Vulnerability: An uncomfortable means to a positive place

Abstract

In this chapter, as three women in academia, we share our metaphors of transformation towards an academe environment. Metaphor has provided a powerful tool for capturing, making explicit, and thus transforming our tacit understandings of ourselves as individuals and the continual revisiting and reformation of our professional identities. Our initial metaphors shared with openness and an acceptance of a vulnerable state provided each of us with the self-confidence and ability to transition...our ways of being, thinking and relating in academe. We have shared and analysed new metaphors through images and conversations. These metaphors invite further exploration of our experiences, through which knowledge creation and change is enabled in relationship with each other. Through the process of sharing and analysing our metaphors, we have found that the metaphor images become embodied. Their significance to us, as colleagues, becomes carried forward and is often applied to new personal and professional situations. We have come to believe that accepting the state of vulnerability and working within it enhances the quality of relationships, positive interactions and connections. Through doing so, we have a far greater understanding of our roles and responsibilities within a shared teaching and learning context-academe. Accepting, and working with our vulnerabilities, supports relationships absent of fear, ridicule and harassment, and results in a sense of belonging and greater creative expression, exploration and imagination.