nourishing

Nourishing conversations in the co-construction of knowledge

Macquarie Human Geography Group

Department of Human Geography, Macquarie University, NSW, 2109

July 1999

[prepared for inclusion in Alison Bartlett and Gina Mercer (eds) 'Two in the Kitchen: practising postgraduate pedagogy']

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Human Geographers explore the interplay of society and space in diverse ways. Geographers at Macquarie University pursue interrelated empirical and theoretical projects involving the relationships between space, place, culture, power and identity. This chapter's dialogical method is informed by our department's philosophical and pedagogical approach to supervision. This dialogue reflects our many nourishing conversations 1 that have established discursive spaces where knowledge is constructed.

Our research varies widely, but generally involves field-based research with specific social groups, including indigenous peoples, women, planners and scientists. We all deal with complex ethical issues, interview-based qualitative methods, issues of difference, diversity and representation, and the dialectical relationship between theory and practice in research. The chapter takes the form of a conversation between two supervisors 2, a group of their PhD and Honours students 3 and a facilitator with a long background in developing teaching and supervision skills of Macquarie staff 4. The transcript and ideas were discussed more widely on an e-mail list.5 We are drawn together from a range of ethnic, class and theoretical contexts. The conversation reported here provides a vehicle for critical reflection on the ways in which our diversity, knowledge and various scholarly and political engagements with material, discursive and imagined spaces has been nourished.

Preliminaries

Bob: Richie and I have come to think of supervision as our attempt to set up nourishing conversations.

Richie: Between us, Bob and I have supervised a lot of fieldwork in diverse circumstances. For my part, I've always tried to offer students space to pursue their own interests and push me beyond my limitations. Sometimes my contribution is methodological, sometimes conceptual, and sometimes theoretical. But I think that my role is basically as a mentor, and it involves some sensitive balancing acts: I try to balance theoretical and empirical aspects; students' self confidence and self doubt; the relationship between the focus and context of the research; students' originality with their grounding in existing literatures; relationships between 'home' and 'field'; and the relationship between scholarship and activism. I worry that mentoring is under attack in the emerging rationalist university. It is already squeezed out of undergraduate teaching.

Bob: Honours is the first time you get struck by that idea that you have to create something called knowledge. But the knowledge you create in an Honours thesis is knowledge that you haven't got, you've never done it before, you've not been down this track. It doesn't matter if your topic's been done many times over. You are creating something new and unique. Postgraduate study is bound up with other things, like being expected to create new knowledge, and this is reflected in assessment criteria examiners are given. But what does that mean? One of the key roles of the supervisor is to keep that awesome mystique, whatever it is, under control. I'm a labour market analyst, and we need to remember that this is actually a labour process we're involved in. That doesn't sound very romantic, and the last thing I ever want to do is to throw a bucket of cold water on the notion of it being awesome and mysterious. We cannot reduce all this to a labour process. A supervisor has to deconstruct the PhD process to make it seem achievable, without implying that a PhD is basically a pushover as long as you stay for three years.

Moya: Yes, it's more than that, but it's hard to manage sometimes, isn't it?

Bob: Yes. Australian universities have treated supervision ambiguously over the quarter of a century that I've been teaching. Is it part of your research? Is it part of your teaching? I think it's very important that supervision is treated as part of the supervisor's teaching load. Connell (1985: 38) talks about the exchange of information about teaching about research. But, I don't think that's quite enough. During these conversations between supervisors and students we are also nourishing our discipline - constructing its future. Some of the most interesting conversations I've had about geography have been with the people around this table during supervisions. I want to make just one more point in these preliminaries. I often say to students that I reflect back to you what you've told me - but that inevitably goes through a filter of my own understanding and ideas. So it is never merely reflecting back what you've said to me, because there's always an element of me in that as well. The supervisor's always got this balancing act between reflecting back to you as a sounding board, and steering you towards some sort of outcome. If we pretend that we don't do that steering, then we're not actually representing accurately what we do.

Processes and Moments

Opening words: choosing a supervisor and starting the relationship

One of the first moments in the PhD process is negotiationing the supervision relationship. Initiating the relationship between student and supervisor is a moment that echoes throughout the student's candidature, and often well beyond that.

Richie: One of the first things I say to PhD students is that they should start three folders - one called 'The PhD Project'; another that fits inside labelled 'The PhD Thesis'; and a third that fits the other two inside and is called 'Life's Work'. Poor supervision often gets those folders mixed up. People try to fit their life into the PhD rather than the other way around. Students often set out thinking their thesis will be the last word on their topic. It is better to think of it as the first word in a new conversation. It is the beginning of your career rather than its culmination. It is also a transition into new possibilities. It's been interesting watching colleagues go through the transition from a supervisor/student relationship to a more collegial relationship. The thesis is the opening shot of that as well. So, setting up the relationship between student and supervisor, setting out the terms of that relationship, mutual expectations about process and strengths, and actually choosing the supervisor, is really important.

Sue: I came back to doing a thesis after running the Northern Territory Environment Centre in Darwin. I was politically motivated and wanted somebody who could understand that and wanted to supervise me towards applying my efforts to the real world.6 My Honours supervisor suggested Richie.7 I came to Macquarie and we spent three or four hours 'testing' each other. I didn't really know what I was meant to ask or how selective a supervisor should be. We just spent this time dancing around. Finally I said 'Would you be interested?' and he said he would be. It was a very nice moment because I felt accepted and understood.

