Collective Temporal Activism as a Game changer for the Academy: Reframing Conference Hospitalities Among Colleagues Under Pressure

Abstract

In this article, I combine an experiential account of creative conference disruptions with conceptual ideas for inclusive formats in researcher–activist gatherings. Decelerated storytelling sessions to “miss out” on conventional conference flows were facilitated around the wood burner of a shepherd’s hut at the European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ECQI) 2019 in Edinburgh. Installed as a conference fringe with a counter-temporality, the Welcome Hut entered the program as a “game changer”: a novel pathway for abstract submission offered by ECQI. New ideas to structure events of qualitative research are expressed in order to respond to the challenges for organizers, delegates, and overall conference coherence arising when a major event for nonmainstreamed inquiry grows in scale, popularity, and ambition. As a result of their success, conferences that promise qualitative nonstandardization face the ambiguities that come with growing delegate numbers. I reflect on conference formats that enable rather than disable activist spaces and temporalities. Researcher–activists are invited to explore their personal agency in order to make space for utopian imagination, to allow time for rhythmic contestation, and to experiment with alternative ways to gather, within temporal conference commons. Inclusive pluritemporalities in academia then do not have to remain a privilege for the lucky few.