Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I reflect on aspiring academics' intimate lives in relation to their often uncertain careers, unstable jobs, insecure finances, and unsettled locations. Drawing on my study of aspiring academics in Australia, I ask how intimacy and career insecurity inform and shape one another.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, the difficulties faced by aspiring academics have received a great deal of attention, in Australia and worldwide. While this has led to a growing academic interest in the lived realities of this group, the majority of research to date has been quantitative. In this paper, I offer qualitative insights into aspiring academics' intimate lives in relation to their often uncertain careers, unstable jobs, insecure finances, and unsettled locations. I draw on interviews carried out across three universities in Australia among those that aspire to academic careers or have done so in the past.

Aspiring academics' work and lives were understood and enacted as 'uncertain' and 'insecure', and concerns regarding the impact of academic work on domestic life were commonplace. Issues raised related to an inability to 'settle down', including problems of relocating with a partner or child, troubles maintaining 'work-life balance', and financial difficulties, which were experienced as a barrier to parenthood and home ownership. Moreover, women in particular raised concerns over how their families and relationships impacted their academic career prospects. Yet it was apparent that people's intimate relations not only restricted but supported their pursuit of an academic career, and that their academic ambitions both limited and produced intimate relations. As such, in this paper I explore how intimacy and career insecurity mutually inform and shape one another.