Geetha: My circumstances were different. I chose to come here to work with Richie after a troubled start at another university. My first start not only nearly stopped me from doing a PhD, but almost broke me as a person. I didn't know who Richie was, but I had read certain papers that interested me. I was searching for someone who would understand what I wanted to do - not technically, but in terms of things I wanted to explore.8 Previously, I was expected to use a specific approach. But I wanted to explore wider possibilities, potentialities. I didn't want just to reorganise knowledge that is already out there. So, Richie was ideal. When I started at the first university I thought, 'OK I can get through the PhD whatever supervisor I have. He might order me around a lot, but you know, I don't really need anybody'. But that would never have worked. When I came to Richie I appreciated him more because of my other experience. I wanted freedom to explore. In our supervisions, Richie listens and says something which at first seems not be directly on target. But when I think about it - mostly in the bus on my way home from our meetings - you know it just clicks. Whereas earlier I had just one brief conversation where I was told what to do, and it was a disaster. I previously thought that supervision shouldn't exist. I always thought PhD students should go and do their thesis on their own. So, I would stress the importance of the intellectual dimension of the relationship more than anything else. If the supervisor does not respect the student as a colleague, then this won't work. When the supervisor chooses a student, they have to know they will respect the intellectual qualities of the student. And the student needs to respect the intellectual contribution of the supervisor.

Sandie: In Canada I met a lot of PhD students and talked about their experiences with supervisors. We're talking about nourishing conversations, but they talked about exploitation! The average time people were taking was at least 6-7 years because most of the time wasn’t spent doing their own PhD. And when they talked about the type of supervision they got, I just realised how incredibly lucky I was because of the holistic view Richie and Bob have of supervision.

Mike: Your PhD sometimes benefits from having a supervisor in a different field. If I had gone into the international relations field I would have produced something which may have got through, but it would have really added nothing new to the debate. The thing that my examiners commented on in particular was the result of conversations between me and Bob.9 I worried when I started that my supervisor didn't know a great deal about the specific field. But that was where the contribution came from.

Richie: It's interesting that this group includes people who have stayed with their Honours supervisor for their PhD. In principle, I think you should change supervisors between Honours and PhD. I guess I assume that Honours, which is a very intensive year, probably gets you across most of the ideas your supervisor has to offer.

Sandie: Richie supervised both my Honours and PhD work, so it's been quite a long and dynamic relationship.10 Having someone who has that longer perspective has been important. There's no one else in my life who has the academic perspective on what I'm trying to do, and also knows me well enough to tie it in with personal and other issues. It has allowed me to take my PhD to places I always wanted to go, but never imagined possible. Richie talks about balancing scholarship and activism and seeing beyond the PhD. Being able to bring the PhD project to life and tie it back around into particular areas and people was an important part of my choice. Richie's understanding from his supervision of my Honours work has also really challenged me. He has confidence that I can do it - which I often don't have.

Bob: Persuading students to do postgraduate study with somebody other than their Honours supervisor sounds like a good idea, but in practice it can't always work. It may be that you really want to stay somewhere because you know you actually haven't exhausted the supervisor. In fact, you've only just worked out what you really want to do. Maybe you've already stumbled on the best place to do your project. There might be a hundred reasons to stay in that place that have something to do with academia and others to do with things outside. I don't think I've changed my mind on saying 'Look it's better to work with somebody else', but in practice it's not working any more. That leads me back to Mike's thing about choosing supervisors. Although his topic was not in my field, I got fascinated by his topic. I started to think about it in the only way that I can. I've been interested in how much we affected each other. The thesis ended up talking about the interaction between global and local scales, which is my hobby horse. Another of my recent students turned his thesis inside out to finally write it up in a framework that reflected our conversations rather than his original framework. But such changes result from the conversations - the two-way process - they can't be simply imposed.

Scott: I used to come out of Honours supervision sessions where Bob and I had been talking for hours and my partner would say you know 'What have you been doing in there?' I think those meetings established a rapport that was very important in my PhD project.11 I see Bob as someone who gives me confidence to explore issues.

Richard: I want to take issue with the idea you can actually run your supervisor out of ideas.12 I found with Bob we were actually bouncing off each other on theoretical issues. I wanted to go in a certain direction but the combination took us both off into places that neither of us intended heading for. It wasn't really a matter of running the supervisor out of ideas. It was being confident with someone who was taking you where you wanted to go and also in their ability to work with you as you went. Bob talks about the dialectic between supervisor and student and the need to be more than just reflective. Actually, I'm stunned how often Bob seems to know more about where I am in terms of my thesis framework than I do. But he doesn't tell me where to go all the information has come from me. I think one of Bob’s skills is the ability to carry on this conversation and tease the wheat from the chaff, the sense from the confusion, in what you are saying to him. But the key, and why it is dialectical rather than simply reflective, is that during this conversation he can paint a picture of how the thesis is developing that is not his direction, but your own filtered through his experience. I think that's a really important part of this idea of the conversation between supervisor and student; to hear yourself actually get something out of someone else's close interpretation of your own work. That allows you to go on further.

Geetha: But I would like to ask whether you take any students who come along? I think that personalities also have to click at some point.

Bob: Geetha, that's a very important question. Quite often, I've told people that I'm not the most appropriate supervisor. And it is important to have a sense of that right in the beginning. Sometimes, although rarely, I have supervised people with different ideological or theoretical positions to mine and we've developed reasonable relationships. You learn to keep off certain topics to maintain the conversation I suppose.

Sue: I would like to come back to the notion of the conversation. Over my years with Richie, he's elaborated more on supervision as a conversation and the processes of conversation. It helps me to see what we've gone through. There is a certain amount of awe about the whole process to me, and I still don't really know how it worked on a day to day basis. I can identify important features of it. One is this sense of pace and timing. I can remember feeling in the early periods that I wasn't really sure what was expected of me. I also remember a sense of frustration that I sensed Richie knew where he wanted to be leading me, but I had to wait for that to evolve and unfold. That's the mentor role coming through. There was sometimes anxiety on my part. I felt I needed to be further down the track than I should have been, but you know I never felt that from Richie. I think that's a really important part of it. It's a conversation: knowing that you've got the time to be heard, knowing that you've got the time to develop your ideas and your own thesis progress.

