Women's journeys : discovering research at a regional university

Over the past four years of my ‘portfolio’ career I have been ‘doing’ research within Milton University (MU), the pseudonym for a regional Australian university. This research has lead to a discovery of both myself, as a feminist researcher and ‘others’, as the researched. My research explored the experiences of four academic women who work at MU and the ways in which discourses circulating within MU shaped the performances and discursive positionings of these women and how, in turn, these women negotiate these discourses. This process also allowed me to explore my own discursive positioning as a beginning researcher within the context of ‘phallocentric smog’ a ubiquitous obstacle that thwarts the cultural transformation of the academic workplace. In so doing I demonstrate a pathway of self-discovery about the research process.