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Central and Eastern European Women Academics in the UK: Making Britain Home brings together creative, reflexive and conceptually-rich contributions from 30 women academics of Central and Eastern European heritage who have established careers in UK higher education.
Through essays, poetry, soundscapes and visual storytelling, the volume explores their migration trajectories, academic working lives, and the ways in which they negotiate identities and construct spaces of belonging within their communities and workplaces. The book situates these widely resonant and universal narratives within the socio-political and economic transformations of post-2004 Britain, including the 2008 financial crisis, the 2016 EU referendum, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing marketisation of higher education. It critically examines the evolving nature of academic labour and the challenges faced by migrant academics in navigating these shifting landscapes.
Central and Eastern European Women Academics in the UK: Making Britain Home is key reading for academics in the UK, Europe and beyond who are navigating the challenging landscape of higher education, as well as scholars in sociology researching migration, identity and belonging.
List of contents
Foreword
Introducing the multifaceted journeys of making Britain and academia home
PART 1: Finding Voice: Navigating expressions of identity 1. Desiring Silence and Liminal Identities: Negotiating the In-Between 2. Beyond the Seams: Un/Belonging and the Migrant Experience 3. Uncovering invisible lives: writing the histories of Hungarian women artists 4. Blue spaces and the art of being: Finding stillness in the tides of (an academic's) life 5. Out of place? Reflecting on my class and national identity in the UK higher education sector. 6. Don't ask me, why I won't come back: on being an openly autistic academic mother 7. Where are you from? Navigating the complexity of simultaneous exclusion and belonging 8. Polish, Scottish, Scouse? Navigating migrant experiences of language, identity and emotions 9. Living Language In Between: Slovene, English and the Pain of Imperfection 10. Multidimensional role of language in embracing own identities
PART 2. Carving space: Trajectories of migration and academic working lives 11. Unable to find a home in the city I now call my home 12. Spinning the Academic Wheel of Fortune: A Reflection from a Polish Female Scholar in the UK 13. UK for Work, Czechia for Living? Reconciling Professional Ambitions and Opportunity Landscapes 14. Casting the anchor: (re)creating home across two countries 15. Transnational (re)rooting: Reconnection, rest and resistance through gardening 16. Will the odds ever be in our favour? The hopes of a working-class migrant navigating British academia 17. My procrastination journey 18. Don't ask me where I'm from. Ask me where I'm a local: thriving in the Third Space in UK HE 19. Being a Slovak teacher of English in Britain: On language, labelling and politeness
PART 3. Negotiating belonging: Everyday experiences of (un)welcome 20. Small Talk, Please: A Show-and-Tell of a Migrant's Home-Searching in England 21. Soundscapes of Belonging: Navigating Post-Brexit Academia as an Eastern European Migrant 22. The Interplay Between Structure and Agency: Navigating Epistemological Belonging 23. From lingua franca to linguistic assimilation: Communicating as a Polish academic in the UK 24. The cat who tried to avoid the axe 25. Lost in Translation, Found in Connection 26. Georgiana and the Dragon: A personal exploration of place attachment and belonging in contemporary Britain 27. The role of upbringing in shaping the experiences of an Eastern European female academic in the UK: A reflective narrative 28. 'You need to slow down': negotiating leadership identity in UK higher education 29. Invisible and Visible Borders: Creating Spaces of Belonging Concluding notes on creative reflexivity: From deeply personal to collectively resonant.
About the author
Agnieszka Rydzik is Associate Professor at the University of Lincoln. She has published widely on work, migration and gender. She is currently leading a major British Academy-funded study into technological change and the future of hospitality work.
Maria Gebbels is Associate Professor at the University of Greenwich, publishes on gender, career perceptions and critical hospitality; her research explores belonging, inclusion, and unconventional applications of hospitality, including in carceral spaces and adventure tourism.
