre Moreau shared her YouTube video on ‘Carers and careers in Academia’ – well worth a watch.

During the afternoon round table discussions were held on different aspects of caring and brought together at the close of the day.

Each talk and discussion covered personal journeys that, by their nature differed  (time of life, stage of career, who was being cared for, where they were living, day to day routine, need for travel, attitudes of colleagues and institutions etc.) but the one thing that struck me throughout the day is that caring so often goes unnoticed. It is an invisible part of who we are and what we do but it has such an impact on our daily lives, whether it be for parents, children or others, and it needs to be recognised. Implicit assumptions and perceived lack of value can have extremely detrimental effects on the mental and emotional health of an individual. If you have caring responsibilities working part time in academia does not mean you have more ‘days off’; it means you hold a different ‘caring’ role on those other days. Having caring responsibilities that mean you cannot attend out of hours events, travel for work and so on does not mean you have no ambition for your career but can make it harder. Dr Emily Henderson offers some practical advice on making conferences more inclusive.

Staff returning from career breaks, however long or short, need to be supported to return. If staff become part time then their long and thin career needs to be recognised as just as valuable as those colleagues who have had more time to produce necessary outputs. Are our current metrics measuring all that is valuable? Work doesn’t have to be REFable to be valuable. Pastoral support for staff and students, mentoring and work on staff committees can be undervalued despite being extremely important to the running of a University and often done by those with caring responsibilities outside of work.

The workshop left me convinced that we need to speak up and make our caring responsibilities visible. We need to be valued for all the good things we do. We need to have policies and provisions to help staff carry out their caring responsibilities that recognise individual circumstances are unique and variable. We need to care for our colleagues, nurture the next generation of academics, make sure they are supported and that they in turn care for their colleagues.

The event was attended almost exclusively by women even though men also have caring responsibilities. Hopefully by encouraging discussion and openness in making visible our caring responsibilities we can open the doors to invite more men to join in.

Tweets from the day can be found by searching for #caringgeographies.