Description
The unprecedented onslaught of Covid-19 has led to a worldwide disruption of what was once considered normal in academia. Scholars across disciplines, including IR, grappled with the uncertainty that negatively affected their mental health. The unexpected rupturing of academic time and space has also led to a much-needed self-introspection and debate around inequalities and marginalisation that have often plagued academia.
The proposed study argues that mental health has always been an intrinsic part of the research trajectory, yet it has been grossly ignored in IR. The theoretical ivory towers of IR are opposed to any self-reflexive discourse, yet failed spectacularly when pandemic laid bare its futility in addressing these critical issues. Using ‘autoethnography’, the proposed study seeks to address issue of mental health through ‘High Impact PhD Memes’— from a Facebook page wherein scholars across disciplines share self-reflexive memes of their PhD research and struggles in pursuit of academic excellence. The study draws inspiration from insightful work of Katarina Kušić and Jakub Záhora on ‘failure of fieldwork’ in arguing that these academic themed memes offer creative insight as to how ‘self’, while entangling with ‘memetic satire’ seeks emancipation by bringing forth the issue of mental health in research amid pandemic.
