Negotiating Legitimacy: Struggles and Strategies for Feeling Belonging in Health and Related Sciences

Abstract

This chapter attends to the ways in which participants in health and related sciences—subjects often described as ‘practice professions’ because of their clinical focus (Boore, 1996)—attempted to develop a sense of belonging within their academic communities. It explores the challenges that participants encountered to belonging and the strategies they developed in trying to overcome these barriers. Drawing on literature which highlights the uncertain status of doctoral students within academic hierarchies (Morris & Wisker, 2011; Wisker et al., 2010), this chapter explores how participants understood their position within their academic communities and how this awareness shaped their sense of belonging. Further, attention is paid to how different aspects of academic cultures influenced individuals’ ability to feel a sense of belonging within their departmental community. In particular, this chapter explores the impact of neoliberalised academic working practices, such as expectations of research productivity, on women doctoral students and how they viewed an academic career. This chapter also examines how gendered academic cultures shaped the lived experiences of women doctoral students in health sciences, attending to the ways in which gendered dynamics such as ‘lad culture’ and ‘banter’ influenced participants’ experiences of doctoral study and contributed to feelings of marginalisation (Jackson & Sundaram, 2020; Phipps & Young, 2013). Using concepts of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Teeuwsen et al., 2014), I explore some of the challenges to legitimacy that participants experienced, but also the strategies they devised in order to develop feelings of legitimacy, validity and, ultimately, belonging.