Ahou Koutchesfahani: PhD candidate from King's College London

I chat with Ahou, a fellow PhD candidate at King's,  about the implications of Covid crisis for disabled scholars and the importance of placing anti-ableist reflexivity at the centre of good research practice.  

Transcript

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Lienkie Diedericks  0:47  
Welcome to Enabled in Academia. My name is Lienkie Diedericks, your host creator, and hopefully not the only listener of this podcast about how to survive and thrive in academia, as a disabled chronically ill and all neurodiverse individuals here with me today I have kings PhD candidate Ahou Koutchesfahani, who's research focuses on feminist discourses and social media. Thanks for being here today. 

Ahou Koutchesfahani  1:12  
Thank you for having me.

Lienkie Diedericks  1:14  
I know that we've had a bit of a conversation before, on, on COVID and we're saying this is something that's really made you thinking new about disability and know how a lot of adjustments that disabled scholars have asked for before COVID. Suddenly, available I don't know if you have some thoughts on. 

Ahou Koutchesfahani  1:32  
Yes. So, what happened with COVID and the whole lockdown really opened my eyes as to how ablest the academy actually is. I was supposed to upgrade. In March, for instance, right around the time that lockdown happened. So you can imagine the anxiety that I had, you know, the uncertainty of what is going to happen. Will I even be able to continue my PhD and. In March, I was thinking, you know, I still have to do this upgrade no matter what. I just had to. But so I thought of myself imposed isolation earlier. So in the very beginning of March, I decided it's safer for me to avoid public places. And it was right around the time when these strikes were ongoing, so I was already home since then. And then I was working on my upgrade package, and I didn't realize what a significant thing it was that I was doing by so isolating until I let my supervisor know, and I didn't want this to, in any way affect my progress, but she was very kind, and did suggest that I should request an extension. So, that really helped me to see how it's normal to not feel okay and to ask for help. At difficult points I upgraded eventually at the end of April, but it really helped me understand that I didn't have to do everything at once and that pandemic was affecting, so many people not just me. I know that sounds really stupid when I say it now, but in the beginning I thought it was just going to affect people who are more at risk. I didn't realize it was going to get to this point. And I'm not to say that I'm glad that I got to this point, not at all. But I just feel like we have found so many more common ground now.

Lienkie Diedericks  3:50  
Yeah, and that's very interesting. It is I completely agree, and I don't know what your experiences but pressure to have to go into the office every day, or the pressure to have in person meetings have really been lifted, and that is just a fantastic thing for people with disabilities who maybe struggle to really have put in a lot of effort to take public transport in my instance since the lockdown I also went into lockdown a week before the actual official lockdown because I'm immunocompromised, and I haven't been ill, up until very very recently from any other infections, so it was six months of infection free living, which I think is the longest I've had my adult life, and my quality of life really improved I think what a lot of people forget is it's not just COVID that is a dangerous virus, if you're immunocompromised or disabled in some other way any bug is potentially fatal and navigating the world of microbes has become a lot easier with online functions online conferences, I just really hope we can we can maintain that going into the future, just comes to show that dynamic changes and institution can really benefit people in unexpected ways. 

Ahou Koutchesfahani  5:01  
Absolutely. You're absolutely on point, the quality of life has changed for me as well. I think it's quite absurd when we say this. Many people will just look at us like what are you talking about, but yeah the stress of, you know, having to be present at a certain hour, and you know getting public transport, which is such a hassle. If you do have a disability, it just adds up, you know, and everything that goes with it, you know, I sometimes catch myself thinking, How did I do it you know i i feel like i'm glad that I was able to still do it. Even though there was so much to consider and so much stress involved, but I'm also glad that I don't have to do it anymore. And I a bit concerned as to how we are moving forward. I hope that we can move forward with more flexibility as we are doing right now. I hope that this stays, and that we can choose our own schedules and work around what works for us. I don't want this to be just a face, I want this to last and I want us to be able to really be honest about our limitations and think about how we can work with the fact that people are now considering working from home is so brand new to lots of able bodied people but for us I think we have wanted this for so long, and we were looked down upon as being, you know, not serious about our responsibilities, or, you know, we're never able to do the job. All these ablest notions that we were given because, you know, we couldn't be as productive in society, let's say, in that certain way, that was going on before the pandemic. So, yeah, I really hope as well that we can learn from this collectively, and move forward with a lot more flexibility.