Richie: Did you ever feel that I didn’t know what I was doing? I certainly did!

Sue: No, but there is mystery to the process. There were times when I'd wonder 'Do we really know what we’re doing here?' And of course I would think to myself 'Does Richie know what he’s doing here?', but they’re very brief moments not very frequent.

Moya: Do you think that’s inevitable?

Sue: Absolutely. It comes with the territory. But they’re tiny moments in the scheme of things. You’ve got so much else to draw on. It was reassuring to have someone with standing in the community that I was working with and Richie was very nice about his own doubts. He was supervising other people and examining theses. Some of that was new to him. We'd talk about those too - those things are reality checks.

Richie: But that's a difference between Bob’s experience and mine. I've had Bob to draw on as a mentor on supervision. Part of the reason I came to Macquarie was to work with Bob. When I had doubts, I had someone in my Department that I could turn to. That's a role universities should draw on to strengthen postgraduate supervision, but that is also at risk if professors are expected to generate revenue rather than ideas!

Bob: We also need to acknowledge that there are people who would give a different reading on what we do. I know some people would think my supervision strategy - conversation rather than direction - is risky for the student. For me it would be interesting to hear from students I supervised early in my career, for example honours students I supervised before I finished my PhD. I began supervising people with little idea of what to do. We got through okay, but it was a very top down process compared to more recent experiences.

Getting to the point: establishing a topic of conversation

In the social sciences, students often start with a clear idea of the issues they want to work on in their PhD, but find transforming this into a coherent research project, and ultimately a thesis proposal more difficult and time consuming than they expected. Connell (1985: 39) recognises that this can be unsettling, and the role of a supervisor in nurturing depth, breadth, coherence and openness at this stage is delicate and critical. It is also the phase in which students often confront literature and ideas that go well beyond the supervisor's work.

Moya: Perhaps we could discuss some of the crucial moments in your relationship with your supervisor, or the 'ah-ha' moments where something made sense.

Kylie: I probably have a different perspective to others, because I've just completed my Honours thesis.13 Doing Honours was one big 'ah-ha' moment. I don't think I'd ever had any sort of discussion with academics before Honours. I avoided the buildings, went to class and left. When I decided to undertake Honours with Richie, I had no idea what was in store. I don't think I realised until towards the end that it was a conversation. At first I would just walk in and he'd say 'What did you do on the weekend?' 'I did this.' 'How's your thesis going?' 'Oh, I've done a bit.' - and then leave. But after a while I worked out Richie was there to be responsive and to do his balancing act. So, that was a major 'ah-ha' moment - supervision wasn't just to talk about what you did on the weekend. I also lacked confidence initially. I didn't really know anyone who had done Honours before.

Mike: I'm amazed that a lot of people don't actually start thinking until they get to Honours. I’ve met people with negative views of supervision, but there is such a positive experience being generated here at Macquarie. A lot of it comes down to the supervisors' commitment of time and interest in the students and their ideas and topics.

Richard: Could I also add that their interest also helps the process. Bob can elicit more effort from me with a look of disappointment than if he stood over me with a stick. So what appears to be, superficially, an inefficient process of having a sort of guarded friendship with your supervisor, actually turns out to be highly efficient, because it motivates you to work harder.

Alison: I've been thinking about my Honours project and how it was really a journey that incorporated, drew upon and created a whole lot of things other than a thesis.14 This was particularly the case because I was studying on a part time basis, and I began planning and dreaming the project several years before. I had time and space that's not available in full-time schedules. Kylie talked about Richie's 'balancing act'. I really appreciated the flux and flow between Richie's responsive approach on the one hand and his more directional approach on the other. He responded to my thoughts, ideas and what was going on in my life and head by channelling and drawing out these things. But this was always balanced by his usually gentle guidance of the process and introduction of structures and sometimes a metaphorical kick in the pants! Obviously these responsive and directive elements can't be easily separated and there are times when they occur simultaneously. But I think skill and insight are needed on the part of the supervisor to think about where and when each is needed. The balance Richie struck in supervising me helped overcome my anxieties about the production of my work. In retrospect, it seems like the responsive elements allowed time for building an understanding and relationship, both between supervisor and student, and student and the subject matter, and with the directional aspects aimed at getting the job done.

Sue: Moya asked for 'ah-ha' moments. I think one of the key moments for me was when I realised that you have to find your own path here and you're going to find that you really do have to do it yourself. I was looking around for models. I wanted to understand exactly how you do a thesis and just go out and apply it. I think an 'ah-ha' moment for me was Richie reminding me that this was not about applying one model or one theory to a topic.

Getting serious: keeping records of the conversation

Connell (1985: 39) notes that 'deciding what the research is to be about can take a surprising amount of time'. Developing depth in the discipline, familiarity with relevant literatures, specifying criteria for selecting case studies and field areas, and having confidence in the proposed research requires considerable real work from both student and supervisor. At this point, seeing the supervisor as a practising researcher is critically important to maintaining a credible relationship.

Sue: From my experience, and hearing other people's stories about supervision, it's very often the case that there's minimal contact early in the process. I think a lot of academics probably feel pressured about time and there's no doubt that what we're talking about takes a lot of time and personal commitment to not fob people off. I never had Richie fob me off. I've been out at meetings or we've been together in the field, and he's had phone calls from students. It made me think of the times that I would call from my field areas, and there's just so much time there for each student in his mind - not in his diary, but in his mind. I think that's something to reflect on in terms of what universities prioritise and value.

