 Yeah, welcome. Wednesday, Lunchtime Seminar Series for New Voices in Global Security. I'm very pleased this time to be handing over to guest chairs that are a part of We Whip. I'll let them explain more about how amazing the organization is and what they're doing, but briefly to introduce the two chairs, and sorry, I'm multitasking and emitting people at the same time. The first chair is Laura Zuber, and she is a PhD student in war studies, and she's doing some really interesting research on a feminist political economy look at the feminization and racialization of frontline workers in times of crisis. And she does this with a comparison of the UK frontline workers in World War II within the UK. And COVID-19. And so she's looking at the continuities and contradictions of how this sort of labor gets feminized and racialized and the material implications of that. So that's my interpretation of Laura's work. The other chair we have today is Carolina Faber, and she's doing some fantastic work on institutional ethnography in feminist form policy, looking particularly at the German foreign office. And she's applying some really interesting methodological and theoretical innovative strategies to think through what feminist form policy looks like in practice, the contradictions and the nitty gritty messiness in how these sorts of policies materialize. So yeah, fantastic chairs here. And I am so pleased to hand over the floor to Laura and Carolina to introduce Wewip and their guest speakers today. So both of you, the floor's yours. Yeah, thank you so much for the kind introduction Amanda, and for inviting Wewip to host today's event. It is a pleasure to be here. So for those who don't know us, Wewip stands for Women in War and International Politics, and we are a network of students, of women students, staff and alumnae from across the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy. So we exist to increase the visibility and showcase the work and the achievements of women in the fields of vastity, security and international politics on all levels, be it as students, researchers or practitioners. And to do so, we organize it, offer a wide variety of really exciting events, workshops, training sessions and reading groups. So maybe the link to our website will somehow find its way into the chat box as we go along. So thank you very much again to the new voices series for offering us the platform and the space to, well, put our vision into practice, right? So now I would like to welcome today's exciting speakers, Dr. Anna Brinkman-Schwarz and Kunika Kakuta, who have generously accepted our invitation to give us and the audience a glimpse into their fascinating trajectories and share with us the experiences as women working and researching in the field of war and defence studies. So Dr. Anna Brinkman's connection with King's goes back to 2011, where she joined the Department of War Studies as a master student of history and warfare. She stayed and was awarded a PhD in 2017. After a PhD, she went to the University of Warwick to do a three-year postdoc in the Hispanic Studies Department, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Her project was called Imperial Entanglements, Trans-Asianic BASC Networks in British and Spanish Colonialism and their Legacy. After a postdoc, Anna had a year of teaching or a Spanish at Warwick as a Sessional Teaching Fellow. She was teaching at King's Defence Studies Department as a Teaching Fellow on International Affairs and was teaching A-Level History and Politics at Greenwich College in Oxford. In September 2020, she joined the Defence Studies Department of King's Asset Lecture, which is on her time as strategic thinking and international art during the 18th and 19th century. We take focus on the British and Spanish emperors. So welcome, Anna. Anna is joined by Kunika Kakuta, who is a final PhD student in the Department of War Studies. Prior to joining the department in 2016, she read Intercollegiate Master in Ancient History at Royal Holloway, King's College London, and University College London, and she currently teaches undergraduate students at the Department of War Studies and gives intermediate officer development courses at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at the UK Defence Economy in Shrivenham. Also, she is part of the Lurks and Naval Unit at King's College London. So Kunika's Doctor Research bears the exciting title Empire of the Rising Sun and the Empire of the Owl, a comparative approach to seapower as political and cultural identity in Imperial Japan and 5th century BC Athens. So Kunika and Anna, it is such an honor to have you with us today, and I am very excited to listen to you. Before we jump in with the questions, I would like to quickly guide our audience through today's agenda. So the plan is that we will ask our guests two questions that we have prepared, and then I will hand over to my colleague and co-host Carolina, who will guide us through the second half of the event. But Anna and Kunika will ask a question to each other each, and then we will open the discussion to the audience. Annette to your audience, so please feel free to pop any questions you would like to ask into the chat box as we go along. And otherwise, I would like to remind you to please keep yourself muted unless you are asked to unmute so that we can hear our speakers loud and clearly. So without further ado, we are here today to listen to our exciting speakers, Kunika and Anna. So my first question would be, well, something that we know from experience is very interesting to the audience when we speak of feminine velocities. So I would like to know from you, what made you decide to go into academia in the first place? And what made you decide to go into vast studies and defence studies specifically? Shall I go first? So hi, Laura and Caroline and Sarah, thank you so much for inviting me again to the new voices of Security Studies talk. It's been a pleasure to join you all. So as I've been introduced, I'm part of the Department of War Studies. I actually started in classics department originally because of my projects being half a comparative history and focusing on ancient history. However, half way through about a year into my PhD, the Department of Classics, when your projects doesn't really fit into the sort of classics, historiography and sort of how their research is done. And I already had Professor Lambert as my secondary supervisor. So I've actually switched departments war studies. So how I actually ended up in war studies is a little bit of a transfer half way through PhD. But I went into academia because I actually just wanted to do this comparative project since I think it was second year of my undergraduates when I first worked on the Athenian Empire side. And I thought, oh, it'll be fun to do a comparison. So it was a bit of a whim, but that's how I basically ended up in academia and how I ended up in war studies. Anna? Thanks. Again, thank you guys all for inviting us and for having us at this event. It's a really lovely chance to connect with war studies and with WeWIP. So my