Chapter 5: Spatializing Researcher Identity Through the Multiple Spaces During Dissertation Writing and Motherhood Life

While there are burgeoning studies on researcher identity construction among doctoral student mothers, the scholarly discussion of space, motherhood, and doctoral students is still under-researched. I employed narrative inquiry to explore how I spatialize my research identity in multiple spaces during dissertation writing and mothering to fill this research void. Based on the concept of emplaced identity, space, and spatialization, I engage in narrative inquiry to reflect on my experiences as a doctoral student mother juggling, modifying, and negotiating my researcher identity while writing my dissertation in various spaces. In doing so, I collected and analyzed images and texts posted on my social media as the artifacts that represent my trajectory of writing a dissertation in different spaces supporting my narratives resulting in the emergence of four key themes. Those themes include Library: Identity and research work; Kitchen: An intersection of multiple identities and conflict; Coffee-shop: Co-construction of spatial relationship and identity; and Facebook group: Unfinished identity. The themes inform how I spatialize my researcher identity and how these spaces and their semiotic resources accommodate and sustain my multiple selves as a mother and a researcher. The findings then become the basis for further research and pedagogy of identity work and space among doctoral students and educators.