Nicolas Lewis School of Geography and Environmental Science University of Auckland

1. Disturbing the emerging researcher: political projects, noble causes and an unstable subject position Nicolas Lewis School of Geography and Environmental Science University of Auckland

2. Multiple dimensions of emergence • Juniority • Low status occupations • Youth • Immaturity: intellectual /political • Marginalisation

3. Themes • Multiple dimensions of emergence – within and external difference • Instabilities of an untenured academic • Nested problematics • Constituting the emergent researcher (what are we doing here?) • Risks and potential • Epistemic dissonance – is it ‘good to be’ an emerging researcher

4. Personal experience/conditions of emergence: the instabilities of an untenured academic • Security of income • Institutional marginalisation • Professional stigma • Agenda-less existence • Struggles with editors and PBRF panels • Giz a job!

5. Nested problematics Social science as representative project Social science and the disciplines Social science as career Research as good - more is better Emerging researcher

6. Constituting the emergent researcher (what are we doing here?) • A project of the social sciences • grasping a policy moment, building a policy space • re-policying the production of knowledge • reproducing ‘our’selves • funding-led rationalities • A noble cause • recognising difference and difficulty • creating space for emergence • making social science attractive

7. Risks and potential • Potential • labels activities that build networks • stimulates interest • enhances existing models of support • works the science analogue • leverages support for the noble cause • Risks • empty of meaning – no self-identification, no institutionalisation, no buy-in • overfull with meanings • damage other models of support • dumping ground for the marginal, or for specific concerns • political project swamps noble cause • band-aid solution to deep structural crisis