Lienkie Diedericks  7:11  
 Absolutely. and I think you touch on such an important issue in seriousness as a scholar in the academic Academy. I've had situations in the past with, not my current supervisors, but in previous previous degrees where there was just this implicit understanding that if I take longer to do an assignment or prefer to do a consultation via Skype. At the time it was mostly Skype, there was somehow not being serious enough students. What was interesting for me is how those ablest ideas become internalized and you actually start to believe that you're not a theorist, and that's quite early on and yeah, I had a major medical issue, and it took me far too long I would say about three or four months, too long, actually, to ask for help. I was so scared that asking for help would translate as shirking my responsibilities as a PhD, or being presented as an unsavory scholar, but actually after having gotten my adjustment and having gone through all the medical procedures. You know, I'm a better scholar for it, and we can just really hope that the institution, doesn't put those implicit normative judgments on us again, you know so that it's like oh of course we have 24, you know, a conference call, but really, you know, we'd prefer you to be here and sort of the pressure.

Ahou Koutchesfahani  8:31  
Exactly. And, I mean, you're so right I think for me, it is the exact same experience. My whole educational life I mean, since I was very little has always been around, you know, proving everyone that I can do this. And there's an element of ableism in there for sure. And there's an element of self satisfaction as well. And it's so hard to maintain that balance, because as you said you internalize it as well. And at some point you start hating yourself for the things that you cannot do. And if you can do something, and people or teachers or whoever are so proud of you for doing it. You feel like you know you're an exceptional being which shouldn't have to be the case, you know, so yeah I completely agree. I think that we have to be able to strike a balance. When can we be honest about our limitations and how does that affect the way we are perceived as academics, but also how does that affect our own confidence, you know, these are very serious topics that I have come to think about a lot more in depth in thanks to this pandemic let's say, because of this pandemic you know when going back to my upgrade experience in March, I felt it's horrible if I asked for an extension, I don't, I don't have anything. There's nothing wrong with me right now, you know, I don't have COVID So why do I need to ask for an extension. But it's not just the problem of, you know, when you're completely down that you need to ask for an extension. It everything that surrounds it and also the mental health aspect of it. You know, it's very normal to be in such a panic state when you are experiencing going into a lockdown that, you know, I see that now as being completely normal. But before you know it six months ago, I was a completely different person. you know I wouldn't want that to affect me negatively. Because I would have thought six months ago that that would have been negative. But no, I'm glad we've changed. 

Lienkie Diedericks  11:01  
Yeah, and I think another interesting point you raised I think is really valid and risk specialist, this idea that I can only ask for help when I'm at my lowest, and I've really been trying to raise that as an issue is, need to be able to make off ticket prices but also support structures aware of what accessibility actually means it doesn't just mean oh okay now right now at this point I'm in my lowest low fever chronic illness no I have a flare or if you are suffering mostly from mental health in a crisis. That is actually the worst time to make decisions about whether you should get an extension because the crisis is already on you. It's actually putting systems in place that check in regularly with students and regularly with researchers, and staff to hear how are they doing right now. And if we can have systems that check in regularly, without any, how can I say penalizing ablest effects. Oh gosh, if I'm just talking about uncertainty about the future about where I might be, you're not going to see me as unserious or less productive academic, but rather have a type of politics of care, where we go first from the point of view of care, rather than the point of view of productivity, or seriousness and it's a kinder of sort of world. And I know you said you've joined the collective of academics where you've started to expand.

Ahou Koutchesfahani  12:25  
Yes, absolutely. This collective that I'm part of. We focus on the politics of style actually the name of the collective, but more recently, feel like we're turning into the politics of care collective, which is. We are a couple of early career researchers, and more senior level, researchers who are feminist anti racist, and decolonial, and more recently, we have discussed ableism. And so I'm very proud of this collective because we are now, all of us staunchly anti ableism as well. And this got us to think about the intersections of de colonialization of the Academy, and the anti racist work that needs to be done, desperately within academia and intersecting that with ableism and anti ableism work, so to speak, because we don't necessarily talk about ableism in the same night as we do racism. So, anti racist is definitely important. So with anti ablest work, and the, The same same night we speak about racialisation. We need to talk about ableisation as well.

