PGN virtual meet up - Self-esteem, productivity, and ‘failure’: managing expectations during lockdown

With Dr Katarina Kušić, Aberystwyth University

We are all experiencing difficulties around our work during the current lockdown period. Some of us have had our fieldwork plans disrupted or are unable to carry out crucial parts of our research. Others may simply be feeling demotivated, insecure, and uncertain about the future. Many of us will be feeling we should be doing better or being more ‘productive’ in the face of these challenges.

The present moment provides us with an opportunity to interrogate our expectations and the often-unrealistic standards to which we hold ourselves as researchers—during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. Join our PGN for an open discussion around our ideas of productivity, what experiences of ‘failure’ or difficulty in research might tell us, and staying mentally healthy as we adapt to new realities.

We will be joined by Dr Katarina Kušić, an ESRC postdoctoral fellow in the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University, who will share some of her insights on the concept of failure in research. She is co-editor alongside Jakub Záhora of a new E-IR volume, Fieldwork as Failure: Living and knowing in the field of International Relations, which you can download for free.