path to academia is actually in some ways fairly standard. Both my parents, whilst they were not in academia, came from an academic background and were great lovers of history, as was I from the time I was quite small. So I'd always wanted to go into history. And I did my undergraduate degree in history. I had originally planned to join the US Navy and was right on the edge of doing so in my last year of university. And basically at the last minute, because of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, I decided that this was a terrible idea. And I was lucky enough that one of my professors at university had actually gone to King's. And she told me about the war studies department and suggested that if I wanted to do things about war and be involved with the military, but not be part of the military, that that might be a way of doing it. So I did. I applied to the MA and I really loved it. And then I met Andrew Lambert as part of the MA and decided that I wanted to stay on and do my PhD with him at war studies. And I've kind of never left except for that little stint at Warwick. And so yeah, so that was my path. Okay, so yeah, it is so interesting to see because from experience, like the backgrounds of the researchers here, it's just so heterogeneous, so different. But you both, yeah, you both work in history, which is kind of a coincidence. So yeah, it is really interesting to hear that although you have kind of like a similar, like thematic, like history, you know, as your specialty, still your kind of backgrounds are very different. So, and this kind of relates to my second question, because war studies and defense studies, they are such exceptional departments, right? Like in the sense, and I can speak for Germany, because we don't have any war studies or defense studies. And actually, it would be absolutely unthinkable to name a department. Wow, defense studies. So there are many misconceptions around what this field is about and what the aims of our research are. So yeah, I guess it is at least where I come from it would be very unusual for a young person to go, well, I want to go into war studies where I grew up. So maybe it is just my stereotyping, but I have the impression that we all came into the field of, you know, taking detours, and our bios and trajectories have, you know, edges and corners, and they're not like as straightforward like that of someone who wanted, I don't know, to study medicine and succeeded, right? So it is my impression that in, like, we have, we have research as of such heterogeneous and different backgrounds, which makes us a very exciting environment to work in. But it makes the field also kind of unpredictable, right? Because you're faced with unique challenges that you couldn't expect or that nobody prepared for. So I guess my second question to you would be if there is any advice you would like to give your younger self that decided to enter into academia and specifically war studies and defence studies, I think this would be very interesting for the more junior listeners among us. Yeah, who would like to go faster? Kunika, why don't you go first? I'll follow you. I think two things I'd say to myself if I could. Four years ago when I first started is one, be confident in what you're doing. Because I remember so many times I went to a, you know, academic conferences and I often end up being a, the only Asian white, non-white women in the room and then I had a lot of people come up to me and often old men going, oh, why are you here? And that used to kind of sort of scare me a little bit because I thought, am I not allowed to be here? And now if I go back in that environment, I go, well, I work on this, I work on this, I know XYZ and I can be very confident. But back then I didn't have that confidence. And I think that's something that does come as you progress in your PhD and more you research, you do more, you know, on your topic. So you're a bit more confident about, but I think that's my significant thing, just be confident in what you're doing. Secondly, I think try not to get an argument on Twitter with a bunch of other sort of non-professional academics or random people who just know a topic or two and they try to have a fight with you because I do have a quite few nasty experiences where I got attacked purely of your son, my sex and sort of what I do. And it's, I don't know whether Anna had some similar experiences, but it's just that's something I've learned that don't get in argument on Twitter, where it's random people over my own topic. Then if you want to do that, do it, you know, at a confidence or do it, do it somewhere else in a more punch more professional setting. That's, I think that's one, two things I would absolutely tell myself when I see younger self. Yeah, I absolutely echo Konika on the confidence thing. And I do partly sympathize as a woman who does maritime and naval history. A number of times I've shown up at conferences and people have been like, Oh, what is your husband presenting on? And I'm like, you know, so just absolutely, you know, go for it, have confidence in your research, have confidence in yourself, because lots of people are going to try to knock you down for various idiotic reasons throughout the whole thing. So I think, I think the other piece that I would give to myself, which is a bit more more mercenary than than Konika's, but I think is very important is to, and I wish I had known this, is to learn early on to work and think about multiple research projects. So it's really easy in the PhD to just get consumed by the dissertation and sort of think this is the end all and be all. And as soon as you finish your PhD, if you stay on in research and academia, you will have to start juggling multiple projects, you know, working on your book, whilst working on an article, thinking about different types of research when you're in an archive or when you're doing interviews. So that being able to learn that breadth of thought and having multiple projects going at the same time. I have found really invaluable and it was definitely something I had to learn on the fly after the PhD, because it's not you don't focus on it whilst you're doing the degree. And I have really, really found it to be invaluable. So that would that be mine. Yes, that's very interesting what you say because it's true that the PhD just takes so much of your focus and it seems like such a such a such a huge thing, right, to focus on for the three years. But I think this is an advice that is that is also useful for many researchers, no matter what field you are in just nowadays, when you look at that basically the landscape outside, you just you're expected to juggle so many things and to be able to present so many achievements to get where you want to get in the future. And as to you, to Konika's answer of it, I mean, just being confident. And this is a question that goes out to both of you. Do you think that the field has has changed in the meantime a little bit? Or do you think that is still as, well, I wouldn't say hostile, but that is that is still like that it can still be uncomfortable