Moya: Can I ask how you document your supervision conversations?

Sandie: That’s where I think the 'conversations' are always challenging. Apart from pushing my thoughts from what I am doing and asking questions, the conversations continue through the pen when Richie comments on my draft material.

Bob: I think we both write lots of comments on students' writing. I do it partly because I like to have a record of where we've been. Richie talked about folders before, and I have a folder in the drawer for each student. I like to get it out in supervisions because that's something for me to hang on to and put notes in. I can remind myself where we got to last time. But I try to do that not in a very formalised way. Although for a long while I've tried to imagine that the Ombudsman is actually in the room with us. That might sound crazy, but early in my career there were issues about supervision at Macquarie, and once the Ombudsman was called in to review a dispute between a student and a supervisor. After that, I thought 'From now on if I can pretend the Ombudsman is already here, figuratively speaking, then I'm going to be prepared if anything goes really wrong'. It never has, but I like to work with that sort of accountability.

Moya: And do you keep a copy of comments you’ve handed to the student?

Richie: I generally do. And in one case it became absolutely crucial because the student lost the original and the only source of revision was my copy.

Bob: I keep copies of the notes and I type out notes on each chapter as well as having those in the folder. I've actually got a record on the computer chapter by chapter. I’ve always tried to do that. I think record keeping is really important, although it's hard to do it consistently.

Moya: There is a model of supervision where you should be keeping a log and the student should provide a written report on the last session and say this is what I feel happened and this is what I learned and hand it in at the next meeting (eg Yeatman 1995). Is that sort of thing you’re thinking of?

Scott: But if someone has a dreadful name as a supervisor, however, no amount of writing in log books will improve things. I think that it can also infringe on the productive informality of a good relationship.

Richie: I try to keep record, but I don't think they have to be particularly detailed. As a school teacher I needed to document what I said to parents and why. That's some of the baggage that I brought into academia from the classroom. I’ve never seen a reason to cast it out.

Scott: I suppose it also reminds me of my other profession as a nurse. When someone was mismanaged and killed, all the patient notes were really bumped up. And when people were managed well, then notes were far less exhaustive. So for me, there’s always that awkward feeling when notes are managed well, I start to panic that someone’s going to cop it.

New discursive spaces: building from the conversation

For Human Geographers, fieldwork is often conceptually crucial for a project. Connell (1985: 39) identifies the 'gathering information' phase of the PhD project as 'the high point for the student', but as a phase that presents a range of challenges.

Moya: Can I ask about fieldwork, because that’s something specific to this kind research? What sorts of conversations go on between you and your supervisor when you’re out on the field and physically a long way away?

Sandie: I found the first weeks for my Honours fieldwork really hard because I thought I hadn't done enough. But you become really aware that it’s your own work - a separation comes in to it which is important. You cope and make decisions and do and learn and go with it. In my PhD, I've worked on four continents and it was quite hard at times. In Canada I was in e-mail contact quite often and able to let Richie know where I’d been and what I’d done. That was reassuring. When I was in southern Africa, it was a lot harder because over nearly four months, I only sent three or four e-mails and I faced some major life decisions in splendid isolation!

Mike: Fieldwork for me was quite frightening. You finally take your conceptual stuff into the field and you realise that what was completely relevant in the academic setting seems irrelevant in the setting of people you’re trying to talk to. You go out there and you need some help to deal with that. A couple of these people told me my PhD topic was irrelevant. They were very nice about it but how do you deal with that?

Sue: Were they local people or academics?

Mike: They were local academics and they had their own agendas - but sometimes you need help to realise that there are academic agendas and there’s competition and you’re treading on other academics' precious territory. The fieldwork really pushed you into understanding the topic and constantly questioning the work and your outlook. I think coping with fieldwork demands academic maturity very quickly.

Sue: Richie also talks about networking. He has a capacity to give us an initial entry into some communities through his own networks, but beyond that it’s up to us to establish a decent and sustainable relationship with people and continue to prove our relevance.

Moya: In that sense you are on your own aren’t you? To build your own credibility personally?

Scott: But there’s also a responsibility in not wanting to wreck the entré that you’ve been given.

Mike: I also think the supervisor has to be able to deal with the student's depressions and difficulties. There was one crucial moment in my fieldwork in Fiji when Bob was not contactable. I was at the University of the South Pacific, and I'd been told by a couple of specialists that my topic had been done many times over and I had nothing to contribute. I thought I should ask my supervisor for advice. So I sat down at the computer, wrote an e-mail, went away, came back - no response, wrote another one, no response. So, I thought, 'Right, that's it - I'm on the next plane back to England'. But it turned out that Bob was actually sick. I was suddenly alone. When you are abandoned I think you realise you'd been going along without knowing how much you rely on your supervisor. When it goes, you realise there's been someone there really holding it together.

Sue: Yes, it's hard to get through without anybody else to work with. I worked in Darwin and I felt quite isolated from the rest of the Macquarie group. But I think that you can call on other people too. Although I was in Darwin, I was very fortunate to be at an outpost of the ANU, and we had some fantastic academics there, mainly anthropologists, and there was a great spirit there. So I felt that on one hand I was disadvantaged in that I didn't have other PhD students to work with, but I did have these other academics and we had a writer's group going, which was great. It would have been much more difficult if I'd just been at home and doing it externally. But I feel I missed a lot of that collegiality. You miss it socially too, not just from the benefits that it can bring in and getting through, but in making friends in the area that interests you.

Moya: People in other disciplines often find it is a very lonely experience anyway - even when they are on campus. Collegiality and peer support among postgrads isn't always facilitated.

