A collective feminist ethics of care with Talanoa : Embodied Time in the ShiFting spaces of women’s academic work

Institutional structures of Australian universities are increasingly characterised by unsustainable practices of accelerated time and work intensification. This chapter aims to locate and analyse what a collective ‘ethics of care’ might look like as a response to these practices. It does this by narrating micro-stories of the embodied social practices of women-academic workers, drawing on experiences of time spent at an off-site group retreat. The stories within the chapter are carried by Indigenous Fijian talanoa ways of knowing and critical autoethnography. The use of talanoa brings a relationality to ‘self-care’, shifting it away from the individual experience towards a more collective movement. Doing this helps to recapture the pleasure and purpose that characterises ‘timeless time’, thereby positively influencing everyday cultures of practice in higher education.