for you as a woman to research in this field? Yeah, I'll jump in if that's okay, Konika, on that one. So I have definitely found that in the past 10 years, I guess, since I've basically been involved with war studies, but I do think it is actually changing for the better. But that being said, I think it can still be pretty shit. And that there's still a very long way to go. And especially, you know, being being a white woman, at least I'm shielded from the racism that I see around me. So I only have to encounter sexism. But, you know, the the field and the department still have a very long way to go in terms of being inclusive. And honestly, I think that one of the best ways to do that is actually organizations like WeWit, where you just see women supporting each other, women helping each other within the department to go far, and to come together as a force to combat the sexism, to combat the racism really actively, because there is strength in numbers. And especially as the younger generations, if we band together and do this, that is a way forward. I don't know if Konika has other thoughts on this, but that was just sort of my thinking. I think I've only been part of war studies for five years. And I can see a significant change in terms of the efforts that we put in towards sort of diversity and inclusion and addressing issue of sexism and sort of the whole issue of it's a male, you know, dominated department. I think there's been quite we have addressed that quite significantly, but I agree with Anna, there's more that we can do within a department, but also in a field. And I think it's still a just significant minority to be a woman in, I don't, I'm sure it's also the case in other military history fields, but in just any fields within a sort of security studies. But I think there is an element of sort of stereotypical attachment of military history being a man thing. And trying to sort of smash that wall is quite difficult. And when you actually are in that sort of field trying to do that, you can't, you, you soon realize you can't do on your own. And I do see a couple of sort of my friends in other universities doing PhD in aviation history or other military in other field, other than maritime history, they often sort of get the sexism, but I'm sure as Anna said, it's it gets significantly worse quite quickly when again, racism comes on top, which is my experience. But I can fight that back now at final year about submit in a couple of weeks, but I don't think Nestle, everyone would have that confidence right at the beginning of PhD. So I think it's giving people support and say, hey, look, we went through this similar things as you're going through, you know, having this kind of conversation is really helpful. I think that's that's the one thing I would absolutely highlight. Yeah, it is just so important to to offer a platform for solidarity, right, and allyship. And as you have said, Konika, with online bullying, it is just, yeah, it can get sometimes so difficult that you want to abstain from social media all, all together. But you know, you just kind of have to sadly, you have to develop a thick skin to kind of feel yourself from all of these attacks. Yeah, thank you so much for your insightful answers. And I think that it is time for me to hand over to Carolina to guide us through the second part of the event. So thank you so much for my part. Thank you, Laura, for tearing that just really wonderfully. And thank you, Anna and Konika, for your insightful answers for me to welcome everybody. Glad to be able to do this today with all of you. And as Laura has said, we sort of structured this in a bit of two parts. One part with pre-prepared questions and questions in the second part, where it's a bit more open. And to start us off with the second part, we've asked Anna and Konika to prepare one question each that they will now ask each other, and then we'll open up the conversation to all of you. And I've seen that there are, there's already two questions in the chat. So please do keep them coming. Please do use the chat for that and feel free to ask whatever you'd like to know. So Konika, I'm wondering if you would like to go first and ask Anna whatever you would like to know from her. Sure. Anna, I'm really glad to be another neighbour historian in a, even in a slightly different genre, because it's very rare to meet anyone and it's always fun to meet another neighbour historian. I wanted to ask how you get interested in the topic you work on, which is the transatlantic vast networks in British and Spanish colonialism and their legacy. Was there any sort of particular project that you worked on in your undergraduate or MA or was it influenced from Andrew, which I think I significantly get a little bit of a strong colouring on my PhD at the moment. But what were your reasons to go into that specific research interest? Yeah, sure. Thanks for that. So Andrew is definitely part of the reason that I love 18th century naval warfare. It's hard not to be imbued with his enthusiasm. But I've actually, it's been something I've been really interested in since I was an undergraduate and I actually did my undergraduate thesis on the history of the British naval suppression of the slave trade. And that actually just led me down really interesting tracks about legal history and international law and how that blends with maritime and naval strategy. And I just kind of kept hammering away at that both through the MA and then through my thesis. And then I used the project at Warwick to start developing my book project, which is now done. So it actually just all kind of snowballed very naturally starting from the very small undergraduate thesis. And then just sort of making it bigger and bigger as I went along through the postdoc that the Basque element actually had nothing to do with me. So I just applied to the AHRC project as like the postdoc that they were going to have on the project and was lucky enough to get the job. And so my, the reason I do British and Spanish Empire history is essentially I spent most of my life growing up and living in Mexico. So I had the language and an interest in the history. So it just seemed quite natural to to go into both of those histories in a in a comparative way. Is yeah, that's, that's me. Great. Thank you. Would you like to to ask Niki a question now? Yeah, absolutely. So I was going to ask it and I asked this in part because it's something that I went through as well. And I'm just super curious what your thoughts on it are. So you know, part of what you research is ancient Athens, which is generally speaking really far away from the time period that the department tends to focus on. Most of what the department teaches fundamentally is 20th and 21st century material. So I was wondering how you found it as a researcher who does ancient naval history, teaching in the war studies department, teaching in the defense studies department, where I assume, like me, most of what you have to teach is very much outside of your own area of research. That's an interesting question. So teach, I haven't really had