Sue: I think Richie made a lot of effort to try and be the middle man between a lot of the students. I know a great deal about the other students and know about their work because Richie has woven a net between us all. That's extra work for him, but it's made us feel as though we are a group of people with connected interests and directions.

Scott: One of the things about that collegiality, is our own geography. Within the Department, we've at least got offices we share, so Sandie and Sue, when she was on campus, are a yell away. But that's not the case for everyone.

Finding your own voice: writing the thesis

As we've already indicated - no matter how exciting the process is, research supervision is ultimately consummated by production of a thesis. So writing is important to the process. Connell (1985: 39) suggests there is 'tremendous anxiety about writing' for the student. That's certainly true, but it also a time of empowerment and fulfilment as the project is brought into a new form of realistion.

Bob: Yesterday I had a session with Scott where we discussed a draft of some of his material. I had commented in detail on some stuff that was very familiar to me, but left some of the stuff more in Scott's line pretty free of comment. That's a good illustration of the two way conversation because I wondered, 'Did I just cover all the stuff on labour and work with ink because that is my field? Perhaps I couldn't really understand the stuff that was more in Scott's field?' But that wasn't it. That stuff from your field was very well written compared with the material on labour and there's an obvious reason for that.

Scott: That's interesting. That bit you covered in ink I found the hardest bit to write.

Bob: So it comes out as a two way flow. The well-written material was persuasive and I learned something. Hopefully the detailed comments on the other section would be a basis for redeveloping it. The two-way nature of the conversation is the crucial thing.

Mike: The supervision session is actually an attempt to engage in discourse. That is now rare in academia. You're actually involved in a discourse about the stuff you are working on. You are actually being encouraged to sit and discuss your research. That time may be the only chance you get during the week to actually discuss your work. That discursive space becomes the place that we can write from!

Sandie: And that space gets constructed in our heads, too! When I was finishing my honours Richie was in the US for a couple of weeks. I remember there was panic - I had my list of questions and there was no one to ask. I just had to go ahead and make a decision and do it. I hated it but I really learnt. Part of the PhD is to learn to take it on my own. I think that was the case of fieldwork as well. The conversations continue in your head. Even though I wasn't in contact with Richie for three months, I constantly had things that we talked about at various stages going through my head and that’s always very important in regards to what you're doing.

Geetha: Throughout the process, the self doubt is always there. I think that's why the supervisor is so important. Richie always responds to my writing positively and carefully, and that drives me further. You know, he gets that doubt part out and encourages you on.

Sandie: Richie, do you think you also have that sort of doubt yourself?

Richie: I'm very conscious of balancing self confidence and self doubt in my own work. I guess it's the arrogance of theoretical learning that I want to challenge within the discipline more generally --

Moya: Challenging more than creating self doubt?

Richard: It sounds to me a bit like the problem of Socrates. I’ve always found that coming to University, especially this time around - that Socratic idea that the more I learn, the more I learn how much I don't actually know. When I was 18 I knew everything. Now I know less than I ever did. So, yes I think that's absolutely important. You need to be aware of your limitations and that's a great idea of moving towards the truth without ever actually expecting to find it.

Bob: Several of you’ve mentioned that respect and confidence are crucial in these conversations. I must say that I've thought of my main role as developing students' confidence. So, I was challenged by Richie's question about the doubt side. Challenge and critique and showing those different doorways are important, but I think I’ve mostly worked on the confidence side of things. But there is a danger that you can persuade somebody to go on longer than they might otherwise do on a project they should pull out from. There’s a responsibility on the supervisor not just to respect student's ideas and offerings but also to be ready to tell them \\f

if they are going down a track that’s not going to lead them to a PhD. Making that assessment gets easier as you go. I've now examined 15-20 PhD theses. So I’ve got that experience to draw on in supervision.

Richie: You're looking worried Sandie.

Sandie: No, I'm thinking about the psychological skills you have to develop as well. Apart from the teaching, you're talking about sort of the rhythm behind the PhD. You do your balancing act all the time, and have to be careful not to push me out of kilter - which probably could happen quite easily a lot of time!

Moya: And I suppose it's the judgement that the supervisor's making if too much pressure is going to have a negative effect on you, not enough might lose the momentum required to finish.

Bob: There's a balancing act which I think is sometimes the hardest but it happens with every person I have ever supervised. That is to determine when you've actually finished. At some point I have to say, 'Right, you've done it now - you don't have to write another thesis. Hand in the one you've already completed'. I have often used those very words. I've had an experience recently with a student who had a thesis which I reckon would have got through as it was, but he said, 'Well, I'm going through revisions now'. I thought we made sure he knew what revision was. But when he sent back the revised first chapter, it was totally different from the original first chapter. When I questioned it, he said 'No, no - I'm right on to this stuff now. It's not going to take me very long now!' He ended up with a brilliant second thesis, but the first one would have done!

Richie: When I was an Honours student, Bob took me through the story of his own thesis 15, saying that he didn't want to submit the one he'd written because he'd moved on out of the framework that it was conceived in. I did exactly the same in my PhD. I did a whole lot of things that I thought were important about the work, which was on mining companies in north Australia.16 We'd done the comic book (Wigley 1982), we'd done the songs, we'd had the political literacy pamphlets for communities and all those things and the last thing to get done was the thesis. It was only when I got pressured from outside that I ever got around to submitting the thesis itself. So, I think Bob and I are different sorts of exemplars of how you submit it and then move on to what's next. When you're a PhD student submitting the thesis looms as a defining moment of your life, but it really is just an opening of a new conversation.

Time to talk: management the conversations and other demands

Moya: Do other aspects of your academic work suffer because of the time you give to these conversations, or is that worked out?

