Keywords Taxonomy

I (Amy) initially viewed keywords as a technical task and one that did not particularly light up my brain. Through conversations with Suzanne Bergeron, a key informant and consultant on this project, I grew to understand them as a proto-qualitative coding system and a meaningful part of our intellectual work.

Suzanne helped us to create the taxonomy below. We refined it as a team as we worked through the interviews. Keywords are loosely organized into structure, practice, experience, and context. However, many of these concepts show up in multiple ways. For example, 'colonial feminism' can be a structure, practice, experience, and context for a director of women's and gender studies. Search within and across interviews to see how these concepts function for different directors and in different eras. 

Our taxonomy is not exhaustive. Use it as a flexible tool to the extent that it is helpful to you.

Structure

  • Academic Politics
  • Bias and Inequities
  • Budget and/or Austerity Measures
  • Institutional Support--Received or Withheld
  • Interdisciplinarity
  • Neoliberalism
  • Program Sustainability
  • Promotion and Tenure
  • Space and Proximity

Practice

  • Academic Labor
  • Advocacy and/or Activism
  • Care Work and/or Emotion Work
  • Collaboration and/or Community
  • Feminist Teaching and Learning
  • Feminist Theory and Praxis
  • Leadership--Ethics and Approaches
  • Mentoring
  • Program Visibility Strategies
  • Teaching and Learning in Prison

Experience

  • Alienation
  • Friendship
  • Health--Mental, Emotional, Physical, Spiritual
  • Integrating Research, Teaching, and Service
  • Intersections of Work, Life, and Family
  • Invisible Labor
  • Joy in the Work
  • Legacy Maintenance [a desire or sense of duty to carry on the work of others]
  • Loneliness
  • Precarity

Context

  • Academic Freedom
  • Changing Technologies
  • Colonial Feminism
  • COVID-19 Pandemic
  • Cultural Norms and Values
  • Global and/or Transnational
  • Racial Politics
  • Religious Identity and Practice
  • Sexual Politics
  • State Violence [including, but not limited to, detention, militarization, war, and genocide]
  • Student Diversity
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