the chance to teach ancient history side in the war studies department, because unfortunately Professor Sabin left now. So there's no ancient warfare module, which I used to sort of chip in occasionally and add to my sort of here's my absolutely massive nerdy classic side of Greek side warfare. Here you go. That sort of thing. So I got to sort of share my knowledge a little bit there. And the department often looks at suicidides and Peloponnesian war, and through the either whether it's I have to be looking at the classical realism and talking Graham Allison's suicidides trap. So most of my sort of time is correcting people's misconception of those cities and the interpretation of those cities is what I often end up doing. But it would be nice to sort of see more ancient historians joining the department of war studies, not as a classicist, but as actually much more general historian, because I think there is a little bit of a difference between classics and war studies where classics is very much focused on the actual language itself. And I have got the language training. So I'm quite comfortable with. But I think they are a little bit of different things that you can highlight from looking at ancient warfare and sort of ancient ideas of political systems, which is what I do. And you can sort of see the cultural significance that gets passed down, which I think Andrew's, I'm sure he wouldn't tell me off for self-flagging his book, but you know, see power states books talks about the idea of, you know, cultural identities being passed on through another different cultures and that sort of thing. And that's a kind of thing you, you see if you actually do a comparison or look through history quite far back. So I think it's, it's a, it gives a little bit of diversity to department and especially within the war history context of war studies and defense studies, which as Anna said, focus on pretty much sort of 17th century onwards. So I think that's the sort of take I would, I would give. Yeah, that's awesome. I think I like you. I have found that it often gives me sort of really interesting lateral thinking about how I can take the knowledge that I have and actually translate it into teaching something that's outside of my subject. And I've actually, I find it really cool to be able to do that. So I, thanks for that. That's great. Well, thanks both for your questions and for your answers. I'm taking away so much from those, from me personally as well. And we do have some questions in the chat already, which I would like to pass on to you now. I think they speak to each other quite well because they're both sort of, they go back to your experiences of being a woman in academia and then particularly in naval history. So the first one is from Claire. And Claire says, I'm quite surprised to learn that even in the war studies academic research world, it is still challenging. And Claire asks, and this is of course only if you'd like to share, what are the concrete obstacles you're facing beyond sort of sexist comments? And what are, what are particular strategies to answer those? Maybe going also beyond self-confidence and building up, building up confidence. And then Sarah, who's the certain naval historian here, also has a question that relates to that. And Sarah says, I too have had difficult experiences at naval history conferences. So a particular space in academia, especially back when I was in the early stages of my PhD, once I was one of only three women in a room, in a room full of around 65 people. So Sarah wonders if you have any tips for how to respond when this happens. And if you could share anything that you have learned through these experiences and your responses in these situations. So we have the question from Claire, who's asking about sort of obstacles in academia and strategies to overcome them. And then Sarah, who's asking specifically about those naval history conferences. So I'm not sure we'd like to go first. Maybe Kanika, would you like to start us off? Yeah, sure. I can definitely answer Sarah's question, having been in that situation quite a few times and just going, well, this is all good. I'm the only in, oh, I'm the very few and I only can see two or three other women in that room. Oh, this is all good. What I tend to do is I just embracing up, cool, okay, I'm the only one here. And I think often, you know, I think Anna sort of commented, oh, so what's your husband presenting that sort of thing? And often they were wives of an academic who's, you know, what presenting. And I was the only one who was actively there participating in the discussion. What I tend to do there is I just go with it and just just carry on and just go, well, go, I belong here anywhere and I'm actually here to participate, not to support some of, you know, my husband or my partner or whatever. So I just kind of go with that. And it's always interesting when I have one of the academics, I know, and they introduced me and say, for instance, Andrew Lambert, whenever he's at conference, which I'm often with him, and he would, you know, introduce me and say, oh, she's one of my PhD students and instantly the attitude changed towards me. So I do find that quite interesting. But I just kind of chuck one, you know, inside and just carry on basically. So I think it's just a matter of being, oh, I belong here anyway. So why are you looking at me like I'm an alien sort of thing that that would be my response to Sarah's question having been in that situation few times. That's interesting, particularly about, you know, just being assertive and saying that I know we all have a right to be here and I have a right to be in those kinds of spaces. That's something that I have found personally has helped me as well. But that's definitely something you have to keep reminding yourself of, you know, again and again. And I find it interesting that, you know, in being introduced in a certain way by another man, by another man in that space makes still seems to make a difference. So Anna, I'm wondering what you think on those two questions that we have. Yeah, so I completely agree with Kanika. You know, sometimes you just you just bloody have to own it and it can be hard and it can be awkward. And you also you don't always have to do it. You know, sometimes you'll walk into a room and you say, I don't have the energy for this right now and you turn around and leave. It was just not the day to fight the good fight. And that's fine. