Affective Temporalities When Making It Within Academia. The Case of Early Career Female Scholars in STEM

Abstract

Only few women make it to permanent academic positions in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). While working under temporary contracts, early career scientists have to fulfill a complex set of tasks in a limited amount of time and develop their CVs to compete for a permanent position. Based on interviews with early career female scientists working in the field of astrophysics at Danish universities, the article examines the affective mattering of time in their aspirations of pursuing academic positions in STEM. Specifically, through the women's narratives around the practice and notion of “having time with the telescope,” this article analyses how intensities around telescope time affectively shape the routines of academic work and future aspirations. Asking how time comes to affectively matter in the experiences of early career female astrophysicists, the article engages with feminist new materialism and affect theory. The analysis shows how telescope time becomes an affective temporal intensity that simultaneously entangles hopes and fears for the future, the embodied gendered (im)possibilities of making it within academia, and temporal discrepancies between fixed-term academic contracts and the infinitude of scientific goals and aspirations.