Enacting writing differently through a collective liminal experience

Abstract

ABSTRACT Writing differently presents numerous challenges, impossibilities, and anxieties. While literature underscores the significance of cultivating new writing forms, the actual experience of writing differently remains obscure. This paper seeks to better understand how alternative forms of writing can be enacted. More specifically, it aims to explore how writing differently affects the process of becoming an academiX, by analyzing our collective and individual experiences within Compo·X, a collective of PhD students. We perceive our doctoral experience as a liminal one, a transitional phase that reshapes our identities. We illustrate how our distinct writing practices facilitated the development of a shared identity and an environment for growth in academic world often known for its lack of inclusivity. At the end, we show how writing differently and collective writing helped us to swim against the tide and served as a platform for micro-revolutions within us and academia’s competitive and normative culture and organization.