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I have also found that sort of the more senior I get. So Sarah was talking about the early stages of her PhD. So like you, Sarah, at the early stages of my PhD, I found it super awkward. And I was just like, oh, you know, I don't I don't want to have to prove myself. And when people would make comments, I would sort of try to laugh and be good natured about it and sort of be like, well, I'm just going to prove you wrong through my expertise. And that does work, right? That absolutely works. But then as I've gotten sort of further down my career track, I also find that I've increasingly had the leverage to actually push back at those attitudes. And when someone makes a bad or slightly sexist joke, I will actually just come back at them now and challenge them for it. And again, it's not like you don't have to do that every time you don't have to do it at all. But it is something that you can start to develop the confidence and the sort of the expertise from your degree and as you go on to do. And it helps those coming up next, I hope it helps those coming up next by challenging those attitudes. But you know, it fundamentally, it is exhausting. And I think that's the main thing is that on top of the fact that PhDs are exhausting, your research is exhausting, teaching is exhausting, to then have to combat sexism at an event, it just piles on to those levels of exhaustion, doesn't it? So I would also one of the things I have really highly recommend, and again, it can be hard is find yourself a network of supportive friends. Because sometimes what you need the most is just to step out and make that phone call and have an absolute bitch at your best friend about the sexist comments you just had to deal with. And then you can sort of calm down and go back into the room and keep on going. That is just so key in my experience is having that. But yeah. Yeah, I think that's brilliant advice from both of you, and particularly about, you know, sometimes it's it's okay to not pick up every fight and to just say, no, today's not the day. And I think that's something very important that I personally am still trying to learn. And I'm not very good at because it is quite like you said, and so exhaustive to keep fighting those fights. We've got a few more questions coming in. So thank you for those. Charlie has another question. So thank you, Charlie, for that. Charlie is asking, do you have any advice for current MA students in the department about progressing to your PhD? And specifically, Charlie's wondering about getting research experience and skills beyond the MA thesis. Is there is there anything you would like to share on that? I think four years ago when I started, my projects was based on my BA and MA sort of similar to Anna's one. So you already got a good foundation of literature review. And I think one thing I would say is ask your supervisor and have a good relation with your supervisor because they'll be working with you for the next three, four years or longer if you're doing it part time. And they are going to be the person that you're going to turn to and say, look, I need help on this. And I always get good feedback and sort of support whether that's more literature. Sometimes I don't actually need, but he, you know, Andrew would think this would be a good thing to look at or consider this, that sort of thing. So I think always first thing first is have a good one research, make a good research proposal and you can always tweak around with your potential supervisors. And once you start your PhD, actually just keep on talking to your supervisors about it and, you know, nag them. I'm sure they're not always going to be glad that you're nagging them constantly, but they are your supervisors. So, you know, ask for help and don't be shy about it. And I think also try not to go into the rabbit hole. And I think I'm sure I'm not the only one, everyone would have a similar experience of where you read one academic journal and you look at the footnotes and go, oh, I haven't read that. And let me read this. And you're going to this massive rabbit hole. So I think try to stop doing that quite early on because there'll be so many things to read, but you're not going to have time to read them all. So I think that would be the skill I would try to pick up as early on as possible. Yeah, I absolutely echo Kanika on all of that, that sense of knowing when to stop researching, knowing when to stop reading and just get on with your damn writing. That is invaluable, not just throughout your PhD, throughout the rest of your career. In terms of the supervisor stuff, I'm absolutely finding a supervisor that you get on with, who gets on with you, but also finding a supervisor who is actually good at communicating. They can be the best academic and the most suited to your project in the world, but if they do not respond to emails for six months and you cannot pin them down for a meeting, you're just going to spend your life chasing them and getting very little back. So sometimes it's actually less about the perfect fit for the project than it is about the fit between you and the supervisor, because fundamentally you soon out expert them on the project. And in some ways there's even a benefit to having supervisors who are not perfect experts in your exact field, because you guys can often end up going down rabbit holes together that outside of that expertise actually don't necessarily make a lot of sense or they're too close to the project to give you really useful advice. So I would say that's really important and also make sure that the war studies department is where you want to be. There are a lot of different departments where you can do it. I am very much of the camp that it really does not matter where you do your PhD, but you want to do it somewhere where you find a department and a supervisor that will make your life easier, not harder, because the research will be hard enough as it is. I would say. I would add, I'd like to add to that. I think that's an interesting point I made about communication part of supervisor. Having moved departments and I changed my first supervisor halfway through I've realized how I don't want to be backstabbing them, but they were really terrible responding to my emails and sometimes I couldn't pin them for like six months and it's just you didn't, I did not need that at that point. So I think that's a really important thing to be aware that if they don't respond to you, of course, they're busy, but you don't want to be doing that. As Anna said, I think I absolutely agree with that. Yeah, thanks both. That's so important advice and I think I was really glad that I've got some of that advice before I started my PhD because that really helped me in deciding what I wanted to do and with whom I wanted to do it. So I'm wondering if I could just before moving on to the to the other questions, if I could back to something you said earlier just from using my privilege as a tear, because I personally find it incredibly hard to know when to stop and you both spoke about developing this ability to know when to stop reading, to know when to stop searching for literature, to know when to stop going down those rebuttals. So I'm wondering if you had any particular strategies on developing that skill and if you had any advice on how to make these kinds of decisions. I'm not sure Kanika, do you want to go first, Anna? Oh I can. I have a wonderful husband who whenever I start talking about extra reading bits that I've been doing instead of writing he would go, aren't you supposed to be writing and having someone like that is really helpful. And also Andrew for me he also goes, these are good but you can read it later and I tend to