The Doctoral Journey as an Emotional, Embodied, Political Experience

Rebecca (Bex) Twinley I am Senior Lecturer in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Brighton, UK. In my doctoral work, I challenged the lack of acknowledgement regarding woman-to-woman rape and sexual assault. In doing so, I challenged my own pre-existing barriers and assumptions regarding subjectivity and objectivity by choosing to work from a sociological auto/biographical approach, as valuably guided by Gayle. I enjoy thinking critically and challenging norms, assumptions, and unaddressed issues that impact upon people and their subjective experiences of occupations. For this reason, I developed the concept of the 'dark side of occupation' as a means to challenge occupational therapists and scientists to consider aspects of occupations that are hidden, poorly understood, unrecognised or inconsistent with their personal or professional values. Gayle Letherby I am Visiting Professor (Sociology) at the University of Plymouth, UK and the University of Greenwich, UK. In my own doctoral work, I adopted an auto/biographical approach to focus on the status and experience of 'infertility' and 'involuntary childlessness'. As a postgraduate student, I also began to write with others about methodological issues and about working and learning in Higher Education. For me, learning and working in higher education has always been an emotional, embodied, political act. In the 24 years since finishing my PhD in 1997, the people I feels I have learnt the most from are those I have met as supervisor and as examiner at doctoral level. I have learnt much about a great many topics and methodological approaches as well the different experiences and challenges faced by students.