ViDSS Forum: Navigating Intersectionalities and Creating Opportunities in Academia
How do you succeed in academia, a system in which marginalised groups rarely make it to the (top) positions? What challenges likely stand in your way as a woman, as a BIPoC, or LGBTQIA+ and FLINTA of colour, or someone who is experiencing “otherness” discrimination based on other identity markers? While the answers to these questions certainly vary according to the individual background and the institutional setting in which you are embedded, those categorised as “others” often face similar challenges when navigating academic life.
The ViDSS Forum Navigating Intersectionalities and Creating Opportunities in Academia offers a platform for the safe exchange of experiences of discrimination and inequality for researchers at the Faculty of Social Sciences. This group provides peer support in dealing with the challenges related to intersecting identities including (non-normative) gender, race or class as an early stage researcher. The Forum also aims at raising awareness for combating racism and discrimination and stands for solidarity, empowerment and support. In addition to the regular meetings, a series of self-organised lectures and tailor-made workshops on these topics will take place.
The platform welcomes all colleagues who feel addressed, want to support and participate.
Organiser: Faime Alpagu
Organising team: Dominique Bauer, Leora Courtney-Wolfman, Zahra Hosseini Khoo, Ahrabhi Kathirgamalingam, Aytalina Kulichkina, Lorena Olarte
If you want to participate in one of the meetings and/or be added to the mailing list, please contact Faime Alpagu.
Next meetings
Open Platform
18 November, 15:30–17:00
This meeting serves as an open discussion to come together to talk about topics that are relevant to you, but also to have a space to share and raise issues that you would like to discuss in future meetings of the forum.
Venue: online via Zoom (Please contact the organiser Faime Alpagu for the Zoom link.)
Christmas Market Get-Together
10 December 2024, 16:30
Venue: tba.
LGBT+ in Academia: Experiences and Insights
13 January 2025, 15:30–17:00
Guest speaker: Dr. Ingrid Wahl (Department of Communication)
Venue: tba.
Past meetings
Perspectives on being a Black woman within Austrian academia
15 October 2024, 15:30–17:00
What does resistance look like as an academic practice? How does this relate to the accessibility of knowledge? And why does decolonisation not end with the independence of former colonies?
As a young black woman in Austria, these questions - both in academia and in everyday (working) life - are my constant companions. Even more so, if we understand science as a mirror of society. Then it becomes clear that we are still in the process of finding answers and solutions to these questions, which should be grounded in solidarity and empathy. Based on my master's thesis, which deals with travel as a form of resistance, and insights into my activist work, I want to focus on these issues.
Guest speaker: Lisa Tackie, MA BA (African Studies and International Development)
Venue: online via Zoom (Please contact the organiser Faime Alpagu for the Zoom link.)
Wrapping up the summer semester
11 June 2024, 16:00–17:30
online via zoom
Where are you from and where are you headed? Moving across(academic) borders, spaces, and practices
15 May 2024, 16:00–17:30
online via zoom
Endless Horizons: Navigating the Eternal Odyssey of Academic Applications
16 April 2024, 16:00–17:30
online via zoom
Afternoon Tea for Change: Addressing the need for change in academic spaces
18 March 2024, 16:00–17:30
Hybrid format
Venue: Department of Communication, Room 6.58, 6th Floor, Kolingasse 14–16, 1090 Vienna
Christmas Market Get-Together
13 December 2023, 17:30
Venue: Christmas Village at the University Campus
Lunching for Change: Addressing marginalisation in academic spaces
20 November 2023, 12:00–13:30
Hybrid format
Venue: Department of Communication, Room 6.58, 6th Floor, Kolingasse 14–16, 1090 Vienna
Vera Axyonova (REWIRE Postdoc Fellow) will share some impressions from her chapter in the book Migrant Academic’s Narratives of Precarity and Resilience in Europe and we will discuss navigating academia.
General Meeting
23 October 2023, 13:00–15:00
Hybrid format: Please contact the organiser Faime Alpagu for the Zoom link.
Venue: Department of Communication, Room 6.58, 6th Floor, Kolingasse 14–16, 1090 Vienna
“Collected Knowledge” – extractivist knowledge production? On the interrelatedness of Nature, Knowledge and Coloniality (Workshop)
22–25 May 2023
Organised by University of Innsbruck, Doctoral College Dynamics of Inequality and Difference in the Age of Globalisation and Doctoral College Gender Studies, in collaboration with the Forum Navigating Intersectionalities and Creating Opportunities in Academia at the Vienna Doctoral School of Social Sciences
Recht auf Erbe in der Migrationsgesellschaft, book presentation (in German)
23 May 2023, 18:00
Department of Communication, Seminar room 1, 1st Floor, Kolingasse 14–16, 1090 Vienna
More information
General Meeting
15 June 2023, 13:00–15:00
Department of Communication, Seminar room 1, 2st Floor, Kolingasse 14–16, 1090 Vienna