read them in my spare time and sometimes you know even you should be relaxing, you can't quite fully switch off to sometimes it's actually quite fun to read something you've been suggested or you are going to read another time and that gives you extra sort of ideas and I just forget to write it down when it happens but that's the definitely sort of thing that I have. I've got a couple of people who can tell me I knew you're supposed to be writing, shouldn't you be writing and then also some go right I'm just going to put this away and hide it so it's not in my eyesight that's what I tend to do. Oh that's that's great yeah having someone to tell you when to stop is definitely it's such an asset. Anna what do you think about that? So I have a couple of different strategies that I use so for me often going down those rabbit holes is a form of procrastination I can tell myself I'm still working but really I'm just sitting on the couch reading because it's fun and so I find that the earlier I start writing and get to the writing on a project it becomes apparent very quickly if you're writing and you haven't done enough research because you get to that moment you're like well shit I actually don't know what I'm talking about so I have to go back and do more research whereas if you've over researched in some ways you actually bog down your writing project because you then suddenly have too much what am I going to cut what am I going to include so the earlier you start writing the more efficient your entire process will be and you just have to get over that that procrastination hump which I know is not easy and the other thing that I think is really important is it's it's really easy to let the research consume your life and sort of think this is the only thing I need to be doing right now this is the only thing I can be doing right now and I find that having activities that are completely non-research related that I like to do every day really helps so whether it's like you know working out watching a tv series whatever it is if you build that time in and make that time sacrosanct it will stop you from doing too much research because you have other fun things to do and that's okay but you should not be miserable during your phd and your academic life there's there's no need for us to be miserable and killing ourselves with work and the entire culture will tell you that what I'm saying right now is not true and the entire culture will tell you that the only way you will get a job is if you kill yourself working during the phd it is not true success in academia is so much down to luck you should enjoy the time that you are doing it and don't kill yourself with it and that I mean that might just be me but that's honestly the the best way that I can think about not going down rabbit holes myself that's so helpful yeah just remind yourselves that you know your work won't love you back and that's um yeah and that you need to find uh need to have other sort of ways to to get that um feeling of of appreciation and love and care and that can can mostly only come to through through communities um and people around you that's at least that's what I found definitely so we've got two questions uh two more questions on on sort of the uh the overall theme of support and so Amanda's asking um she says uh thank you for your reflections and insights into your personal experiences and how we manage them and then Amanda's asking beyond those individual strategies around coping and navigating academia what support do you have or wish you had from the universe excuse me from the university so it's about sort of having or asking the university for particular forms of support and then we have a second question from Francisco um and from Francisco is asking um and I'm not sure if you can answer that because I'm not sure that you've specifically worked with women military personal but he's asking have you found any support for your career path from women military personal or have they been rather indifferent so we've got these two questions around support one from the university and one from women military personal um who would like to go first um I'll jump in because I actually I can answer Francisco's question so so I'll just go ahead and do that um I absolutely have found support from my career from military personnel who are also women but it has been very little because I haven't I have ultimately encountered very few women in the military compared to the number of men that I teach um so when you when you teach in the defense studies department the way that they do it is you have a military counterpart who is sort of like in charge of the pastoral care of your class fundamentally and having a relationship a good relationship with that person is vital um for that course to go well and I have often found that um when I have a female military personnel as my counterpart it is really affirming and it tends to produce a mostly smooth relationship and it tends to produce a much more open environment for discussion with that military group and the same thing applies if you happen to have a female officers in your classroom um which again is not that usual I've only ever had one or two in a classroom and I have often had none in my classrooms and it just it just gives you that slight sense of camaraderie whether or not it is expressed overtly it's just a sort of sense of belonging and it can be really freeing um so I have found that to be very important um to to my work with the military for sure thank you um Kanika what about you um I agree um so actually to add Anna's I also teach at the defense studies and when I've had directing staff which is the military counterpart of the teaching personnel I've had a few female directing staff and they've all been absolutely wonderful and every time what I always do I'm sure Anna you do the same is you contact them in advance and say here's how I teach here's how I do it are you okay with this and you sort of have a talk through and you get sort of um you know have a pre-chat to make sure that you're on the same page and I think that's the important part and female ones also have a similar understanding of sort of the experience that they would go through in terms of it's a very male dominated world but at the same time I've never had any bad experiences working with the defense academies it's always been very supporting very welcoming and I've had taught a couple of classes where it's literally there's no you know women in the room but they've all been really friendly and really fun to work with and interesting and you know they weren't dismissive anything like that and if anything else that kind of negative attitude comes from in academic conferences which is really interesting contrast so I think in that regard I think female military personnel is a fun to work with because they know what the world is like which I would honestly know and they know how to sort of deal with certain situations I think they may also subconsciously be stopping these potential sort of negative um sort of experiences in the first place I think it's not