Dear colleagues,
We would like to invite you to our EGOS PDW on 'Bricolaging careers – Challenging perfection and celebrating imperfection through careers research' taking place in Vienna on the 6th July 2022.
In this PDW we want to question the construction of careers based on the notions of perfection and 'excellence' and their underlying organizational and professional norms. Specifically, we want to reaffirm and re-examine how careers unfold as imperfect life stories and narratives of the self, over time, in diverse contexts and circumstances, and through a varied interplay of power/resistance and structure/agency relations.
Bringing together researchers studying imperfect careers and career bricolage, the PDW will offer a timely re-evaluation of what constitutes fulfilling and successful careers, and will set out promising directions for future research that takes a more holistic and inclusive look into careers.
We invite contributions to this PDW that consider how the lens of imperfection can help us see alternative and different ways of 'doing' careers which challenge organisational and professional norms. In doing so we are keen to attract contributions that develop further sociological/relational approaches to career work, questioning and looking beyond the agentic and individual focus of career studies. By employing an eclectic approach to the ways in which people assign meaning to careers, we want to enable a broad discussion that reflects the diversity of perspectives in studying careers.
We invite a broad range of participants, including PhD students, early career scholars, as well as more experienced academics to think about other nuances, alternatives, and approaches to doing career research and submit their ideas.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact one of our organizing team:
With best wishes,
Organisers
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Alexandra Bristow
The Open University
United Kingdom
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