My research career, beginning with the start of my doctoral studies in 2004, has been entirely on a part-time basis. I studied part-time whilst I worked full-time, and have since then had several secondments to part-time research whilst spending the rest of my working week occupying my regular professional role.
During my doctoral studies, I grew accustomed to the niggling question, “am I doing enough research?” (It was accompanied by, “am I doing this parenting lark adequately?!”)
I felt reasonably confident that my professional role wasn’t suffering – after all, when I was at that desk, I was working the work! But, in my student capacity, I had the memory of what full-time research “felt like”, from a previous doctoral attempt, and it was hard persuading myself that no-one expected me to achieve as much, as fast, when I was doing it entirely in evenings, at weekends and on holiday. (Reading early nineteenth-century commentaries whilst at Eurocamp? Oh yes, been there!)
Fast-forward to my present 70:30 existence (70% librarian, 30% postdoc). Desperate to be taken seriously as a researcher, I struggle to achieve as much as the average academic, when I’m only a researcher for 10.5 hours a week. Reading, writing, researching, editing, attending conferences … I drive myself to produce “output” at a rate that makes me look like a force to be reckoned with, but honesty forces me to concede that some of it has to be done at home, in my own time.
So, I reached this summer. Since May, I’ve been a guest-speaker at a workshop in Paris, contributed a pecha kucha at a copyright literacy seminar closely followed by a paper at a week-long international history conference (both in Edinburgh), been an after-dinner speaker at an engagement in the Highlands, and then – oh, blessed relief, came a fortnight’s vacation.
The first holiday week, I struggled with the guilt that I had a journal issue to edit, and ought to be doing the book-reviews I’d allocated myself. I managed not to do any of it! This was due to a combination of excessive domesticity, a self-imposed fitness regime, and end-of-term exhaustion. By the second week, I had family obligations that took me away from home, and I read no more than the introduction to the first book-review book. I’m driving home tomorrow. It does feel as though I’ve had a mental break, but the guilt is now pressing on my shoulders like a heavy cloud, and I’m perplexed as to how I’ll catch up with my scholarly obligations. It can’t be done in 10.5 hours a week, that’s for sure!
I’ve seen headlines in social media about how even full-time academics don’t get enough time in which to do research. I can understand this, but I can’t make comparisons. If an academic is not teaching, marking or administrating, then presumably some research can be done. For me, by contrast, if it’s not a research day/morning, then I have the rest of my 9-to-5 taken up with a completely different role, and NO research can be done. Likewise, I may have similar holiday allocation to my academic colleagues, but there’s a difference between that, and the length of the average undergraduate vacation. During that time there are no undergraduate lecture or tutorial commitments. I don’t have that difference at my disposal.
I’m sure I am not the only part-time researcher to feel this guilt. I don’t think there’s an answer, either. I’m moderately pleased with myself that I have deliberately, consciously taken a fortnight off, and only very occasionally opened my work email inbox to check that nothing crucial had popped into it. I deleted a few irrelevant messages, and closed the inbox again. My out-of-office message would have explained my silence, to anyone expecting to hear from me. I haven’t come up with a strategy for catching up with my editing and writing obligations. It may entail ignoring emails for a couple more days until I’ve reviewed those books!
I’d like to write a blogpost about the ISECS eighteenth-century history conference, but I fear it would be a bit of an indulgence, in the face of all that I personally absolutely have to do.
I wonder how other part-time researchers manage? Any tips or tricks to share?
Engaging with students in teaching bibliographic citation, and demonstrating the significance of paratext in historical national song collections.
And I’ll be playing the piano, purely in a background music capacity in the evening! Nothing scholarly about that part – I cannot call it practice-based research in the least.
