The Excavation Site
Welcome to my website and very first blog post.
Thank you for joining me on this excavation. Let’s see what we unearth.
I have decided to begin this blog with a self-excavation exploring the ways in which personal aspects of my life have shaped experiences in my professional life. This comes from the perspective that we are whole people with embodied realities that we cannot simply set aside, making compartmentalization an unrealistic goal. The adage of “leave your private life at home” being a hallmark of professionalism is perhaps a cog in a machine that empowers some and disadvantages many others. Perhaps we can seek a more integrated approach that understands that, for many, professional environments are where we are confronted by that which challenges us on a most personal level. In fact, for some, it can be one source—or even the source—of major traumatic events. Further, I navigate academic settings, which are fear-inducing environments for many people. This informs my pedagogical approach. Learning occurs best when the learner feels safe. Science is strong when a variety of perspectives come together to form research questions, design approaches, extract data, and interpret those data. Thus, it seems imperative to create a sense of safety that acknowledges that many people have been traumatized, and even assaulted, in work and academic spaces on the basis of their gender, gender identity, color, nationality, or neurotype. We could argue that these blog posts might, perhaps be a bit like navel-gazing. Nonetheless, I hope that by offering reflections on my own personal and professional life, two things will happen: (1) Someone else might feel less alone and seen and (2) I will also grow and learn. Perhaps I’d like to be seen, too, and to find connection with others. Though I endeavor to create safe spaces for others, I know this is an ongoing process of growth in an ever-changing world.
This theme has held my fascination over the last decade and only seems to be growing more and more. For me, learning how to be an anthropologist in and of itself—not a problem. Fun and fascinating, in fact. The logistics of getting a Ph.D. are challenging and brutal, but doable—on their own. The biggest challenge for me has been the almost daily collision between the personal and the professional. I think this might be the case for a lot of people. These aspects of our experiences and identities impact our interpersonal interactions. Professional success is often predicated on relationships, i.e. a person’s ability to establish and cultivate connections. We first learn how to do this in our personal lives and (effective or not) we carry those skills into our professional lives. To the point I made previously, part of creating more inclusive educational and professional spaces requires acknowledging that those very spaces have been the source of trauma for many people, which makes creating those important connections difficult and terrifying. Sometimes efforts to do so can be triggering and re-traumatizing. I think individual and collective efforts to heal and reconceptualize professional environments and how we navigate them hold potential for new and exciting possibilities.
Being a neurodivergent, trauma-surviving woman factors into my lived reality as does being a mother and a non-traditional student during undergraduate and graduate school. As an adult, I have had limited financial means. There is also the fact that I am cisgender and white. As a child, my parents had the financial means to offer me quite a lot of opportunities growing up and put in the time and labor to facilitate and support me in doing them. Having a close connection to my Italian heritage is another highly influential facet of my identity and experience.
The idea of sharing my ideas and personal history scares me. Such an effort invites exposure and vulnerability. The desire is to do good, but what if I cause harm? Another barrier holding me back is the feeling that my ‘why’ has to be somehow bigger than myself. My ‘why’ has to contribute to the world in some way; it needs to make a positive social impact. Through various digital environments, we are creating this voluminous freely available collective social memoir. I have been empowered by hearing others’ highly relatable experiences, seeing them succeeding and thriving, doing good things in the world, and doing the things they love and want to do with their lives. Admittedly, I indulge in the idea that by sharing my history and point-of-view, I too can empower people. I hesitate though. Arrogance is not a good look on me and is generally followed by rather uncomfortable and humbling moments that provoke major anxiety. I doubt that whatever I share will be new and something that hasn’t been said before. That said, collective voices can be powerful and adding yet another voice to the chorus may be beneficial to someone at some point. Nonetheless, my ‘why’ can’t promise more than I can give and all I can give is me.
Connection is a theme that runs through everything I do. Everything that I have done in research has been about collaboration. My community engaged efforts have always been about collaboration. The jobs where I have felt the greatest satisfaction and enjoyed myself the most have been ones where I have felt connected to the people I worked with. In my CV, cover letters, and such, I’ve labeled myself as collaborative, but really I think connection is the core value for me and it drives me to collaborate. I am interested to see the ways in which I will connect with you and others throughout this process.
So yes—I am scared to start this self-excavation. Yet, I can’t shake the unrelenting urge to do so anyway. I have decided to trust that urge. And, I have decided to trust you.
Because online environments can be hostile and because creative and scholarly work is often distorted by performative pressure, I am giving myself a lot of flexibility here. I have defined some boundaries and permissions to alleviate pressure and create safety in this space. I give myself permission to:
Post (or not post) in various ways whether that be this blog, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, or anywhere else.
Take space as needed, to learn, explore, make mistakes, and grow.
Feel the feels. I cannot imagine that this expedition will be without some pretty strong and uncomfortable feelings and I acknowledge they all make sense even when I cannot make sense of them in that moment.
Have no timeline or schedule whatsoever. I will post as I am able and willing. I will avoid putting pressure on myself to post in real time or immediately after something happens. I will post with a frequency that is comfortable for me and be okay with changes to that frequency.
Experiment with content. If I feel compelled to share something, I will. In retrospect, if it doesn’t feel good, I give myself permission to change directions and revisit as I see fit. This applies to the seemingly more innocuous posts about work, research, and anthropology as much as it does to the more personal content.
Change my mind on things. Who knows? I may say something or do something for which I receive eye-opening feedback. I certainly hope that we all see some level of personal growth through my content. And as I grow, I am sure my perspectives will shift.
Choose who I engage with. I invite you to share your experiences and insights in response to what I share. And, I will ignore, block, or otherwise not engage with those who choose to use hate speech, bullying, harassment, trolling, spamming, or violent words and behaviors.
Establish a hard and fast boundary to protect myself and the people that I interact with. I realize that because what is important to me is connection, I spend time mulling over interactions with others. And, their personal agency is important to me, so my content will strive for anonymity and permissions when anonymity cannot be maintained.
I hope to learn by engaging with you and hearing what you have to say about your own backgrounds and journeys. I hope to learn (and share what I learn) from colleagues in my discipline and colleagues from other collaborative disciplines.
If you made it this far, well done. Thank you for investing your time in reading this.
Stay tuned to see what I unearth next.
In the meantime, all the very best to you and yours.