Lienkie Diedericks  13:54  
Yeah.

Ahou Koutchesfahani  13:55  
And this collective has been really inspiring and a great space to, you know, unpack these ideas, and for us to really talk about how ableism affects all of us, because we are not, we are not all of us, disabled. A few of us are some of us have chronic illnesses. I am, for instance, the only one with a visible disability. So that's very interesting to see how different in our navigating academia, as a, as a non abled body is when you are invisibly disabled, as well as other members of our group who are, you know, able bodied, in, in the capitalist way, you know that that perfect productive body. So yes, we are coming at it from many different angles. and we are trying, so to speak, to enlighten our field which is, I are and so international relations. More broadly, we're not trying to prove that, you know, ableism, and I are this topic is groundbreaking No, it has always been that it's pervasive. But no one talks about it. So we want to enlighten this aspect of international relations and think about, you know, the instances where it's been muted and why this has been the case. And, you know, all of this has been very helpful for myself as well to think about how ableism has affected my work as well as other members of our collective they have come to think about this as well because of the fact that we're intersectional feminists, and always talking about ways in which we can improve. So we need to include anti ablest work within that, as well.

Lienkie Diedericks  16:08  
 I think that's incredible your collective is doing, and I can really encourage other departments and other fields of study to have similar collectives because I think what I understand, guys also share a lot of your work with each other you present your work so it's really an engaging movement where we are not only talking about academic life, but about our positionality as researchers with our research, and especially in the social sciences, which is where I'm situated. This idea of reflexivity is becoming increasingly important , particularly in terms of feminist, and anti racist, and decolonial work. I completely agree with you that rarely if you go to a seminar or read an article on reflexivity or positionality, do we ever talk about ableism. And I firmly believe that unless ableism addressed that in research, it will continue to be neglected as indirect and no research being done in anti racist fields, and feminist fields that by acknowledging flexibility and actively working against misogynistic and anti black or colonial views, not only improves the quality of your research, but also the quality of you as a researcher as a person. And I think that's a really nice place to conclude on today, is when we talk about ableism, and we talk about adjustments. We don't just talk about ourselves as isolated atomistic beings in this world. We are actually talking about our research in a very deep way and encourage able bodied people to think of ableism as a research priority as well. 

Ahou Koutchesfahani  17:51  
Yes, absolutely. I think that's a very nice place to end because we need to move forward thinking about the intersections of anti ablest work anti racist work and economical work, and I am very confident that we will achieve. At least you know a bit more of anti aliased awareness. Also thanks to social media. So, we have lots of Twitter activists, for instance, and disabled collectors, and I think we are on the right track.

Lienkie Diedericks  18:33  
 Absolutely, it's now just getting the awareness into actual change. But I will include some of these Twitter accounts in transcripts and in the description box. So guys please follow that. And all my listeners out there, love to hear what your thoughts are on the current situation and how that made you reflect you on your disability. And then of course this very important and fascinating and personally I think incredibly valuable and important topic of anti-ableist work in academics, how are you working with that or not working that into your field I'd be particularly interested in people working in STEM fields to hear from you. Ahou,I just want to thank you so much for taking the time speaking with me today and for introducing us to your incredible collective and your fabulous insights we really appreciate it. 

Ahou Koutchesfahani  19:26  
Thank you so much, of all thank you for creating this podcast, and for having me on it. I think this podcast is really great. It's so accessible as well. So I'm looking forward to hearing, many more podcasts. 

Lienkie Diedericks  19:41  
Thanks for listening to today's episode of enabled in academia, please do like share and support this podcast on Twitter by following us @EnabledinAca. If you have any questions, suggestions, or impressions, please tweet us, or send me an email at enabledinacademia@gmail.com. The music for this podcast room for two is composed by Dan Leibowitz, and is available on the YouTube Audio music library. As always, access isn't optional for us to be enabled in academia. I'm making that a thing.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai