Shaping Doctoral Experiences: Nurturing the Relational

This book argues that meaningful relational connections are central to effective doctoral journeys. In the neoliberal era, doctoral supervision is too often framed through performance metrics and rigid production timelines. This edited collection demands an urgent reimagining of doctoral relationships—one that reclaims supervision as a dynamic space for scholarly growth, creative inquiry, and research integrity. Centering relationality, this book adopts a perspective of resistance: asserting agency, amplifying voices, and highlighting the vitality of human connection in cultivating a holistic and growth-oriented doctoral journey. Bringing together insights from scholars across the globe, the book explores diverse approaches to supervision and the relational practices that shape doctoral education in profound ways. It fosters a generous and critical dialogue, inviting readers to engage with new pedagogies, ideas, and practices that can nourish the relational fabric of supervision and, in doing so, transform the contemporary doctoral experience.

Damien Lyons is Deputy Chair and Associate Professor in Literacy Education within the Department of Education at Swinburne University of Technology.

Jane Southcott is Professor in the faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia. She is an internationally recognised historian and qualitative researcher. Jane is a music and arts educator with experience in primary, secondary, tertiary and informal educational settings. She has published and performed poetry, researched poetry and poets, and embedded poetry in her teaching and writing.

Kanwarjeet Singh is Research Fellow in the Department of Education at Swinburne University of Technology.