9: Educational Navigations: A Dialogue About the Embodied Realities of Chronic Illness

Educational institutions, like society, are suffused with ableist practices, norms, and imaginaries. Universities operate with assumptions and expectations that all students have bodies that can move freely across campus between courses, can easily hear the delivery of lectures, or can accomplish assignments at an intense standardized academic pace. In doctoral education, expectations are amplified because of the nature of demanding research degrees and assumed “hyper-abilities” of these skilled students. This chapter, presented in an interview format, details some of the challenges of navigating a demanding doctoral program while having a chronic, unpredictable illness. Lucy Bailey interviews A.J. Tierney about commuting, working, mothering, attending classes, presenting at conferences, writing a dissertation, and other expectations unique to graduate life. Tierney’s narrative offers insights into the homogenous assumptions entrenched in standardized academic timelines and graduate expectations that operate covertly and overtly to affect all students. Yet, these assumptions produce added labor for those with unpredictable embodied challenges such as chronic illnesses and put the onus on the individual student, rather than the institution, to create more awareness, support, and liveable conditions. The interview format represents an important genre in ableist cultures to negotiate the ways we manage and use our bodies and voices to share scholarship.