Richie: Yes, I think they do. I will talk about Bob first, because I was one of the beneficiaries of Bob’s generosity when I was a student. I think three quarters of Australian Geography has benefited from Bob's generosity in commenting on papers, but his portfolio of publications is probably slimmer than it would have otherwise been.

Bob: Yeah, perhaps.

Richie: I know mine is as well. That’s one of the costs - it's hard to write a conceptual paper in the margins of a PhD student’s drafts and also submit the more refined version for publication. Between the margins of different students' pages, I weave a web between the students as well as between my thinking and writing and their thinking and writing. The effort that goes into that sort of reading-and-writing is the same sort of effort that goes into writing a paper for publication or a funding application that gets you brownie points in the university research quantum. My longer term view is that the papers that the students produce actually contribute to the wider construction of knowledge. The irony of course is that a lot of those papers come out under the imprimatur of another university because by that time they've moved on to employment in another place. Somehow the system doesn’t quite understand that the effort involved is cumulative across the discipline and the system as a whole. That's why even at this highly individualised level, education is a public good rather than a private benefit.

Bob: I think that’s an important point. I mean to go back to Moya's direct question I would only be able to answer it the way I answer any question about time management. The links between what I’ve done timewise and my portfolio of publications is indirect. I couldn’t attribute it to any one part of this process.

Moya: That brings me to another question. I'm intrigued by these accounts of long conversations. I never have such conversations with my supervisors. They are an hour at most.

Scott: If you're trying to create good ideas, you need time to let the things ripen.

Bob: This issue of time is a really crucial question. I mean there's no less time for supervision than for any of the million and one other things we have to do. There's no time to do anything really! So there always is time. One thing that makes a big difference for us was that our department builds it into our workload models - so there's recognition that this is part of our work. If you've got a lot of supervision then you've less coursework teaching than somebody else who hasn't got a lot of supervision. I observed this as a difficulty in other places where they never seem to have sorted this out. Long supervisions are part of the conversation. I can't always make meetings even if they're short. So, when I can talk for two or three hours, if there are reasons to do it, then I'm quite happy to. I can't just bring something to an end because we've run out of time. I've never worked like that in anything. I'm not a timetable person except that I'm quite capable of being rigid on thesis writing timetables. I can't work very well by saying, 'We'll just meet for an hour and we'll meet often'.

Sue: But that comes back to the fact that it might only average an hour a week - but when I look back, those years of an hour a week are an immense effort to put in to the development of someone's intellectual capacity!

Richie: I've tried to think that way - an hour a week every week that gets made up in bundles of time as it's needed. But if you've got a slot timetabled it opens up the space for conversation every week. I've been very conscious that there's often a line of people outside my door and, like a doctor's surgery, the appointments get further and further behind schedule. I think there's a lot of tolerance amongst my students. They tolerate the attention given to others. Where there's intolerance is from people who aren't part of the supervision group. I think there's also intolerance from some colleagues. But within the group, there's a degree of tolerance and latitude - people know that, when the need arises, they'll get the three hour session when they had a one hour appointment. Is that true?

Sandie: Yes. I'd rather go to a doctor where there's stacks of people in the waiting room knowing they'll spend an hour with me if I need an hour and not to chuck me out at the end of an arbitrary consultation time.

Bob: But we've got to be honest as well. Sometimes I have to say I've only got an hour or even less. Because I get distracted by what's coming next as well. You do get distracted if you've got a budget meeting coming up at 11 so I try not to schedule PhD supervisions where you know you're really going to be distracted by the next obligation.

The next conversation: beyond the PhD

With rapid change in higher education, the role of supervision is also changing rapidly. While supervisors have long been important in shaping students' career paths, it is often overlooked that the relationship continues long after the thesis is completed and the student has moved on.

Bob: Connell (1985) talks about letting go before you've submitted, not after. At some point, supervisors have to say, 'Look I've done all I can. You're on your own again, now that you are submitting this and going through the examination process. I'll come back when I need to in my professional capacity'. At what point do you let go? I tend to stay engaged all the way through, but then you get to the point after it's all over and you've got your PhD or your Honours. I don't want the relationship to stop - but it's going to be different. If there's anything being really squeezed by the current circumstances it's the opportunity to develop these relationships beyond the thesis supervision. The frustrating thing is that this relationship, this conversation you build up, that you sustain while you're in that supervisor-student relationship, is very difficult to sustain afterwards. I'd love to sit down and write a paper with Mike, with Scott, with Richard - but I don't know when I'll get to do that.

Mike: Maybe you both sort of let go at the very beginning too, because you allow people to do this sort of research. That's a real statement of confidence in the student. It's a contrast to Geetha's situation, where she had someone telling her that it had to be this way. Maybe you've got enough confidence to let if flow and see where it goes. Maybe it's a very positive process of letting go at the very beginning.

Richie: That's very interesting! That's exactly what we do. We've learned this in part from supervising field-based research. Fieldwork shapes supervision in a very particular way because you can never predict what's going to happen in the field. It doesn't matter how well I know the field area, it's going to be different when the student is working there. But isn't it interesting that what binds us together I think is not fieldwork in common places but concepts. Fundamentally we're on about ideas, not a particular research project. Even though we share a commitment to applied research and we're on about social accountability and all of those sorts of things, we're basically engaged in a discourse about ideas. There's no presumption about where a particular person will jump on and jump off. I think Mike's right, we do let go at the beginning. We don't assume we know what research you should do. I've never done that with a student and I think a lot of Honours students find that terribly unsettling because they want to be told what to do.

Mike: You're involved in actually creating knowledge -- I can't believe I'm saying this because at the time I just wanted it out of the way -- but it is quite a nice thing to sit back and to realise that a process which caused so much stress was so positive.

Richie: Yes, that idea of building knowledge is very attractive. We all thought that was what academia was like. You could sit around and talk about ideas. Sue and I have been working together on other projects as colleagues over the period when she was finalising the thesis and since then.17 It's a difficult transition from supervisor to colleague. As colleagues, you don't have those different roles - there is more latitude to negotiate roles. And that's where I've found it helpful over the years to watch other colleagues in the same situation and seeing the egos get involved. You know, the old supervisor still wanting to call the shots.

Sue: It's a very tense time. You can't talk about the equality involved in the conversation because there's no doubt that we often go in those supervisions feeling very useless or feeling insecure and unsure because the supervisor's the person who knows a great deal and who you respect and admire. So there is a difference in the power situation. When we started to move outside that relationship it became a little tense because I was starting to see him differently - I was changing in my working relationship with him. It's very complex. It was incredibly disorienting. All of a sudden there was stuff going on in my mind that I just wasn't prepared for.

Moya: This was after your thesis?

Sue: This was just as I was putting my final drafts together to submit but I was working with Richie on a consultancy in the Northern Territory. The mentor relationship was not falling apart or anything, but it had almost come to completion and so we had to move into a new start.

Moya: A new relationship?

Richie: But that opening up rather than starting with a closure is very important to me. Sue and I had a conversation in Alice Springs just before her final submission in which she talked about finishing the thesis in terms of a grieving process. I found that very helpful because it was so clear that it is a grieving process - there is this thing that has been so all consuming, particularly in the final stages where you are focused on writing (you become very product oriented, bugger the process) and you know suddenly it's gone, suddenly it's finished and you move on. But you can't move on because it's out for examination and God knows how long that's going to take and you don't know what the result's going to be.

Mike: But for me not finding a job immediately afterwards became a turning point. I think if I had found a job quickly it would have been fine, but having had a year and a half without academic work, it has become a defining point for when I was enjoying it being my life. I've almost said that to myself that was my life's work in academia.

Moya: It's the post-PhD experience that was destructive?

Mike: Oh yes, the PhD experience was great but the post-PhD experience and the sort of searching has been incredibly destructive and that's interesting itself. It was really interesting that when I finished the PhD, the only thing I wanted to do - to finish and then to go and have a good long time off and then to start looking for work. But, when it was gone, I'd lost the thing that defined my existence for three years. At the end, you're in a state of flux --

Sue: But it's not only that is it? I mean that's the grief Richie was talking about. The grief that I felt was because I'd been focused around an issue and driven by it - and you know that you'll never have another period in your life of such development - that's where I felt that you're in grief.

Scott: I do think you've got to be happy with what you submit --

Sue: You can be, but no one prepares you for the grief of letting go of it. You can still be happy with it but suddenly something that's motivated you for years and something that's focused you and driven you is all over and it's really anti climatic. There are no more stages to go through - there's delays, there's long waits, you're exhausted but you don't feel as tired as you were expecting. You might've thought I'll go to bed for a week and then you wake up feeling good but it's a different kind of tiredness. You feel drained of ideas

Reflections

Richard: I'd like to reflect on the relationship between supervision and what’s happening more broadly in society at the moment. How is the relationship between supervisor and student being affected by new systems of university management and the process of changing between new management systems? Isn’t it paradoxical? When the pressure is on from the university to be more efficient and limit the time, push us through and all that sort of thing, Richie and Bob face increasing demand for them as supervisors. If their approach is actually what attracts and services the students, the university’s approach is based on a fallacy. I worry about the integrity of supervision in the future given the demands placed on academics. Quite frankly, I think talented supervisors are being swamped by administrative demands made upon them. So if we’re talking supervision and how it is done well, it needs to be said that good supervision is under threat in Australia at the moment. No matter how good individual supervisors might be, there is still a question the methods we've talked about if supervisors are not given the time to put them into practice.

Richie: Well the other side that your comment brought to mind, Richard, is our families. I’m constantly aware that one of the places that time gets taken from to put into these processes is family time.

Bob: I think Richard’s point is crucial. We need to avoid restructuring and rationalisation that destroys what is good in universities. Part of that is attracting students that are going to be keen and just don’t think this is just a waste of time. When I started, I didn’t have someone in a mentoring role to talk to about these things, so I tried to make something up - I thought I had to act like a supervisor and I’m still trying to do that! But now I’ve got more resources and knowledge to put into it. I've got that from many sources but a lot of it has come from talking to my PhD students. I still think it’s one of the most exciting things that I do as an academic. I don’t want that to sound glib, but it actually is really exciting. And the theses that get written here are terrific. So nourishing conversations can be a risky strategy, but everything is a risk, and this is a risk worth taking.

Richie: I can only agree with the idea that supervision is the most exciting part of what I do as a teacher and maybe as a researcher as well. What Sandie and I have been doing together recently is typical - we’ve been talking about how to write a thesis that unsettles the colonial relations embodied within the PhD process. That problem nearly stopped me from submitting my own thesis 15 years ago! How can you write in a way that actually challenges the boundaries? At Honours level, too, we’ve been through this in a very challenging way just recently. One of our theses was assessed as 'not fitting the mould'. I found that very distressing because as far as I am concerned there can't be a 'mould'. The way I see it, every student and every thesis creates a mould and then, if it’s good work, breaks it. Having the opportunity to participate in that - to push the boundaries - is just so exciting and it constantly confronts me with thoughts, ideas and circumstances that have forced me to grow as a teacher and as a person in all sorts of ways.

