As a scholarly teaching fellow (Level A) accessing conference funding is increasingly hard, especially in a sector facing an ongoing paucity of research funding. Being awarded the bursary facilitated the attendance greatly. On a shifting 0.8 fraction, albeit ongoing, I was considering foregoing the opportunity. However, the funding coupled with my husband’s desire to go on a driving adventure made it possible and I consider myself truly fortunate for this dual support. The best thing about this bursary however was not the financial help (though in these fraught times that’s not to be sneezed at!) but the warmth and collegiality with which it was offered. The ongoing administrative support from Vicki Frank was simply amazing. My reflections on being a part of this vibrant space took shape slowly as there was so much on offer; I had to think through which of these threads I wanted to pull out and examine.

I had agonised for weeks over the presentation. There was so much I wanted to say drawing on my ongoing research, but I was a little unsure of fitting it within the proposed conference framework. Be the Change seemed at times like a gauntlet thrown down. I was initially apprehensive of my presentation title, in fact someone at the conference asked me what inspired me to use it (“Desiring the Moon and the Stars as well”: Exploring the Educational Desire of Three Women Academics of Colour through Feminist Intersectionality and Endarkened Narrative Inquiry). I have always loved old Hollywood films and in Now Voyager (1942) the legendary actress Bette Davis says, “”Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the Moon. We have the stars.” To me, these lines are infused with compromise and adjustment. Two words, constant companions on my journeys as a South Asian woman and migrant academic. The subversive element within the presentation title helped refresh my engagement with the notions of educational desire and hope as resistance in academia.

I also picked up McClish-Boyd and Bhattacharya’s invitation to scholars of colour to expand their methodology of endarkened narrative inquiry in breadth and depth, tweaking it as I went along. It offers such scope for diverse scholars. My presentation like my ongoing research focused on stories as I believe in the capacity of this timeless oral tradition to bring about evolutionary change across diverse spaces. Being at GEA, I felt that despite the tokenism of DEI practices within Australian institutions, some form of action is better than none and this space demonstrated “how intersectional subjects’ dialoguing in academe is a form of quiet resistance, offering hope for creating new becomings.”

The conference enabled me to listen and walk with stories of others from a multitude of spaces and places, providing alternate portals of thoughts. As a migrant academic juggling intersectional identities on a quotidian basis, Prof. Corrinne Sullivan’s keynote speech shone a hitherto unconsidered light on the concepts of land and belongings. It has set off new trains of thought on how migrants such as I (who have been migranted more than once) build links with the simultaneously ancient and new space and culture that is Australia today. A pivotal moment was the reinforcement of understanding that in the GEA space there are others like me who occupy “in between zones” consequently creating new zones of existence within old borders. My current struggle as a raced, gendered, and aged academic who in doing a second PhD sitting in the no person’s land of being neither early, mid-career nor senior researcher is not a solitary one after all.

This space encourages me to stridently be an intersectional feminist and stress the need for structuring a niche discussion space within Australian universities for those such as I who designate ourselves as the ‘privileged marginalised’.  I contend that such spaces allow for collaboration spaces for academics located at intersectional crossroads and “can help track the multidirectional impacts of institutional diversity and inclusion discourses within Australian universities.”

The strengths this conference lay in its lack of hierarchical practice, the sheer exuberance of the participants and presenters and the sense of unforced camaraderie. The evening socialisations were the high point, with academic mantles cast aside and the fun filled personas of some of the top-ranking presenters emerging, as did their remarkable dancing skills. Endless ideas were floating around, sometimes flitting by so fast, that trying to grasp them was like capturing will-o-the- wisps. I kept little chits of Post It notes which now adorn my study. I can see four papers in the making with two of them as international and one domestic collaboration. Exciting, and as Anne of Green Gables would say full of ‘possibilities’. My only humble request to GEA organisers would be for more such events to be held in Australasia and the Global South.