support isn't particularly obvious but you can sort of tell from the sort of the environment and the field that you get with the directing staffs I think I agree with Anna and Sugatsu, Amanda's question about support from university I think it's kind of think it's quite fun and I know that we have about sort of 20 people and I'm sure it's some be from external somebody from within the war studies department but I do wonder whether it's sometimes whilst doing something during these school conferences or something about more having these kind of chats about you know how do we address these issues and I know that some people will be like oh there's no problem with it but the fact that they are few of us who voice this issue so there clearly is so I think it's more of a having an opportunity to actually talk through these kind of issues informally rather than formally because I think it's the slight issue at the moment of organized fun on Zoom or Teams so it's a bit difficult but these kind of opportunities it's it's been really fun talking to Anna and and and Sarah sort of experiences and other fellow naval historians that I'm not the only one who's gone through this I think having that sort of chat through different stages of careers of PhDs or early career research I think that really helps of here's my experience it's okay you're not on your own because I think you often get bogged down in your own research and you're doing something very specific to somebody else so you feel like you're on your own but the same time you are still doing PhD and even the journey might be different the overall sort of difficulties potentially you face are very similar so I think the opportunity to talk about it would be much appreciated. Yeah absolutely that's always so helpful just tearing experiences and I'm wondering if you had Kanika if you had anything that you would like to to get in terms of support from the university as an institution is there anything in particular that you can think of? That's quite difficult I think with especially with COVID the response from the university quite varied and sometimes I feel that a lot of my other PhD friends I don't know about you guys sort of felt that we were a bit left behind in sort of response in terms of the pandemic because if you're historians then your libraries and archives are shut and you're just told here's a COVID statement you can attach your PhD but there's nothing more than that and so I think it feels a little bit more listened to the actual PhD students rather than sort of thinking they know best because I think that's the sort of impression I got for the last sort of well past nine months from not from the department but from the actual college itself I think that would be my sort of thing that there seems to be lacking a little bit of empathy sometimes I'm not sure why but I think I'll be my feedback. I really agree with with Kanika on that one I think that the university is extraordinarily good at posturing support and not very good at actually delivering any kind of support and you know from from my perspective and where I am in my career I would like to see universities, kings and honestly the entire sector actually putting their foot forward to produce jobs rather than just seeing PhDs as a money-making enterprise and turning the universities into businesses that's really the best support that I could think of that they could give us so it would be nice to see them take actual action rather than just sending out really supportive emails about how much they care about us which doesn't really help. Yeah I agree I absolutely agree but then this sort of if we pursue this path further this takes us all the way down to sort of the university as a neoliberal institution and then there's like a huge bunch of critique associated with that but I think you're absolutely right both in saying that you know the pandemic has really brought out these sort of the negative sides of these structures a lot more and a lot more pointedly than there may be before and there's still definitely sort of room for approval in in dealing with this situation. Now before we close off I've got one last question that I would like to ask because something that we're that we're trying to deal with we were one of our areas like what Laura said in the beginning is really building these networks between those identifying as women and those identifying as non-binary across the field's war studies and international politics and I'm wondering because we've already spoken a lot about the importance of sharing experiences and networking and knowing that you're not alone I'm wondering if you could share advice on and how to build these connections and how to make how to make build up those networks early on because I'm thinking that this is something that's interesting for me as as it as an early career scholar but it might also be interesting for some other people here on the call so I'm wondering if you had any advice on building these bridges and building connections. Yeah I'll jump in so again I can only speak sort of from from my experience but I was one of those PhD students who most of my circle of friends was actually outside the department and outside the university and that did not bother me at all so I would rarely come into Kings unless I was coming in to see my supervisor I sort of did my own thing it was very happy doing so and it was actually only when I started being a TA or a GTA in the department but I started meeting other people in the department and realizing oh actually shit there are some really cool people here and I started making friends in the department and I did not realize actually what I had been missing by making connections within my department so it's it's really easy to to sort of miss that out just because you have other friends and other activities so I would encourage people who who sort of feel similarly to me to nonetheless reach out and make friends within the department and it can come back to to help you and to make life better years later just having made those connections and in terms of things that the department can do you know things things again things like we were actually really important but you know feeling feeling again confident and like it's okay to reach out to people is super important you know if you just let's say you read someone's blog post and you thought that was really cool you know pop them an email saying that it's it's both super supportive and it might introduce a new friendship you know like I've been emailing a little bit with Kanika before this I can't really imagine a situation where I would have met you Kanika necessarily outside of this but now I have that relationship and that's something new and exciting and actually quite relevant because we're both naval historians we were both Andrew Lambert's students so so those little those little connections and bridges can end up meaning the world is sort of I don't know what if Kanika sort of thinks similarly but that's that's sort of my take on that. I agree with Anna so I've kind of got friendship between both