Work-Life Balance?
By Anna Svensson
The white figure is class IV in Linnaeus's 'sexual system' of plant classification, which is based on the number and/or arrangement of stamen in a flower. The gold on the stamen and in a hive's hexagons represents pollen/nectar/honey, but the hexagons are not full. In a general sense this gestures to the decline of pollinating insects and cases of climate change disrupting the relationship of mutual reliance between plants and their pollinators. Classification is necessary in order to identify, understand and take measures to protect species at risk, but it cannot solve the problem. In some cases, classification and the designation of certain species as rare has driven unsustainable collecting exacerbating the situation.
Collecting is also the age-old way in which humans have identified and used the plants upon which their survival depends. It is often both time-consuming and labour-intensive. The apian metaphor for gaining knowledge reaches back at least to ancient Greek and Latin sources, as the seeker gathers 'nectar' from wide-ranging sources to be distilled into honey in the 'cell' of the mind. As a labour-collective, it has also been a common metaphor for an ideal, ordered society.
It is also a personal reflection on my own joys and frustrations with academic labour as a researcher on project funding that has soon run out, and a limited store of expendable energy due to narcolepsy (a chronic deficiency in the brain of the hormone regulating the sleep-wake-cycle). The employment contract is based on a formal 40-hours-per-week (40 hexagons in the hive, as it were) of the individual's labour, but the output is measured in the quality and above all quantity of 'honey' produced at the end of the season. Of the 40, some will be full, some partially filled and some empty - a mix of intellectual labour and rest that varies from person to person. While teaching is measured and recompensed in the number of hexagons in an economy of hours allocated (not necessarily hours applied) - a mix of full, partially filled and empty hours - the labour of teaching is energy-intensive and can use up most of the mental reserves leaving little to apply to research. Also, this does not account for the importance of the collective thinking and collegiate support: my colleagues and I invest time, care, creativity and cognitive juices to each other's work and well-being. It's a jumbled metaphor, but it has helped me understand and manage in the disconnect between formal employment and freelance-like work.
I prepared the background specifically for the quilt earlier this summer. It is dyed with plant material from the house, garden and nearby forest of the house that was my family's base since I was two years old. The dark greys are from rusty florist's chicken wire I found when sorting through boxes and boxes of accumulated memories in preparation for my Mother selling the house. Bringing the personal and the textile (a hobby?) into the academic context of environmental history is essential, I think, but not straightforward. I made a textile cover for my doctoral thesis, and have since continued to play with the idea at the edges of my research.