PPSA Banff: how to go to a new conference when it is still scary 10 years after getting a PhD

Posted: November 27, 2025 | Author: naomiadiv | Filed under: Uncategorized |Leave a comment

Impostor syndrome gets a lot of attention these days, in the academy and beyond. Sometimes I think it even functions an odd form of credibility, an admission that takes some of the discomfort out of the not-knowing that is a function of probably most jobs.

Lots of ink has been spilled on how impostor syndrome manifests, and especially its gendered and racialized dimensions. I will only add that while this phenomenon exists, I believe it is just one way of describing the isolation of being new at things, especially in the academy.

To wit: since 2020, I have worked in a department (Political Science) that is outside of my trained discipline (Geography). I was hired primarily because of my background in urban research and teaching, so I teach Urban Politics, which is quite interdisciplinary, among other courses. Working in a field outside of my discipline means that my colleagues publish in different journals and go to different conferences than I do; they also (mostly) have the same basic knowledge-background as my students – which I do not. In practical professional terms, this can sometimes look like being at a faculty meeting and realizing everyone is going to be away a particular week at a big disciplinary meeting that isn’t even on my radar. [Cue sinking feeling.]

So while I actually don’t feel like an impostor, sometimes I feel like a perpetual outsider. I think this is an important distinction to make: there are things and methods we know, and some that we don’t, and it can be itchy – especially in a world that prizes the confidence of knowing – to feel outside of what people around you do. This includes the theoretical knowledge, as well as the disciplinary culture, of an academic field.

One remedy for this outsider feeling – rather than to just label myself an impostor and hope no one notices – is to look for opportunities to expand my knowledge about the discipline that surrounds me, and their way of thinking about the social and political world. So in Fall 2024, when my colleague Renan Levine invited me to be on a panel about work-in-learning, at the Prairie Political Science Association (PPSA) conference in Banff, Alberta, I jumped at the chance.

Although I have been to plenty of academic conferences, I had never attended a Political Science conference before. At this conference, I got to go as an expert in my subject area and also as a learner of relevant topics. More important, I got to see how the discipline talks and thinks about itself when it is alone with friends.

Things that were great about this invitation:

1. I got to present on the internship program I have established in Political Science at UTM, which I’m super proud of. A presentation is a great opportunity to reflect on one’s own work, so it was intellectually satisfying.
2. I could offer my expertise in pedagogy, and be in conversation with people from many backgrounds who really care about this style of learning, which is still widely undervalued in the academy at large.
3. I was able attend a Political Science conference, as part of an existing collegial group, without feeling way out of my depth.

This last one is really the most important! We should all be inviting people to opportunities they might not enter on their own: junior colleagues, foreign colleagues, people outside of or new to the discipline. No one loses or diminishes their shine by including others; quite the opposite.

Also: Banff! What a place!

This conference was also such a pleasure because it was small enough to actually get to know people, without that feeling of being lost in the hall in high school. There was a reasonable number of choices for each session. People sat together at meals and asked about one another’s work and ideas. I’ll definitely look for opportunities to go back again.

I was also able to go to this conference on a UTM Teaching Development Travel Grant, which UTM offers to help faculty travel to conferences to present specifically on pedagogy, which is still quite a small part of most academic conferences. As I have stated before, these small pots of money can go a long way in helping people to make connections, and grow their academic and pedagogical practice in really constructive ways.

So, since I went to my first Poli Sci conference, am I now done feeling like an outsider? Absolutely not! But I guess I have stopped feeling like that is the point. In fact, it never was.

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