Moya: What I’d like to say as the outside observer here is that the idea of supervision as a mutually nourishing conversation is wonderful and appropriate. The thing that I’ve learnt from listening to all of you is that you have constructed this two way process. I don’t think a lot of academics see this part of their work as something as exciting, enriching, rewarding and nourishing as you do. I’m sure there are a lot of supervisors who really don’t care and supervise by neglect. That is another model, as is supervision by over-direction. The other thing that I pick up is that all of you see this as a creative process and creativity involves taking risks and so that’s exciting! Finally, I'd just like to come back to this amazing balancing act that requires not just technique, but sensitivity. I don’t know whether that can be taught. I hope it can because I think that balancing of responsive reflection and nurturing direction and combining the professional relationship and friendship, helping people with their timing of pushing forward or slowing down are the hallmarks of good supervision. All these things are remarkable balances and even seeing the role as being a balance between teaching and research opens up creative options.

References

Abayasekera, M.A. Geetha (in prep): Environmental ideology and urban planning: the discourse and practice of 'environmental protection' in the environmental planning process of Sydney's metropolitan growth (PhD thesis topic), Department of Human Geography, Macquarie University, Sydney

Connell, R.W. (1985): How to supervise a PhD. Vestes: the Australian Universities' Review. 28(2): 38-41.

Edwards, Michael J (1996): Definitions, threats and pyramids: the changing faces of security. Environment and Security 1(1), 96-123.

Edwards, Michael J (1997): Threats in the Greenhouse: climate change and security in the Southwest Pacific. Ph.D. Dissertation, School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney.

Eggleton, Kylie (1998): Rivers as resource; rivers as sanctuary: Aboriginal issues in river management. BA(Hons) Thesis, School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney.

Fagan, Robert H (1973): Resource development, plant location, and government influence: a spatial analysis of the Australian metalliferous minerals industry. Ph.D. Dissertation, Australian National University, Canberra.

Harwood, Alison (1997): Putting protest in its place: power, protest and participation - Gulf Aboriginal people and the Century Mine proposal. BA(Hons) Thesis, School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney.

Howitt, Richard (1986): Transnational Corporations in North Australia: strategy and counter strategy. Ph.D. Thesis, School of Geography, University of NSW, Sydney.

Howitt, Richard; Jackson, Sue (1998): Some things do change: indigenous rights, geographers and geography in Australia. Australian Geographer 29(2), 155-173.

Howitt, Richard; Jackson, Sue; Bryson, Ian (1998): A railway through our country: final report of the Railway Impact Assessment Study - social and cultural impacts of the Alice Springs to Darwin Railway project on Aboriginal people. Northern and Central Land Councils and Macquarie Research Ltd, Darwin, Alice Springs and Sydney.

Jackson, Sue (1998): Geographies of Coexistence: native title, cultural difference and the decolonisation of planning in north Australia. Ph.D. Thesis, School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University.

Rose, Deborah Bird (1996): Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal views of landscape and wilderness. Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra.

Sharpe,Scott (1995): A geography of the birthing moment: space and social practice at the RHW Birth Centre. BA(Hons) Thesis, School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney.

Sharpe, Scott (in prep): A geography of the fold: space and the social practice of economic geography (PhD thesis topic), Department of Human Geography, Macquarie University, Sydney

Suchet, Sandra (1994): Rekindling culture through resources: Aboriginal resource management strategies and aspirations at Weipa. BA(Hons) Thesis, School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney.

Suchet, Sandra (1996): Nurturing Culture Through Country: resource management strategies and aspirations of local landowning families at Napranum. Australian Geographical Studies 34(2), 200-215.

Suchet, Sandra (in prep): 'Situated engagement' as a critique of wildlife management (PhD thesis topic), Department of Human Geography, Macquarie University, Sydney

Tonkin, Liza C (1997): Rethinking the geography of power: generating multiple narratives of power and restructuring politics. Ph.D. Dissertation, School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney.

Wigley, Julian (1982): Mining! A pictorial story of mining companies and how they get to mine on Aboriginal land in Australia. Corporate Study Group of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and the Uniting Church Commission for World Mission, Sydney.

Yeatman, A. (1995): Making supervision relationships accountable: graduate student logs. Australian Universities' Review. 38(2): 9-11.

Endnotes:

1. In coining this term we have drawn on ideas presented in Rose 1996. [return to text]

2. Professor Bob Fagan and Dr Richie Howitt. [return to text]

3. Geetha Abayasekara (PhD), Richard Cook (PhD), Dr Mike Edwards, Dr Sue Jackson, Scott Sharpe (PhD), Sandie Suchet (PhD), Kylie Eggleton (Hons), and Alison Harwood (Hons). [return to text]

4. Moya Adams (Centre for Professional Development, Macquarie University). [return to text]

5. In addition to the above participants, the e-mail list also included Rochelle Braaf (PhD), Libby Ellis (Hons), Venessa Kealy (Hons), Professor Marcia Langton (PhD), Dr Bronwyn Parry, and Dr Liza Tonkin who have also been supervised by Fagan or Howitt in recent years. [return to text]

6. See Jackson 1998. [return to text]

7. Dr Morgan Sant (UNSW), who had been Howitt's PhD associate supervisor. [return to text]

8. See Abayasekara in prep. [return to text]

9. See eg Edwards 1996, 1997. [return to text]

10. See eg Suchet 1994, 1996, in prep. [return to text]

11. Sharpe 1995, in prep. [return to text]

12. Cook 1997, in prep. [return to text]

13. See Eggleton 1998. [return to text]

14. See Harwood 1997. [return to text]

15. See Fagan 1973. [return to text]

16. See Howitt 1986. [return to text]

17. Eg Howitt and Jackson 1998, Howitt, Jackson & Bryson 1998. [return to text]

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