Bad-Alys and the Bad-Folx: Edge-Dwelling, Hope and How to Get Your Voice Heard

Abstract

I attended a symposium on “Bad Girls” at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI) 2018, looking for inspiration on how to make sense of myself and academia. When I asked, “How can I be a Bad Girl now?” I was told to go and get a job and get published. This autoethnographic piece shares stories of Bad-Alys, an Early Career Researcher trying to get published and finding her place as an academic. This paper was written to inspire the potentiality of change by exploring the concept of multiple selves from Etherington and Speedy, moving away from a binary to position Bad-Folx alongside Barad’s concept of entanglement; as activists and edge-dwellers within qualitative research. This is a paper of hope, offering ways to move-with the current-accepted paradigm of the academy by taking control of your doings as Ahmed would argue, through vignettes of collaborative inquiry, re-envisioning the use of conference spaces and self-publishing.