outside from when I was in MA with the classics people and with during my BA and also of my PhD sort of friendship group and at the moment during pandemic I've got a group chat of about 10 of us was basically just posting a lot of rubbish but quite fun memes and whatnot just keep going and that's what I sort of have and that's quite nice feeling to have as well and definitely the GTA training you do meet a lot of different people and it's not quite the same obviously doing the training online but usually in person you have your cup of tea and coffee and biscuits so you get to talk to them so that's how I sort of got to know people better and this year I'm actually the theme rep for the military and political history so I've been slightly nagging a lot of people going hey can you do this can you do this can you do this so they've been getting a lot of teams notification from me but that's how I sort of got to know people especially of those new students who joined I actually got to meet them all even online and say hi I'm the PhD rep for this theme that you'll belong to I'm going to be doing this and this please come please come and I will get a little bit annoying but that's how I kind of got to meet other people who aren't necessarily belong to my supervisors sort of supervisors I know a few but you know you don't really get to meet them you don't get to meet other academic supervisors and less through an event like this so I think the school's introduction of themes is being quite you know it hasn't been straightforward because of pandemic but I think having that sort of theme ideas and having the sort of cross-bridge between defence studies and war studies have really helped and I got to meet quite a few interesting people from actually defence studies and war studies as well that I've never met so I think they are ways around but how to build network is essentially just going up to everyone takes a little bit of a gut if you're shy but you know just meeting people and I can't wait when we can actually have a pubs back then we can actually go meet people in person in the cafes or pubs or whatever because I think having a few points or coffee always helps actually you know break down the sort of nervousness so yeah absolutely I'm sure we all feel the same way Anna did you want to did you want to add something on that yeah do I have time can I just add one one quick thing so in directly in response to your point about sort of opening up this this group to to women and non-binary people and trans women all this stuff I think one of the things that that took me a while to learn is is how to manage conceptions of my own privacy versus managing how understanding how my identity can actually help other people come into the field with confidence so I used to be very much of the opinion that okay yes I'm gay but that doesn't impact my research it doesn't have an impact on my teaching so you know nobody needs to know this because this is my private life um it became very clear to me very quickly particularly teaching in war studies when you're teaching undergrads but actually being very open about your identity can give the younger students confidence in their own identity so I started being quite open about it and I had actually a considerable number of students come up to me sometimes at the end of the year something just be like you know it made it easier for me to come out um in war studies because I always thought that it was a department that didn't have any gay people in it and actually it turns out you'll be surprised there are quite a few um so through the thinking about your own identity and how you incorporate it into your professional self even if it doesn't go into your research or teaching specifically um can have a huge impact on the people around you in the department that was just sort of the the last thing I wanted to to say on that thank you for that thank you for sharing that I think that was beautifully put and so important to have that visibility so if you're in the position to be comfortable with that in sharing that you know and to be visible for other people so that they can see oh look there's someone just like me so it's possible for me to go into that kind of field I think that's that's really important and that's one of the reasons why we as we work exist because we were we're trying to do exactly that um now before I say my thanks I just want to quickly pitch an event that we're organizing which is sort of the next iteration of what we did today um the women of war studies it's happening on Wednesday 17th of March at 5 30 p.m uk time and we've got three wonderful speakers Aguihast who's here on the call um Kieran Paul and Dr Sawani Rajat they will be speaking about their experiences working in the in the fields of war studies and international politics and their career paths are really similar to what we did today I'll pop the link in the chat box in a second and now before I hand over to Amanda I just wanted to say thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and on Konika for being here today for sharing your experiences with us and all that brilliant advice that was so helpful um I've learned so much and I'm sure uh everyone else felt the same and thank you having said that thank you to the audience for just being here today for giving up your lunch break and for asking all these wonderful questions and lastly thank you to Amanda um and the School of Security Studies and Tatum House for the collaboration and for giving us the space to do this um yeah and now over to you Amanda for your own closing closing words so thank you very much for me well this is such a fantastic event and I love the engagement with the chats and I've enjoyed this through my you know sipping my cup of tea and I feel smarter for this so uh in sense of solidarity and you know is what what was key from here right this is what keeps us going is solidarity links network links that um yeah that we're building together so thank you so much Konika and Anna and um and Laura and Carolina and Sarah as well for being a part of this and arranging this and enabling us in in the school um as well as international affairs um to be a part of this as well too just a quick shout out um Christina with international affairs has popped in the chat the link to the blog series that they're doing based on this seminar series and we will be um politely um strong arming Anna and Konika to participate in this blog series as well which further you know promotes uh the research that early career and women are doing across the school um on war studies the international relations and security studies so very happy with that collaboration um so yeah that was a quick shout out and then also Laura put in the chat the link to the we whip events so the one that of course um Carolina mentioned next Wednesday but yeah we whip is doing some fantastic stuff throughout the year too so yes again echoing what Carolina said thank you so much for coming thank you so much for sharing your experiences um asking questions and engaging and hopefully we will see each other very soon