With the EMES conference looming, many of us are weighing up the value of attending or lobbying our institutions for support. This gave me an opportunity to remember how important my last EMES conference was to me (Sheffield, 2019), both professionally and personally.
My last EMES conference was in Sheffield (in pre-Covid life!) and it had a profound effect on my studies, my networks of support and my friendships
- Sitting in the conference rooms, listening to everyone’s research, feeling your mind expand and hearing how others are thinking through the issues that you are trying to get your head around. There are so many different academics, scholars and policymakers from across the world. It is a wonderful opportunity to hear who is doing what, where, and the questions that continue to emerge.
- The highlight for me was hearing the feedback from the ICSEM project and insights into what the global study was showing on social entrepreneurship and the social economy. This was one year before the Voluntas paper was published – early insights that framed and shaped my work and allowed me to let go of seeking a definition.
3. The pride when my supervisor Alex, presented and was complimented for his research! I can still feel that applause, and the warm glow of happiness when years of hard work are quietly acknowledged by your peers. EMES embodies collegiality, and this congratulation and support for what you do, run as an invisible but golden thread throughout our sessions.
4. Looking back, I can see that it is here that I made so many friendships that shaped my work and thinking. We developed our research ideas for the African Network of Social Entrepreneurship Scholars in the corridors. Tested our ideas with Frederik Claeyé on the pavement outside in the Sheffield sunshine. Got input from scholars from around the world on the couches underneath the university sky light. Could this work? Apparently, it could. And here we all are – a PhD later, and with a phase 2 in the pipeline.
5. How do I say this? It is the access to senior academics but in a non-senior way. I owe Tracey Coule many things for bringing sanity to my studies and telling me, in a coffee shop in Sheffield, that it was OK to take a break. We had lost my dad to cancer, and I was convinced I should be ‘powering through’ (what does that even mean?) and over that cup of tea, I realised it was OK to not be OK.
6. And then to sit in the session with Beth and other PhD students and hear how it’s OK to be wading through that Valley of Shit during your PhD studies. When nothing seems to make sense, and you feel you are endlessly going round in circles. We came out of that as a cohort of PhD students, connected and supportive of each other.
7. It was in a pub in Sheffield that I then got involved in the PhD Committee together with Sergio, Marina, Esmerelda and Coline. And it is why I believe that your PhD Committee over the last two years is best described as a friendship circle rather than the more formal sounding ‘committee.’ As a group, we wanted to do more, say more and share the workload the PhD rep was carrying.
8. Studying, writing, and dancing don’t often seem to go hand in hand, but really. EMES understands how well they do. In Silversmith’s Hall in Sheffield, EMES showed that academics have rhythm and soul. PhD Summer School in Seville absolutely confirmed this😊
9. On our last night, after the conference closed, we bumped into a group of folk who said, come for dinner! What! Dinner with Marthe? And Jacques? And the board? Yes! Of COURSE! Come!
And there we were, students, scholars, board members in a curry house in Sheffield, chatting about everything and anything.
A family of scholars.
By Kerryn Krige, August 2023