Collaging the (dis)illusio of being international early career women in physical education and sport sciences/kinesiology

The uncertainties surrounding the neoliberal labor market intersecting with many challenges lead us to try our best in understanding academia, specifically as women early career scholars in physical education and sport sciences/kinesiology. Unpacking academia, framed under the concept of illusio, takes time, but we feel we need to understand it fast to be able to remain in “the game.” Drawing on Bourdieusian, critical, and feminist frameworks, we aim to expand on why we are in academia and what shapes our experiences. In so doing, we hope to create spaces for dialogue and connection since we are not alone navigating these challenges, and further, we aim to contribute to social change. We use the concept of collage as a metaphor and claim (and complaint) to articulate our co-autoethnographic paper and as a research method to summarize reflexive processes for data generation from the singular to the plural.