Exploring failure

In the preceding discussion of co-creativity and its relationship with care-full scholarship, reference has been made on a number of occasions within this MOCC Unit to the importance of not imposing an overly rigid structure to a field research process and allowing instead for there to be a more gradual, less scripted, emergence of outcomes, foreseen and otherwise, in accordance with the particularities of an individual setting, community and its members.

It is helpful, in this context, to make a connection between the idea of field research as incorporating the unexpected and John Horton’s reflections on the place of failure within the academy:

“while it remains the case that research is widely written up and presented as flawless, frictionless, authoritative and successful, we now have a rich, diverse array of countervailing narratives which make clear that, for example, research projects can be hugely complex or practically ineffective, that research can entail all manner of awkward moments, disquieting situations or troubling power geometries, and that researchers often experience feelings of profound anxiety, stress, distress, hopelessness or horror (Swanson, 2008; von Benzon, 2017). Frequently, these kinds of narratives also highlight how the messiness of research is potentially productive: ultimately, accidental and unanticipated moments can constitute some of the richest, most thought-provoking and exciting data or learning experiences”(Horton 2020: 3)

In calling for a “more care-full, collaborative, collegiate understandings of success within the contemporary academy” (Horton 2020:2), Horton ends his 2020 article with a series of questions (see below) aimed at opening up conversation on the inevitable presence of failings within our work, many of which it may not ever be possible to turn into a positive moment. By engaging with these questions, rather than failure creating a risk of paralysis, he proposes that we attempt to ‘think-with failure and foster more collegiate, critical ideas of success in the neoliberal academy’.

We similarly hope that the cases of failure which Horton’s question might prompt each of us to re-call, can in turn be used to advance our ability to respond. That is, our way of being and becoming response-able, not only to many of the curve balls which we may encounter in the field, but also to those with which we are confronted on an almost daily basis as a consequence of the neo-liberalisation of the academy (a dimension which we will return to in Unit 7).

Thus, please now allow yourself sufficient time to read through and reflect on Horton’s questions together with his final post-note. Then, use the Discussion Board to offer your thoughts on the one(s) which speaks to you the most. Or indeed if you feel there are additional questions which need to be added in support of thinking-with instances of failure more care-fully, then please do so.

1. How might we create more spaces to disclose things not going to plan, in ways that are helpful, supportive, not-self-aggrandising and which accommodate diverse forms of failure (including failures with no happy endings)?
2. Who is (and is not) able to speak of failure in the academy? For example, how do feelings of failure intersect with gendered, classed, racialised, able-ist or aged inequalities in the academy, and why are these intersections rarely disclosed?
3. How might we support colleagues who experience profound performance anxieties in the contemporary academy, and what practical steps can we take to change the mechanisms, norms and processes which constitute this kind of anxiety? How can we help each other to think about failure not in terms of individual failings or imposterdom, but in terms of the conditions, norms and discourses that make us feel like failures despite the amazing stuff we do?
4. How might feelings of personal-professional regret galvanise new, collective kinds of work to care and act affirmatively within our research practices?
5. How might normative spaces and performances of academia be reconfigured to be inclusive and welcoming for a more diverse community? What other kinds of spaces are possible? What practical steps might we take to avoid perpetuating the marginalisation, discomfort and not-belonging of others?
6. How might techniques and languages of assessment (whether in relation to grading, examinations, peer review or workplace performance management) incorporate greater care to mitigate disappointments, failures, anxieties and distress?
7. How might we challenge the prevalence of narratives of triumph-over-adversity, to allow more complex, ambivalent, challenging, modest ways of thinking about failure in the academy?
8. How should we think of and constitute success in the academy? What and how should we celebrate? How can we praise achievements, value ourselves and disseminate our work in a way that does not turn into self-aggrandising, alpha scholarly-heroism?

Horton’s post-note

And, next time you feel like a failure, try to identify the workplace, institutional, sectoral or societal norms which are constituting that feeling. The problem is not you; it's them.

'As a young scholar... there's not really a safe frame in academia to expose your failures.' Ruben Vezzoni

Below RECOMS fellows Ruben and Zhanna offer their pragmatic advice around failure from an early career perspective. Their contributions are followed by one from senior academic Dr Chiara Tornaghi briefly reflecting on her own experiences and ways of managing failure across her career to date.