From Monday July 7th to Thursday July 10th we participated in a writing retreat co-organised with researchers from the Later in Life Intimacies project based at the Ghent University’s Centre for Research on Gender and Culture. We stayed at the beautiful Heerlijckyt Castle in a quiet area surrounded by farm fields and bike trails near Diest, Belgium.
The Rhythms of Love and Later in Life Intimacies projects share similar themes, including ageing, relationality, and embodiment in social science research, and similar contexts. While most of us were working on individual writing projects, we were able to have very fruitful discussions about our projects, thinking from different theoretical perspectives, as well as from different points in the our academic careers. Many of the PhD candidates on the LiLI team are approaching the end of their trajectory, or have just recently finished; their insights were very helpful for Jaz and myself (Avery) as we conclude our first year and start approaching the fieldwork period.
We had writing sessions in the morning between breakfast and lunch, and again in the afternoon before meeting for dinner. During breaks throughout the day and after dinner we took walks through the surrounding fields and hung out with the donkeys who live on the castle grounds.
Rhythms of Love 